Golem

If that was how they presented it, I'd be much less alarmed. But their website says "TPT has proven effective for a wide range of people, from seasoned war veterans and survivors of accidents, assault, abuse and neglect - to individuals, couples and families searching for a new way to handle the ever-increasing stress of day-to-day life and problematic situations." Now let's look at that paper. I'm in the second paragraph and I'm already wondering how the heck this passed peer review. So I look up at its publication information. This paper was never peer reviewed, because it wasn't published in a scientific journal at all! It was published in a festschrift for Philip Zimbardo, the guy who came up with the idea behind TPT. So, back to paragraph 2, where we see correlation casually transformed into causation in the context of interpreting neurological pathways! ("Neurological research has shown that when recalling past events, the same regions in the brain are activated as when thinking about this future. This provides strong evidence that one's future is highly influenced by his or her past" -- my emphasis.) Unfortunately, the PDF cuts off before we get to the part where they describe the "4 year pilot study which evaluated the effectiveness of TPT by following 29 veterans clinically diagnosed with chronic and severe PTSD" and which purportedly demonstrated "longlasting decreases of selfreported depression, anxiety, and PTSD symptoms," so we can't assess their experimental methodology. After that crazy correlation/causation issue, and given all the other red flags, I think I'm happy to assume the methodology is flawed and biased unless I see otherwise. To paraphrase the Wikipedia article on Deepak Chopra, he is a super-rich man who made his fortune off the alternative health movement by charismaticly describing snake-oil cancer cures and fountains of youth. I mean, that's not wrong, but if you're paying for a psychotherapist to say it to you, you might be paying too much money for what you're getting. Sorry to be so negative, I just hate seeing bad, for-profit pseudoscience get passed off as the real thing. It's especially frustrating in a field like psychology where people are skeptical enough about the real thing, without getting confused by this sort of made-up pop psychology.

Not an expert on Time Perspective Therapy, but FWIW, looking at the description on its own site, it looks far more similar to CBT than to evocative therapies. Given Gman's experience with CBT, this is not the direction I would look in next. (Also -- again, not an expert on TPT -- but looking at the website, I am... really not convinced there's any substance here. The message I get from several of their pages boils down to "you just need to be more positive and not let yourself get stuck in negative thinking" plus "your therapist isn't positive enough!" They have a quote in support of TPT from Dr. Phil, a partnership with happify.com, a TED Talk, a book, and a trademarked and commercially sold testing instrument (aka, big bucks) that they launched within several years of the conception of the therapy, when it still hadn't been implemented on a large scale. Shockingly fast. I could be way off here, but something smells rotten in Vienna.)

Also, this may be an obvious question (if so, my bad) -- but did you tell her these things? That it felt like a waste of time and that she was saying all the same things as your past therapists? Because at that point, any therapist worth their socks is going to take a step back and say, 'OK, let's talk about that. What would you like to get out of this time, and what are the things that we've all said that you especially didn't find helpful? Maybe my style is simply a bad fit, and I can suggest another approach that you might like better. Or maybe we are getting stuck on decoy issues, instead of addressing the stuff that really matters to you.'

Very true! But the flip side, @Gar1eth -- and I'm working purely off what I see of your personality here -- is that 3-4 sessions could also be giving too much time to a therapist who's not a good fit, and burning you out. Maybe not; but it can be very easy to feel like "well, this could be better than the last one, I should see how it goes"... In my experience, if someone is feeling burnt out on therapy and therapists, that's actually when it's most important for them to shop around and find someone they feel connected to after one meeting. One meeting obviously isn't enough time to really let a therapeutic relationship unfold itself -- but it is enough to have an instinctual response to their style. Do you wish they said more (or said less)? Were they too tentative (or too direct)? Do their own idiosyncratic facial expressions put you at ease, or do they make you feel awkward? Do the tchotchkes they choose for their office give you good vibes, or do they make you wonder WTF? While you could absolutely have a great connection, eventually, with someone who didn't toot your horns on day one -- you don't have to wait and find out, especially if you are not feeling very patient with the concept of therapy itself.

Lol indeed.

I'm confused, marylander, because you quoted my second sentence too, and that is exactly the thing I was discussing the drawbacks to in that sentence.

Well, yes and no. The train ain't free, so prices that are pretty reasonable in NY start to feel less exciting if you're going down just for that. There are cheap buses, but good luck having a relaxing day if you're taking one of those (let alone one each way)

Unless I'm crazy, the thread used to say August 25, so I think cahill was basically just saying we should go by what RM says.

The link says to July 23. Can you confirm that he's actually around till August 25?

https://rentmen.eu/RexStarXXL Very new ad, so this may not be a fruitful request, but... anyone with info to share?

Yeah, hotels are definitely ridiculous here. Rent is insane here, too, which further reduces the proportion of residents that have spending money. It does seem like every young person is doing the "settle down and get married" thing. I think the cause is actually how close we are to NYC. Boston has a lot going on but it will never be as frenetically fast-paced and in-your-face as NYC. So I would believe that live-for-the-moment types are more likely than others to hightail it over to New York, rather than sticking around here. And that means the population here is going to have fewer of them. Of course, I could just be talking out of my ass. I think we get more visits from top quality gents than most medium-sized U.S. cities do. It's just hard to feel like you have a decent selection when that... bulging menagerie is just a few hours down the road.

Well, we do put the cents symbol after the number in the U$A, and technically mike just wrote "the currency symbol"

I'll second the sentiment. Looks terrific.

They left under a cloud, after this thread (in which they stated they were going to cease development of the site now known as friendboy but, like everything else they stated, what actually happened speaks for itself). (Besides posting ads for providers without their knowledge or consent, they were also criticized for a scheme in which staff members potentially received free sessions in exchange for special verification/review on the website.)

Bumping re Billy Dubris. Still no takers?

Thanks, g, for setting me off on that carefully worded daydream.

Just chatted with him a bit; sounds like kissing is his primary limit. Oh well. FWIW, based on identical travel dates and the name "Logan" appearing on the Daddy's Reviews page, looks like he can be found at both of these accounts: https://rentmen.eu/LoganStud https://rentmen.eu/Therightmassage https://daddysreviews.com/search/Active/logan/logan_ftlauderdale

I think this is the key point here. And that's part of the reason that some of us, like @ITakeItDeep above, have a bad feeling when we listen to Max be charming as he apologizes. An apology can undo hurt feelings, but it can't undo a violation of privacy on the internet. So, when Max says whoops and tells his side of the story while still trying to be cool with everyone here and move on with life... there's a bit of a disjunction. I think this is something where providers and clients are in this together. If anything, providers have their personal information shared publicly in an unwanted and problematic way more often than clients do. IMHO, this thread should be a reminder to all of us that this line cannot be crossed. A charm offensive runs counter to that purpose.

After that lovely apology... I was surprised to see that there is still a name and phone number listed on twitter (here).

The juiciest of the many existing threads on him: https://www.companyofmen.org/threads/lucasstrom-411.122668/#post-1258069 I too would love to have the existing consensus proven wrong in this case, but it does seem to have come from many quarters...

It looks like they still have an old version of the site with male snugglers listed -- if you google it, some links go to that one. (It uses html files for each page instead of a different directory, in the URLs.) The explanation for the loss may be here, in the old application: "5-15 hours per week with completely flexible hours based on when you are free to work for female snugglers. Male snugglers rarely ever get any hours."

One angle that hasn't been mentioned: if it is clear that this is a problem 10, 15, or 30 minutes into a session, it is incumbent on the client to speak up at that point if it is taking away the value of the session for them. Up until then, it is basically a question of the provider matching their description. But once the client sees it and goes along with it anyway, without speaking up, the ball has been in their court. Paying less at that point would mean changing the agreement without informing the other party or getting their agreement -- which is obviously not fair.

Yes, we should: I am just going to repeat my request. Please stop turning threads with ACTUAL, USEFUL INFORMATION -- that should be accessible via the search function -- into bar brawls.

Definitely two of the same pics as Luke Cotter had.

bostonman, he did actually make a post about Cody Dean, in which he stated he was wrong about some of his earlier assumptions to correct them for the record. An excellent and helpful thing to do. He then immediately made two additional posts in which he insulted other posters. @former lurker , the last thread you did this in got hidden away from public view. Please stop turning threads with ACTUAL, USEFUL INFORMATION -- that should be accessible via the search function -- into bar brawls. It hides the information and is a public disservice. This needs to not be a pattern.