What do therapists etc. mean by a "danger to myself"?

They are saying they are worried that since with therapy, you will feel MUCH worse before you feel better, that you might kill yourself or self harm again.

 

They think you might cause yourself serious physical harm, or else kill yourself, and want to take precautions to make this less likely.

 

What? I've never heard of that. It is certainly *not* true that therapy will make you worse before you feel better, at least not as a general rule. That's absolutely *never* been the case for me, and I've been to more therapists then I can count.

It's true that therapy is often very hard and emotionally draining, especially at first. You'll probably be speaking about things that you've never told a single person before, after all.

Normally when my therapists get concerned about me being a "danger to myself", it's *because* I self-harm, and I've either started doing it again or doing it a different way and they're concerned it could get physically unsafe.

 

They mean they think you may try to hurt/kill yourself.

 

I (somewhat) respectfully disagree with you here, while also agreeing . My therapist, back when I was dealing with feelings of my orientation, explicitly told me that he thought I was doing great work, but things would just become more confusing and unclear before things got better - I know exactly what he meant now even though it made no sense at the time, and it was true.

However, if it made me MUCH worse I of course would have stopped going, but I'm seeing him to this day

 

I'd imagine that if the person is depressed enough, they may not have the patience to wait for things to get better and would self-harm instead, hence the "getting worse before getting better" being a risk factor for increased self-harm or a relapse in self-harming behaviors.

But that's just my intuition, I could be wrong.

OP, everyone above pretty much answered your question. They just want to make sure you don't harm yourself while in treatment. A client who harms themselves or (God-forbids) commits suicide is a huge liability in both legal and emotional terms for a mental health care professional, so they want to do all they can to prevent that from happening.

 

I am going to have to agree here. It IS a generalization to say ALL clients will get worse before getting better but it is not at all unheard of and sometimes rather common. I've seen my clients go through hell and back and sadly revisit painful moments before they improve. Rainbow is quite correct that things often get even more twisted and rough before improvements are made. Often times this is because people will find themselves truly facing their demons when before they were only facing them superficially. Catharsis while powerful as hell can be painful as hell. This is why in PTSD and especially rape trauma syndrome, we rarely ever ask to reexperience and when we do we have months and months of preperation and symptom treatment before we even think about talking about the event

Now, OP

It's been stated many times but here is a little insight from therapy and crisis therapy

There are generally 4 things to consider when we determine if someone is a danger to themelves or others

They usually need one or more of the following

expressed danger to themselves - through suicidal ideation, attempt or self harm behavior
expressed danger to others - there must be a plan and a target to be considered very serious
expressed psychosis - meaning they are decompensated to the point that there is severe delusion of hallucination
lack of self care - this is a tough one to make stick. The client has to have decompensated so much that they cannot offer themselves basic care skills like eating or sleeping or grooming

in your case if you have had a history of self harm or are currently harming, that is what they are probably taking into consideration. The law clearly states that when one of those factors is expressed that a therapist or psychologist or social worker must take appropriate action.

I wouldn't worry too much. Take therapy and healing one day at a time

If you have any further questions I am always happy to answer