For me, I believe my T shows me who he is because he knows I would not trust him otherwise. Also, for me it may be due to the CSA stuff. It really was hard with my college T (a counsellor) because he did not have CSA past - thankfully many do not! But he could not phathom what anguish I was in. Sure, he helped me a great deal - and he did practice the blank slate approach. But with my current T , I was able to establish real trust in him in a very short time - which was critical because I waited too long to get to a T. By the time I met him, I was already three months into SU mode and very high crisis state. And he knew if he sent me to a hospital it was going to be the end for me period. The agony I was in by the time I got to T needed a flat out miracle. Much to T's credit - he knew exactly how to give me what I needed right away through honest empathy and true compassion.

So I kinda think that Ts must consider each person as an individual case and then work from that point of view. IDK.