I'm re-reading a good book about therapy that sunrise once told us about: In Session, by Deborah Lott. It's a great book and the research was done mostly via anonymous survey, allowing the responder complete privacy which allowed for some stunning honesty. Really good book and Thank You again to sunrise!

There is a certain level of mysteriousness about why the psychotherapy process works. In my own therapy, I cannot always identify why I feel the ability to make changes in my life or why a heavy ball and chain attached to something that I've dragged around for years is gone and has been and I didn't even realize when it happened, or notice until 'just now'. Things like that, so interesting. Sometimes I feel frustrated about the mysteriousness of how it works, but I'm grateful for it and pleasantly amazed just as often. Other times I 'see' it clearly, only after putting the pieces together, and that's a fun discovery too.

It is usually when I'm frustrated about something, or I am wanting something I can't have, or wishing for something that can't be... frustrated, disappointed or something along those lines... that I might wonder. But I suspect for me it is a way of devaluing (in place of allowing the anger, disappointment, etc) or a way of pushing away what feels frightening (intimacy, vulnerability, etc.)

So maybe it is not whether psychotherapy is a bunch of bunk, but why that thought is emerging and what that's about.
Thanks to your post, I can ask myself that next time and get more in touch with what's going on.
Thanks!