I think that there are bad therapists, who can make people worse or damage them through the course of so-called therapy.

I think that there are good therapists, who are a bad fit for people, who can make people worse.

I think that there are clients who play games in therapy and with their therapists, are not open to change, and refuse to be honest about their lives and their feelings, who make themselves worse during the course of therapy.

I think that there are clients who become worse in therapy because they are being honest about their lives and their feelings, who *feel* worse in the beginning because of the emotions/experiences/past that are made real by being articulated in therapy. This has happened to me many times, I now take it as part of therapy itself. Because therapy isn't linear (at least for me), feeling worse seems to just be the road towards feeling better. Over time, these feeling worse times became less frequent and the intensity of the negative feelings unleashed becomes reduced.

So, maybe your question should be whether therapy ever does NOT make us worse?

Usually only time will tell whether therapy is ultimately useful. The research suggests that therapy is, on average, healing to people. On the other hand, within that statistic are plenty of people who get worse.

Anne