I've struggled with this as well. I'm not currently in or seeking a professional therapy relationship, but I find I end up tailoring my posts to address what seem like inevitable and sometimes derailing questions about being in therapy. It almost feels like a taboo here, not being in therapy, and this has surprised me, as I had presumed the objective to be wellness advocacy by whatever variety of means may work for a person, and not necessarily with practitioner involvement. There does seem to be a disturbingly strong bias though.

Disturbingly, because it seems to me to have the potential to be quite disempowering, suggesting with overt frequency how people can be better helped by professional therapy than by alternate means, such as by themselves (if indeed that can be considered "alternate"..!) or with the help of other elements of community within the sum total balance and scope of their lives.

It's the same for me, and I think that many more people than are given credit, including those with varieties of MI, are perfectly capable of being their own best health advocates (one scientific example is that there has been research which points out that depressed persons are able to appraise and self-rate with more accuracy than non-depressed persons). The few times I have relinquished that management in some way to a practitioner I have been hurt by the results, so I am particularly wary of the ease with which a strong dependency on one's practitioner can develop (and in my experience, is often encouraged by practitioners, both in direct and in covert ways), and the danger it can represent.

It's more empowering for me, to be my own best health advocate, regardless of a practitioner's involvement. For me it tends to be very hard work having a therapist, and I don't mean the work of getting brain-shrinked. I mean the work of being "on" all the time with critical thinking, and making sure that the actions of a practitioner, especially those actions they prefer to cloak somewhat, actually have an intent (and potential) towards bettering my wellness, and are not more closely aligned with a practitioner's desire (in some cases but likely more often than anyone would care to think) to make me into a better patient (i.e., more docile, long term attendance, consistent income, etc.).

Which is just reality, and truly nothing against the industry at large, in spite of having amassed a particularly unfortunate array of personal experience with it. Practitioners are people too, just as imperfect and faulty as the rest of us. I do wish it was an industry better at policing itself though, as the collateral damage of mistakes is soylent green (it is we), and I don't think persistent advocacy of depending upon the professional therapy industry can be helpful in fostering betterment of practices.

Disclaimer/warning: the opinions expressed here may not be yours. xx