The other thing that you have done that has helped you a great deal is "read" too shakesphere. What reading does is it actually helps a person develop/learn empathy.
When we read poetry or anything where a person is sharing not only an experience, but also how that experience emotionally affected that person, we actually get to tap onto not just the actions that take place but the "emotional" in whatever that "intelligent" individual is experiencing at the time as well. So, without really realizing it a person begins to also learn more about emotions and even what they mean, what to do with them and even that it is "ok" to feel them too. So your looking back on this experience and feeling guilty and confused about it is really expressing how much you have grown and gained since that period in your life.

When someone studies to become a psychologist, often a person does that because they themselves are challenged in some way and want to learn more. So, they learn about all these different labels and then they learn about different therapies that have been created to address these labels. However, often these individuals are not "fixed/healed" themselves, they just know more. Then these individuals embark on taking in patients and trying to use these therapies to label the patient and do their best to follow a therapy that is designed to address the patient's problems.

It is well known that therapists experience their own challenges, either they heal while they are helping others heal, or they break down and seek therapy themselves. A good therapist needs to actually "feel with" the patient, and that is very hard and can get to a level where the therapist can actually get overwhelmed. Yet there are therapists that are highly educated, gain a lot of knowledge about different labels, yet they don't really gain "emotional intelligence". Often they have a sense of "empowerment", but that is about "them" and not the patient.

When that therapist responded to you the way she did, that is only because she had learned that trauma patients that were abused often self blame and struggle with self esteem and are often emotionally challenged. So, the idea is to respond with "you are a good person", however the major mistake with that is that it doesn't really "acknowledge" the "emotional pain" taking place. That is what you "wanted" her to share with you when you trusted her with telling her. As I explained before, that is why you lashed out in whatever way you did, you needed her to "feel it".

If "sharing emotions" doesn't happen then, yes, it is "phoney". That is what gets "me" angry too.

I talked about what is "stage worthy", what makes a performer a good performer. The greats all understood how to express emotions where their audience connected and felt included. That is also what makes a great novel or poem or song or any of the "arts".
It is one thing to know this intellectually, but another to understand it with emotional intelligence too.

We all loved and appreciated Robin Williams, but what was his body of work about? He would pick certain roles because he appreciated these roles in a certain way, he did capture every charactor "emotionally", and that is what made him a "great".

A "good" therapist doesn't just have knowledge about the different labels, a good therapist also understands the "emotional challenges" with these different labels too. So much so that a therapist is capable of getting right down there with a patient and "feeling it with the patient too" which is exactly what that young man in you wanted when he finally "shared" his deep challenge.

When a person struggles with PTSD, especially complex PTSD, the "emotional challenge" is not just "intense", it is "extreme at times". What I have noticed is that most of these individuals that I have met tend to have others around them that don't provide them with "any" emotional support.

Society tends to frown on "expressing emotion" and while some attempt is being made to change that, most people are taught to "control or hide their emotions" and that if you can't then you are "weak and unworthy".

My business is such that I work with all different kinds of families in all different classes of people. It's amazing how little so many parents actually know, and yet they are in charge of a human being that depends on them while that human being develops it's private universe called the "human brain". It is not unusual for a child to express a lot of fear and yet the parent tries to push them anyway and that is because it's what the "parent" wants. I am not the parent, however, I find myself often teaching the parent how to address this challenge correctly.

It was not so long ago that I happened to watch a video that was posted here, can't remember what thread or the name of the woman that was "on to something" and sharing it. However, her epiphany and entire presentation was on "sympathy verses empathy". It was all about how people don't know "how" to emotionally connect with others and at best will express sympathy. When you shared how that therapist disappointed you, it made me think of this woman with this big "epiphany" and it really isn't rocket science, it just isn't. Yet, that is all you got from that therapist, sympathy and you sure needed and deserved more than that. Well, can't blame you for being angry.

The point is, not in how you reacted then, but what you can learn from that "now"? Remembering these things are not to feel bad or ashamed really, it's just an opportunity to see it differently, understand it better, and with that you gain in your "emotional intelligence level".

Well, hopefully you gain something from my input. I try to get down in that pit with others and be supportive, but I have some significant hurts myself and sometimes that hurt surfaces and intrudes on my ability to do that in the way I had intended.