This might not be a popular opinion, but as someone who once thought therapy sucked the proverbial balls, I do have to say that the client has a HUGE role in how good therapy is or isn't, especially at the point of therapist selection.

There are plenty of ineffective, or outright damaging therapists out there. Which is sad. And unacceptable. But what's more sad and, in my view, more unacceptable, is that people keep seeing them, keep paying them, and even when they know that they are not only not getting their money's worth from sessions, but are actively being harmed, they keep going.

If you had a favorite restaurant which gave you food poisoning every time you went, would you keep going just because it's your favorite? I hope not. I get that attachment is a thing, but at some point you have to be real with yourself and think, hmmm, if I am this attached to a trainwreck of a therapist, imagine how things could be with a good therapist.

I railed against therapy for ages, but then I realized that ultimately, it was my job to make sure I had a therapist I liked and who helped me. And now I do. My therapist is stable, consistent and insightful and I'm happy to be working with him. To be fair, I wasn't overly attached to my previous therapist, but that's because I personally don't find incompetence something particularly admirable, which made it easy to leave.

I'm not saying therapists don't do ****ed up things, or that they aren't often to blame. But the old adage, fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me holds true here. You have to stand up for yourself and you have to find someone who can give you what you need.

Countless threads on this board, I would even say, the majority of threads on this board, are from people seeing therapists they are clearly not suited to, and are sometimes even being hurt by, and yet, keep seeing.

If therapy isn't working, it's probably because you are with the wrong therapist. If you choose to keep throwing money, time, and energy into that pit, then that's on you. But it doesn't necessarily reflect how effective therapy can be when done with a decent practitioner.

In fact, it's actually really sad to see how much time, how much money, and how much energy is being put into ******, destructive therapy, when it could be going into something actually constructive.

But at the end of the day, that's a choice everyone has to make for themselves.