Wow. That MD sounds like a real treasure Yeah, some people need to be needed. I've met people who go over and above the call of duty, jump at any opportunity to 'save' someone else in a move that really is about their own narcissism. Can't say I cared much for them, and I can't see them getting very far as therapists. Sounds like a recipe for burnout. But, as I said, I've actually only ever met the one therapist, and he'd be a terrible guru. Way too much work.

Yeah, I see your point, and I think it is pretty insulting to assume the client is somehow inherently less capable of insight than the therapist. That makes it sound like the client could never learn to be insightful--that the client wouldn't have insight even without the stress of a difficult life situation--because they're somehow constitutionally incapable of it and that fundamental incapability is what's causing the suffering in the first place.

That, to me, is quite a different animal than the idea that stress, trauma, and mental illness can make it more difficult to have insight or be objective in the way one sees oneself.

This latter point has been more or less explicitly stated in my own therapy ("I think [the trauma] had an effect on the way you see yourself") and implicitly implied at other times ("And how much of what you're feeling right now could be caused by your discontinuation of the medication?") but pointing out the occasional blind spot is different than saying you, the client, are blind and will never see so I, the therapist, will have to be your guide dog for the rest of forever.