Psychotherapy is just as inherently flawed as is humanity, quite simply. Which is plenty, as it exists where it only can in a wonky and sick modern society. There is always a vast amount of room for error, because as Alan Watts taught us, there are exponentially more ways for things to go wrong than there are ways for things to go right, hence all the crap we deal with on a daily basis. The world of psychotherapy is hardly exempt from this, and it takes far more than institutionally developed standards to make occur the magic of positive and progressive human interaction and healing in the face of sustained psychological trauma.

One relies on so many variables delivered by providers: their competence, their attention, their logic, their cultural influences... the chances of getting good and helpful psychotherapy are chancy at best. A similar amount of screening probably ought to go into selecting a psychotherapist as is believed to be necessary for selecting a spouse or companion, but the general rhetoric doesn't suggest this, and as a result many vulnerable people end up hurt by therapy experiences that happen to be ineffectual for their needs.

Why I have stayed with therapists beyond the point at which I believed there were good possibilities at hand: I hoped I was wrong. I thought they might know something I didn't (and I couldn't know if this was true because of the cagey way they avoided discussion of what secrets they may or may not have about their diagnosis, prognosis, or treatment plans for me). I wasn't confident I could find anyone better based on what I'd seen to date in the industry.

Mainly though, it's the cognitive dissonance. It is so very hard to accept that a person who is charged with helping you, whom you are paying to help you, whose ability to help you is something that you have spent considerable time, effort, and heart on already, can't or won't. It can be absolutely monumental heartbreak, and if one already arrived at the therapist's door in a state of heartbreak, of breakdown, dealing with acceptance instead of dissonance can represent a shot at a breakdown the likes of which one has only limited chances of overcoming. This I know.