Have a few thoughts:

- I am male also. After damaging therapy one therapist cautioned me that trying to initiate contact with the prior therapist could cross over into "stalking" behavior. A couple people on this forum insinuated the same. This used to bother me. Now I laugh, because I can deconstruct these pathetic manipulations. I was trying to stand up for myself, which was the only therapeutic part of the whole mess. This is not tolerated. Mustn't ask too many questions or complain too insistently about harm. Compliance is required.

- The defensiveness and victim blaming is a reflexive response to anything that threatens to expose the sketchy paradigm. Try to poke holes in it, you will be attacked.

- I've found much of the experience of psychotherapy to be implicitly pathologizing and stigmatizing. Nothing explicit need be said. It's transmitted in attitudes, demeanor, language, assumptions. And in the contrived hierarchy that is imposed on "patients" and "clients".

- In one case therapy was profoundly disempowering and damaging. For sure early life attachment stress or trauma was involved, but also other factors. I paid to have a toxic and subtly abusive relationship. The responses from follow up therapists were mostly deceitful and dishonest.

- "I underlined the last part because that has been my experience. It's ridiculous that a profession that's supposed to be about healing, recovery, and safety harms so many people and the lack of self reflection and accountability is unbelievable." Yes, for sure. I consider it a very dirty business.