I understand the theory, that some of you referenced, on how when maladaptive defenses are broken anxiety and depression set in. And it's a therapists job to help a patient develop more mature/healthy defenses and address the underlying conflicts that the primitive defenses once provided.

In the meantime, patients can undergo months or years of being completely defenseless and/or undergoing regressions that negatively impact their relationships/job/career aspirations.

I wonder how that is justified. How do you know your T is capable of putting you back together? How does the profession ensure that the T's they "produce" are capable of doing so? Who are T's accountable to?

I find the way that therapy is conducted, with one person holding a lot of power(just by their title/license and their position of authority)over another person(who is often very vulnerable)who is putting their trust and their life into another person's hands very troubling. No one is watching. The patient is labeled "crazy" therefore rendering them unreliable.

Some of you mentioned "as long as you have a good T". What does that even mean? That as long as they are ethical and have proper boundaries? Is that enough? How does one assess a T's competence?

Therapists are human and therefore limited. They are impacted just as much by their patients which influence the way they treat their patient and the level of care they provide? Many of them, after tearing apart their patients defenses, go home, back to their lives, while their patients must fend with the residual wounds they they opened up. And then they are not even allowed to contact their therapists in between their sessions when they are struggling.

How is that okay?