I think I understand the concepts and premises behind therapy pretty well and that is not the issue for me (or was in the fact that therapy did little to me). It is more that, IMO, there are often large gaps between the idea(l)/premise and the reality of it. I like a lot of psychological theories and find a lot of truth in them, but I also think that the reality of psychotherapy is extremely limited compared with it's premises. And I am not saying it's necessarily because it is practiced in unethical ways (although that happens quite often, too), more because it is simply very limited and artificial, and so its conclusions can also become distorted. Either that, or the T won't offer much because they know all too well that it is impossible to accurately perceive and advise a person's complex emotional challenges from the point of view of seeing them once (or even several times) for an hour of conversation in the same room - settings that have little to no relevance to the person's life and where our difficulties occur. I do believe that many Ts really mean well and try to be helpful, but the whole thing inevitably runs into the limitations of the construct. With some clients/T more than others.