I don't like my ex-T either, I guess it is obvious from my many posts about him across the forum As for how he has managed a practice for >30 years in a city where therapists of all kinds are very abundant, I cannot easily discern but what I imagine is that the people who accept, tolerate, or even appreciate him are people with similar backgrounds and issues to his, at least some, but also those that are willing to see him as an authority figure as he badly needs that. I image many of them are very emotionally traumatized and damaged - that much is actually clear from the cases he likes to discuss online. I even imagine him being helpful and the experience insightful for some of those, or at least I hope. The most interesting lesson I've learned from my experience with him, around the time when I was also very ***ed up and saw him for a while (a bit off and on), is a first hand experience how traumatic, unhealthy bonds and repetition compulsion are formed and then can become very persistent and emotionally blind. This is what we most typically associate with childhood, and of course my ex-T also tried to do that with me, but it never made sense, at least not in that simple, classic textbook form. For me it started way into adulthood, in my early 30's, alongside a substance addiction issue, both the substance and relationship problems ran through ~my 30's, and that T was the last bit of it and also the clearest. For me there are no roots to be found in earlier life, these two things just developed and co-existed with fluctuating severity in parallel over an ~8 year period of time in my adulthood, and definitely the substance addiction was the primary culprit. I was not prone to any of that when younger. Once I resolved that stably, my mind and default values became crystal clear again and even more with these lessons and no drive whatsoever to find similar people; what remains now is a desire to share the stories when I can do that safely, really as lessons. I believe I speak easily about these things as they did not happen during a very young, vulnerable, helpless period but in a phase of adulthood, prior to which my individual personality, motivations and values were already firmly established. I think this is also why the experience with the T (and other manipulative and unfair people) did not really traumatize me beyond some temporary annoyance, but it cemented some of my values, which I consider as useful outcome.

Based on your last post, mona, it sounds like you do find worthwhile and beneficial things in this therapy. I guess what confuses people here on the forum is that you tend to start posts about this T that highlight something very negative and then we dissect that. Of course, this is the nature and function of this forum, we tend to discuss troublesome experiences more. If the sum of the whole thing is beneficial as you just said, I guess it's more part of a rocky growth process than a destructive, mostly abusive experience then?