Whoa. That's really bad. In general I agree about not becoming too enmeshed and letting people make their own mistakes and of course in the end your friend has to make their own decisions.


But the therapeutic relationship can be mysterious and powerful and bizarre even when everything is appropriate and above-board. It can be hard to know the difference between appropriate-bizarre and totally-effed-bizarre. Unlike other types of relationships (eg romantic, familial) there's not a ton about appropriate vs. abusive psychotherapy relationships in popular media. Plus many people feel that being in therapy is something they don't wish to advertise which makes it hard to get any perspective on what goes on there.


Knowing that you know something about therapy, your friend might be asking you for a reality check. Like, "Hey WB does this seem normal to you or what?" I think it's okay to be that reality check. If you think about it, that is a huge part of the function of this forum.


I don't know if I'd go to "I told you so," though the temptation would be hard to resist, I'd say something like "Wow, that sounds extremely unprofessional. You wouldn't give such a red-flaggy cable guy access to your house, why would you give this person access to your mind/heart/emotions? The risk of being hurt is real." And thereafter with every horror story be like "you know what I think, what else can I say?"