Thanks for sharing this! The full paper is really interesting, and seems to me to put the blame for treatment failures squarely where it belongs--on therapists' lack of skill/poor decisions in dealing with certain clients.

I identify strongly with how the clients are described in the paper, and have had several bad therapy experiences that in retrospect seem to fit into that mold, where because I was good with words and seemed generally introspective (albeit in a somewhat intellectualizing way) the therapist thought things were going well at the beginning, only to later get bogged down and stuck in fruitless repetitive conflict because the therapist wasn't able to productively draw out and/or engage with deeper emotional material. They also often blamed me for being distant or resistant when their interpretations fell flat. In hindsight I was often (mostly unconsciously) distracting the therapist with superficial content I knew they'd find interesting that wasn't really relevant to my core issues, and their failure to recognize that maneuver set things down an unproductive path.

Fortunately my current therapy is a stark contrast to those experiences--my current therapist consistently notices and draws upon the emotional undercurrents in whatever content I bring to the table, doesn’t blame me for things that are his responsibility, doesn’t get distracted by things he finds superficially intriguing, and recognizes that therapy is a long process and that openness and vulnerability are hard work.