Based on your descriptions of your experience, it seems to me that not only you felt rejected by your last T but she really rejected you by saying that she cannot handle your stuff.

I'm actually curious what exactly happened with this last T? What did you do that made her feel that she cannot handle you anymore? Have you written about it in more detailed way somewhere in this forum?

As far as devising methods for preventing such things, I guess you would not be surprised that I am sceptical. This is not something you can teach in classes and too many factors are very subjective. Everyone is in their journey to self-awareness precisely where they are and this applies to T's and clients both.

My guess is that for the majority of patients, not much self-awareness is necessary because these people just don't have the problems that would evoke major counter-transference issues. It would be stupid to ban such T-s because they serve the majority of patient population perfectly well.

Then there are cases that are very difficult and I suspect that you are on the more difficult end of that difficult spectrum. And so am I. And similar to you, I did not know that and so did not my T when we started. And how could either of us know?

My T has told me that I am her most difficult patient and I believe him. In that sense I am his training case, through my case he is learning stuff that he did not know before and it has not been easy for him. He recently admitted that ca two years ago there was a long period when it was extremely difficult for him to be with me because he felt I was constantly attacking him, belittling him, taunted him. He survived it but someone else might not have survived. I don't think it is a matter of training and I don't think you can teach anyone to survive and tolerate such things if the person is not in that level in his own self-development. At the same time, you can't describe and define such level of self-development and self-awareness. In short, I think the problem is too ill-defined to any kind of formalization. It's a messy stuff and if you're lucky (as I have been) then it can bring along a lot of good and when you're not so lucky (as you seem to have been) then there can be lots of obstacles in the way. But that's how life is in general and in that sense it's ok.