I failed therapy or therapy failed me. Whose “fault” it is/was – to the extent that my faults were to blame, I was in therapy to try to identify and correct or accept my faults. To the extent that therapy was to blame – nobody much is looking much to identify the faults and correct them or accept them and inform potential clients.

There are some exceptions. The quote


From the article

Interview With Michael J. Lambert About "Prevention of Treatment Failure"

has a explanation for therapy failure that seems relevant in my case, I think.

I did feel rejected by my last T, and some others before her. And to the extent, as I have learned since the therapy ended, that I had unprocessed experiences of feeling rejected from early in my life, that made me vulnerable to feeling rejected, again, in therapy probably.

At the risk of sounding boastful, this seems to me like a potentially useful insight, from me to therapists – if any of them were interested. When my last T got haughty and shamed and rejected me – she later “knew” what she had “done”, I think, and was then caught up in her own shame and defensiveness about that so there was no way that my rejection experience could enter the room and be talked about.

If this were a recognized “thing” that can happen in therapy, then perhaps some strategies to help identify and deal with it, within an existing therapy relationship could be developed. So, OK, it was my last T’s issues and countertransference, which she “hadn’t done her own work” about, but perhaps she wasn’t entirely aware of it, either. Her fault, not mine, but I paid the price. Not “right”.

Nevertheless, moving on. . .