Therapy can sometimes work against a person, especially if the therapist is not self-aware enough to prevent his/her own issues from becoming entangled in the therapy process. I think it is known as counter-transference.

About 20 years ago, an online therapist was trying to help me with my struggles at the time. She was running her own free Internet group. She was actually very talented and intuitive in understanding particular types of issues, especially related to childhood traumas. She helped me see a few things about myself, but at some point she began reacting intensely to my issues and said or implied things about me - in the group and in private - that made me feel very bad about myself. Whether or not she was right about those things, I could not handle what she was saying, especially in her confrontational manner, and I became despondent at the time as a result, which was quite obvious, even though she continued talking to me that way.

I finally realized that her approach was doing more harm than good to me, and I confronted her on this. At one point, she actually acknowledged that she was reacting to me this way because of something in her past. She eased off and I continued attending the group for a while longer, but eventually I needed to leave because she was still getting triggered by me at times, even if I was just having a casual, friendly exchange with another member.

I had another therapist years later, an in-person therapist, who always focused on the worst case scenarios of whatever it was I was distressed about. She would ask me to imagine those scenarios and what I could do to prevent them or resolve them if they came true. I knew that she meant well and believed that reality therapy was the best approach, but yet I always left there feeling much more distressed. So, this was a case where the type of therapy may be wrong for a person, rather than the therapist doing something wrong.

It is very important to find a therapist whose personality and choice of therapeutic approach is compatible with one's personality and issues. This is not always an easy thing to find.