I think that if T's explained that up front, it could help a lot. People coming to therapy -- even people who have been in therapy before -- may just not understand that. It's also an upfront way to help educate the client, if they might need that, about what a healthy relationship is like, and what human beings are realistically like. A kind of pre-emptive action, too, rather than just waiting for transference issues and unrealistic expectations to come up if they do and then dealing with the overwhelming countertransference, if that occurs.

It would also help, I think, if the therapists had, or accepted, more information about the pain, retraumatization, and consequent harm that can occur to the client because of their own issues and actions. They aren't perfect, but they can hurt people a lot. It can be devastating, and that is not at all clear in any of the informed consent statements that I have seen.

I'm still not at all clear about how that all happens -- what the pain from the failure and/or termination of my last therapy is about, what to do about it, how to "heal", whatever that means, etc.

I've ordered "The Betrayal Bond". Maybe that will help.