oh, ouch!

Intellectualising is a defence for sure but I don't think it = a refusal to change. Obsessing about therapy and learning about it, in my mind, suggests a desire to heal on some level. Just turning up does... even if we are defensive and resistant... and who isn't defensive and resistant?! Maybe someone who had a good enough beginning and doesn't need therapy!

It is also partly the job of the therapist to find some way of helping the client reach their deeper stuff and help them facilitate change. So if the current way of working isn't working, changes (however small) need to be made within the setting.

It's an interesting piece though. I'm sure there are bad therapists that fall into this category but I see it more like becoming a parent. By being a child and by being parented, we might want to learn from our parents mistakes and become better parents ourselves hopefully. Or maybe it's just a right of passage to think that we can do better and eventually we go back to the old ways of parenting/therapy because they work.