My experience with therapy and therapists is that for a long time I didn't know what kind of "help" I needed, and they didn't either.

About 15 years ago I did start trying to find what I thought I needed -- socialization, after mental health difficulties in adolescence and years of going to therapy, thinking of myself as a "mental patient", looking to therapists for "help". (And hadn't I been trained to do that? Yes, I had. Part of my adaptation into young adulthood, under the supervision and/or influence of therapists.)

I went to something I thought might help -- "social therapy". It had it's own off-the-beaten-track ideas, but was not that much help.

After that, I was in some intensive outpatient programs and eventually went to a consultant in trauma and dissociation, who referred me to the last therapist I saw, also a specialist in trauma and dissociation. Trouble is, the unsocialized dissociated parts were too much for her -- how's that for irony? I work so hard to "get in touch" with them, to allow them to "be" in the room, and she can't tolerate them! Despite the best efforts I had at the time. at allowing, containing, and being social/civil about it. Where the ____________ blank am I supposed to learn?!

Rather needless to say, my opinion of therapy and the therapy establishment is that they suck. They aren't interested in examining or looking at their failures -- it threatens their collective ego and social identity as "helpers".

ETA: Of course, some might view the last sentence as a kind of projection. But that still leaves the question -- how does one develop a "healthy", integrated, not-too-defensive sense of self if one didn't develop it naturally in the social environments one had as a kid, teen-ager, and young adult? Whatever my issues were going into therapy, I've tried to the best of my ability to get "help". My view, after a near lifetime of that -- it's on them. My way out of that "swamp" has been peer supports -- first a lot of groups and online forums and now I'm beginning to be able to do some on my own. Not much, not near a lifetime's worth, but it's what I've got. Now is the only time I have a chance of living in. Maybe not much of a chance, but the only one I've got.