I was not sold anything either.

I initiated contact.

No promises were made about what kind of outcome I would see.

No relationship was pushed on me, nor was the therapist in any way the focus of my therapy. My therapy was about me.

I asked for help finding a way to get through my pain and depression, and that's what my therapists focused on, very much with my permission. If we both saw and agreed to a variation to that focus, it was a mutual decision.

My therapists never claimed to be experts in my life. On the contrary, they reminded me I am the expert on me so I better start learning from myself. They never encouraged any delusion that they were the expert on what I needed. They kept it real.

I wasn't forced to stay. They were all fine with me making decisions about staying or going.

My therapists were sort of educational supports for me. That's just my take on my therapy; might not work for someone else but I'm a teacher so my brain works that way. The subject was my life, my issues, my needs. The therapists were, as we sometimes talk about in the educational world, "the guide on the side," not lecturer or dictator telling me what to learn and how to think; but rather, they were present as a support, a resource, a clarifier often, as I worked my way toward healthier thinking and independence.