You know, I refer to myself as a difficult patient to my therapist because I will call him out immediately when he says something that is confusing to me or that I don't understand, and I'm also very upfront about what kind of help I need. And if he upsets me, I tell him. A good therapist will understand and appreciate you explaining your needs, and also will take the opportunity to find out why what they said was off base - and this serves as an exploration to helping you, which always turns into something useful.

BTW, my therapist disagrees that I'm difficult and says that I'm very direct and blunt about my needs, as well as much more open to say exactly what I'm feeling. I don't know, I feel like if I were my therapist I'd be a difficult client, but maybe because I just lay it all out on the table, he finds it easier to work with?

There's always an amount of training you have to do with your therapist to help them learn how to best meet your needs. That might sound weird, but it's like if you hired an employee to help you around the house. You'd have to show them where to put things away and how you want things done. A lot of people (not saying this is you) allow their therapists to direct the course of therapy and never lay out actual goals. My first meeting with my therapist I said "these are my goals - I'm disabled by a psychiatric illness (PTSD and others), and I'm planning on going back for a PhD, I run two businesses, and I have to figure out how to better deal with triggers so I don't shut down entirely and screw everything up. I can't afford another breakdown and being out of life for 5 years again." So I set the ground rules and every week we work on improving my coping skills in different areas.

So I'd say if you feel like you're training a therapist in the first month of seeing them, that's normal and a good thing - and hopefully they are listening to what your needs are.

And I hope I didn't get off topic here. I think I may have gone off on a tangent.

To go back to your question of discard: I'd be blunt and say this to your next new therapist. See how they handle that question.