I'm not sure whether you found my response irrelevant or whether it was just too long for you to be bothered reading...

One way to attempt to get people to consider an issue objectively is to state it in general, objective language. I think that this issue is really important to Riptide (as evidenced by it coming up a couple of times now).

One thing we can do is ask: Why is this issue so important to Riptide? Maybe Riptide has had experience with clinicians who were unable to provide what was needed because of their own issues. Maybe Riptide is concerned about this issue because Riptide is thinking that they couldn't go on to be a clinician because their own issues aren't sufficiently under control.

Those are useful things to think / talk about, I would think.

So... It doesn't need to be interpreted personally (as an attack on others). Instead, it can be understood personally (as a question one is interested in oneself for the above reasons). Putting those two personal aspects together we can transcend them to the impersonal, objective concern.

I'm not sure that there is any #1 rule of being a therapist because therapy is such a diverse thing with such a diversity of different theoretical orientations. Some forms of therapy are extremely directive, while others advocate abstaining from giving advice in most if not all circumstances.

Do you think that if therapy was directive then that would impact on your abililty to deliver it?

You seem to feel like you are being attacked. That Riptide is suggesting that you don't have insight or awareness into your own psychological processes. Empirical studies have shown that insight and awareness into psychological processes isn't correlated with behavioural change. Empirical studies have also shown that the techniques which are most effective for behavioural change (e.g., altering reinforcement contingencies) don't require insight or awareness at all (works for chickens, toddlers, the mentally handicapped, and adults alike).

It is a scary issue, though... The issue of how much (if at all) ones issues impact on ones ability to be what one most wants to be... Something that comes up outside clinical contexts, as well.