A therapist can never be authentic!

My therapist team (group therapy) unleashed pure rage at me when I told them therapy wasn't working. I was imagining their mistakes, my wanting to leave meant I was on the edge of a breakthrough, I was delusional. And then they fired a barrage of ridicule and insults, all in front of everyone else in the therapy group.

So I don't believe talking ruptures and misunderstanding over with your therapist always is a good idea.If the therapist is fragile, vain and overbearing, it's better for sanity and self preservation to leave quietly. I regret years later trying to reason with them. They can be bullies.

Miranda,

I think it can be hurtful to realize that the therapist isn't a savior, but another human being who meets with us on a schedule and gives us his or her all for that meeting.

To me, it's hurtful to realize that I need that hour and I look forward to it and I could use a lot more than an hour. I am ashamed of needing anyone.

But, I go because it is my own act of defiance to pay for something that heals me. And it is strangely healing and has helped me to soften and be a better person in my real life.

I see the therapeutic relationship as an act, not an inauthentic act, but one that is not sustainable over long periods because it takes so much out of the therapist to do this whole mirroring-attuning thing.

I mirror-attune to my children and it comes naturally. And I think that we only really get this sort of thing once in our lives, from our parents. And if we never got it from them, then we have to mourn that.

Therapy is can be dangerous. My first therapist left me worse off than I ever had been, stripping me of some defense mechanisms and then abandoning me mid-therapy. So, definitely I go in now with a guarded heart and psyche, and with open eyes.

But I also think that it takes a special kind of person to decide to *become* a therapist. I could never do it.