fix yourself and find lov e

A few personal experiences of therapy – and a list of my red flags

Wearing my psychologist’s hat, I’ve tried to answer the question “What makes a good therapist?” as objectively as possible, by reviewing and summarising lots of published research, (see the previous section). I’ve also analysed what my own clients have found useful when I’ve been helping them identify and clear out personal obstacles that were standing in their way, And I’m happy to say, both sources of evidence tell the same story.

But what happens when I change hats and reflect on the same question from the client perspective? Over the years, while I’ve been working through the unbreakyourheart process and ‘fixing myself’, I’ve had a few excellent therapists who have helped me a great deal. But I’ve also met and worked with therapists who were mediocre or disappointing… and a few who made me downright angry or upset.

So if it’s OK with you, I’d like to share three personal examples. The first two illustrate what helped me as a client, and the third is a dramatic example of what definitely didn’t…

I’ve also added a list of ‘red flags’, (i.e. things I would always avoid when choosing a therapist), just in case it gives you some food for thought when drawing up your own list of requirements.

Example #1 How empathy and kindness saved me from drowning

Choosing a therapist is a very personal process and, like any close relationship, sometimes things ‘just click’. In Chapter 3 of my ebook I describe how I connected with my first therapist, right at the start of my unbreakyourheart journey.

I was stuck in a relationship that was causing me a huge amount of distress and I’d shortlisted three relationship therapists, planning to speak to each of them in turn for an initial chat.

When I called the first person on the list, she asked me to explain why I was looking for a therapist… and she sounded so kind and concerned that I immediately burst into tears, sobbing uncontrollably for several minutes. Instead of sounding uncomfortable (or impatient) or blandly reassuring me that everything would be fine, she just waited till I was able to speak again, reassuring me that I should take my time because I was obviously in pain. That’s when I knew she was ‘the one’ I needed at that moment. I’m a proud and private person and I hadn’t told anybody what I was going through in my relationship… but I knew I could safely open up to this caring and empathic woman.

She made space to see me that same week and we met for fifty minutes every week from then on. During our weekly sessions the therapist listened without judgement and ‘got me’ as nobody ever had before. She also taught me how to put my distress into words… because even though I was working as a psychologist, I’d never learned how to label my own painful emotions. I had many ‘lightbulb moments’ as we explored my disastrous relationship history and she helped me identify links to painful experiences and hurtful relationships when I was growing up… something that had never occurred to me up to that point.

It took me quite a while to break away from that toxic relationship and those weekly therapy sessions really were a lifeline. So I’ll always be grateful to my first therapist for showing me so much kindness, empathy, compassion and patience… and for helping me identify at least some of my Emotional Baggage.

Example #2 A smart therapist, my unconscious mind & me… what a partnership!

After several years of weekly therapy, I had an in-depth understanding of the Emotional Baggage that was derailing me and I’d pinpointed where some of it began in childhood. But I was no further on in letting it go. In fact, I’d got myself into an even more toxic relationship and I was definitely in a downward spiral.

My next therapist was as empathic as the first so I always felt supported and understood. And, like her, his preferred approach was to help me connect the dots between my adult relationship issues and my painful past, (rather than just focusing on changing my current thoughts and behaviours as many therapeutic approaches do).

But this new therapist offered several additional characteristics that really helped to move things forward… and made me feel more like an equal partner in the therapy process:

  • He’s incredibly bright and quick on the uptake, so he asked really incisive and, at times, challenging questions that made me to go right to the heart of an issue, He always ‘kept up’ if I went off at a tangent or made an intuitive leap, so I never had to waste time and energy back-tracking and trying to explain my thought process. And if I was stuck, he could always offer some insight that would help me get past the road block. So although the sessions were intellectually challenging at times, I often felt as though I’d made significant progress in the space of one session.
  • He wasn’t afraid to give an opinion. If I was analysing a situation or weighing up a decision and I asked what he thought, he would give me an honest reply, even if it wasn’t what I wanted to hear. A lot of therapists prefer to remain neutral, sticking with, “What do YOU think?”. This is generally preferable, as it makes sure clients do the work rather than putting the therapist on a pedestal as ‘the expert’. But this therapist knew me really well – when I asked for his view, it was because I couldn’t get any further on my own and I needed some extra input. And occasionally he would ‘tell it like it is’ even if I didn’t ask… because I needed someone to call me out or put me straight, (e.g. when I was deluding myself, viewing a guy through rose-tinted glasses, being too forgiving or shooting myself in the foot). So, when the need arose, this therapist wasn’t afraid to step up to the plate… even if it made for an uncomfortable conversation.
  • He was flexible about how we worked together. The standard fifty-minute therapy session just feels too short for me. I know it works for lots of therapists… and clients too I guess. But I often felt as though I was just getting somewhere when it was time to wrap up… and then I’d lose my train of thought. Done well, therapy is often like following a rabbit down a hole… you have to stick with a half-formed idea so it doesn’t get away! I was impatient to get to the bottom of my issues, so when I asked my therapist if he’d be up for two-hour sessions, I was delighted that he agreed. I felt as though he was responding to me as an individual and respecting my opinion about what would make things work. Likewise, although he often had a plan at the start of each session, if I arrived with a particular issue I wanted to address, he would generally agree. I guess he knew I wasn’t the kind of person who’d come up with a red herring to avoid discussing painful topics!
  • He works with the unconscious mind. This was the big one! I chose to work with this man because he’s an experienced Ericksonian hypnotherapist who can help clients to get deeply relaxed and access their unconscious mind. I also work with these powerful techniques and I know they produce lasting change by enabling clients to clear out lots of Emotional Baggage in a short time frame. When we worked together in this way, I really noticed a big shift in whatever issue we worked on.

Of course, no therapist is perfect. A few times I got frustrated when he came into sessions unprepared and just allowed me to spend an hour narrating some recent situation that had left me feeling bad, occasionally asking, “what does that tell you?”. I’ve seen too many therapists use this, “Tell me about your week” approach and it’s often a waste of time. Frankly, I can chat to my hairdresser or a sympathetic mate from work about what upset me that week and feel better afterwards… it may be cathartic but it doesn’t move me forward and it’s not therapy.

Fortunately, this therapist responded positively even when my feedback was pretty brusque because I was annoyed. Next time round he’d be well prepared and focused… and there was never a tense atmosphere so I knew he’d forgiven me!

I worked with this therapist on and off for years and, I’m REALLY grateful for what we achieved together. Our sessions helped me identify and clear out some significant chunks of Emotional Baggage… and he supported me through some big life changes. That’s why even today, if I hit an obstacle and I can’t see the wood for the trees, he’s the therapist I call.

Example #3 The therapist who thought she knew best

In contrast to the two previous examples, this one shows what can happen when there’s a lack of empathy, trust and respect between therapist and client… and as the client, it made me really angry and upset.

I contacted this therapist (who is not a health professional) because she said she’d had some success resolving physical symptoms that had an emotional component. During our initial phone call, I described the issue I wished to resolve – back pain which doctors were at a loss to explain or resolve even after doing all the usual tests and scans. She mentioned the therapy approach she was going to use (not something I’d ever heard of) and when I asked for more information, she explained briefly, using a lot of jargon that I wasn’t familiar with. I asked for her fee rate and booked a session because she didn’t seem keen to talk more and I didn’t feel I could take up any more of her time.

She then emailed me a very long, in-depth questionnaire that I had to complete and return before the session. It asked for my goals and probed all aspects of my family and personal history, without mentioning her confidentiality policy or explaining how she would use the information.

Before our session (which was online), the therapist had clearly analysed the questionnaire responses in-depth. When I tried to explain the issue further and share some thoughts I’d had about the possible emotional component, she just stayed quiet until I stopped talking and didn’t seem interested in what I had to say.

So far, not so good… but then things got worse.

The therapist told me she had reached a view about the root cause of my physical symptom, based on her analysis of my questionnaire responses. She didn’t explain how she reached her conclusion and didn’t seem interested in discussing her logic or hearing my response. Although I viewed it as ‘just a hypothesis’, (which didn’t seem correct to me), she was obviously convinced that she was right.

Basically, her view was that I needed to repair my relationship with someone in my immediate circle, by “understanding the situation from their perspective and having more compassion for their pain”. This is often a helpful approach in therapy – allowing us to forgive people and disconnect from the past, but in this particular case it felt all wrong.

With my previous therapists I’d discussed this individual at great length, recognising the manipulative and controlling behaviour which they used to get me to take the blame for anything that went wrong in our relationship. It was one of the main reasons I’d been carrying around a lot of unnecessary guilt most of my life and found it so hard to say ‘no’. Many of the poor choices I’d made in romantic relationships could be traced back to unhelpful beliefs about myself and my value (or lack of it) that began in this relationship. So not only had I done a lot of work to clear out this Emotional Baggage, I’d also deliberately distanced myself from this person in order to avoid any further hurt or damage.

I explained to the therapist in a clear (though somewhat emotional) fashion why it did NOT feel healthy for me to go back to seeing things from the other person’s perspective or to have greater compassion for their suffering. But despite my best efforts, the therapist repeated that we should do the work she’d suggested to repair the relationship.

Eventually it became clear that her insistence was down to personal reasons. One of her close relatives had recently died and she regretted not having made her peace with this person. She was convinced that I should do as she advised even though it felt wrong (and risky) to me… and nothing I could say or do would change her opinion. What’s more, she appeared to disapprove of my unwillingness to repair this relationship… which triggered my old guilt.

I suddenly realised I was FEELING just as I used to feel around that person from my past, who we were discussing. The therapist was behaving in a similar way – ignoring what I felt and believed, making critical comments and trying to pressure me into acting against what I saw as my own best interests.

I immediately told her how I felt and said I was going to end the session at this point. I paid for the session because we had spent an hour together. She sent me a message the following week asking when I would like to meet again but I told her I didn’t want to continue with the ‘therapy’. Fortunately I didn’t hear from her again.

As I read this last example, some years later, it still makes me feel angry and upset. So I’ve been thinking about all of the things that went wrong during this short ‘therapeutic relationship’. I’ve also reflected on other therapy sessions that have been unsatisfactory (though less extreme) and I’ve used all these experiences to identify a list of things some therapists do, which I think are best avoided. They are basically the opposite of the things that are on my therapist wish list… but sometimes when you recognise what you DON’T want, it can help you understand what you DO want.

So this is my personal view of things I’ve seen therapists do which have felt wrong for me as the client, while I’ve been working through the unbreakyourheart process. Obviously we’re all different, but I’m sharing this list in case any of the items resonate with you too:

My therapy red flags:

  • Therapists who don’t LISTEN properly – who keep getting the wrong end of the stick, interrupt a lot, talk too much or fill the silences when we’re trying to think.
  • Therapists who ask LEADING QUESTIONS to try to get us to come up with an idea they have already thought of. These questions often sound really complicated (e.g. “So can you think of something specific that you’re doing which is making your boyfriend feel that you’re trying to get him to behave in a particular way?”) and we find ourselves trying to guess what the therapist has in mind as if we’re on a quiz show.
  • Therapists who don’t seem to notice or CARE about our suffering – e.g. who keep a neutral expression, seem personally unaffected or show a lack of compassion when we’re upset / in pain or describing painful experiences. When I started sessions with my first therapist (Example #1), I had such a lid on my emotions that I often described very upsetting events in a neutral, matter-of-fact way and was amazed when she looked really upset or her eyes filled up with tears out of sheer compassion. Actually, that helped me to uncover the emotions I’d been suppressing… and since then I’ve noticed myself doing the same thing with my own clients. (I suspect ‘Mirror Neurons’, which we discussed in PART 2, might be responsible). I don’t need a therapist to break down in floods of tears but if I’m telling them about something horrible that happened to me and their expression and body language don’t change, it feels as though they don’t get it or they’re not bothered… both of which make me second-guess myself or shut down.
  • Therapists who look uncomfortable when clients get emotional – I have met therapists who flinched, looked away awkwardly or tried to calm me down or change the subject when I started to cry or get angry, which gave me the impression that they weren’t comfortable in the presence of strong emotions (in contrast to my first therapist). If I had to bottle things up or keep myself under control and couldn’t show authentic emotion, I wouldn’t be able to open up and I’d get absolutely nowhere in therapy… so this is a massive red flag.
  • Therapists who are judgemental or critical – e.g. who look disapproving if we’ve done something stupid/risky, not followed through with a plan, not lived up to their personal standards of behaviour etc. With a few exceptions I really don’t want to hear about a therapist’s values, beliefs or morals… especially if they’re very different from mine. And if I’ve done something wrong or stupid, I’ll beat myself up for it… I don’t need my therapist to make me feel worse. Quite the opposite… I need the therapist to help me give myself a break.
  • Therapists who tell us what we ‘should do’ or, even worse, what we ‘should have done’ – A lot of the time we know what we SHOULD be doing or saying but we’re talking to the therapist because we find ourselves doing something else instead and we don’t know how to change. If a therapist says things like “You need to leave him”, “You shouldn’t put up with that” or “Why didn’t you say XYZ?” it just makes me feel frustrated, stupid or a complete failure. In my view, any plan of action that comes out of a therapy session should come from the client. If it’s the therapist’s idea, there’s no guarantee we’ll know how to do it… or be committed to carrying it through.
  • Smart-ass therapists who like to be seen as ‘The Expert’ who has all the answers – they seem to get a kick out of coming up with a clever explanation of our issues, (e.g. “Let me tell you what’s going on here”, “Obviously what you’re feeling is…”, “As XYZ theory shows…”), rather than asking questions that help their clients do the thinking and reach our own conclusions. As I suggested in Example #2, if we’re feeling stuck or have a blind spot, it can be helpful when the therapist offers some new insight or observation… but I prefer them to suggest it tentatively, (e.g. “I’m just guessing here and I might be wrong… do you think something about this person’s behaviour maybe reminded you of X?”). If they offer their view as just a possibility, we‘re free to agree or disagree.
  • Therapists who use ‘psychobabble’ or scientific/technical jargon, instead of explaining things in plain English that the client can understand immediately. Many years ago a very wise boss told me that if I couldn’t explain something in simple, jargon-free language, it probably meant I didn’t understand it well enough. If I have to stop a therapist and ask them to explain their terminology, I feel as though they’re not considering my needs.
  • Therapists who use labels, (e.g. “You are XYZ”), which makes the client feel as though the problem is permanent and outside of their control so it’s really difficult to change, “(e.g. “You’re a rescuer so you’ll always attract guys with problems” or “You’re a workaholic”). I prefer to frame issues as specific behaviours that are caused by some temporary circumstance, so they can be changed: (e.g. “Let’s work out why you’ve sometimes felt the need to rescue people in the past” or “Let’s figure out what benefits you’ve been getting from working such long hours”).
  • Therapists who ask “What’s been happening this week?”, then let me talk /moan/cry for ages about WHAT happened until “Time’s up”, without challenging me to think more deeply about WHY things are happening and look for meaning / connect the dots. (See also Example #2 above).
  • Therapists who don’t work with clients to agree therapy goals and evaluate progress – where there’s just a vague open-ended arrangement. For example, clients pitch up at the same time every week and talk about whatever is on their mind, while the therapist listens and asks open-ended questions like “how did that make you feel?” or gives the client a pep talk that props them up till the following week. I have known people to carry on like this for years on end… with no visible improvement in the poor client. This might be good for the therapist’s bank balance but it can make the client feel dependent on the therapist… and makes it very difficult for the client to know when it’s time to end. As you can probably tell, this is a real bug-bear of mine!
  • Therapists who are rigid and don’t adapt to what the client needs – this is a personal preference as a client but also something that’s at the heart of my work as a professional psychologist… I strongly believe that therapists who adapt their approach according to where we’re at as clients and what we need at that moment are more likely to help us achieve our results… and keep us engaged in the therapy process. I really don’t like it when therapists slavishly stick to step-by-step procedures, checklists, interview schedules, models or protocols and won’t let the client go off at a tangent or stop to explore something that feels really important to them… which might possibly lead to an important discovery or a breakthrough. I understand that some therapists are really pushed for time because resources are squeezed but, for me personally, having to tick boxes or get things done at a certain speed feels stressful and not client-focused… so this wouldn’t be the right kind of therapist for me.

So there it is… a very personal view based on what works (and what definitely doesn’t) for me and for other sensitive, intuitive clients who have benefited from the tools that make up the unbreakyourheart process.

We’re all different so you need to decide what would suit YOU in terms of the personality and personal style of the therapist as well as their therapeutic approach… and think about what would be YOUR red flags. There’s more information here: A step-by-step approach to finding the right therapist for you.

Remember YOU are the client and you have the right to choose a person who makes you feel comfortable and safe and fills you with confidence… so don’t settle for anything less.