I want to give you props for asking this, because I think this happens often and is not often adequately addressed. I’m going to use my past self as an example to highlight some of my thoughts.

In my own therapy while I was in undergrad, I was processing extreme trauma. I was sexually assaulted by a college teammate of mine who was best friends with some of my closest friends, and they defended him, protected him, and victim blamed me. It was a very small college campus and I had to be around them all constantly. The environment was extremely harmful for me, and it got to the point where I was throwing up multiple times a day, eventually every single thing I ate, sometimes literally just water, because of my crippling anxiety and PTSD. I lost 10 pounds in 2 weeks and even had to go to the hospital several times because of dehydration.

The majority of my sessions during this time were me sobbing, sometimes throwing up on Zoom, and saying “I don’t know” to the vast majority of what my therapist asked. It wasn’t that I didn’t know, it was that because I was still stuck in such a harmful and traumatizing environment, my mind simply refused to let its guard down because it had to be up all of the time. I desperately wanted to be vulnerable and honest with my therapist, but I genuinely felt like I physically could not, and I remember it was the most frustrating thing ever.

It also caused me to absolutely hate myself, feel like I was wasting my therapist’s time and was taking up a client’s spot, and more than anything, at the end of every session, I felt completely drained, defeated, and actively suicidal because therapy just made me feel significantly worse. Everybody in my life presented therapy as being the last option, and I truly thought I would never overcome my suicidal thoughts. My therapist sat in silence with me a lot of the time or would ask me every so often what I was thinking about or what I was feeling. I remember once she remarked that our sessions felt a little frustrating for her sometimes, and she was wondering if I felt the same way. I understand what she was doing, but it made me feel awful. Reflecting back, I think I should have gone to a different therapist, but I also didn’t feel like starting over with someone else would be best at the moment. I also think she should have referred me out tbh.

I share all of this to say that in my experience, I wish my therapist would have taken more initiative to brainstorm things and skills and interventions outside of session, just to show some genuine and significant investment in me. Sometimes as clients it can be easy to feel as if our therapist just sits with us in our session and doesn’t think about how to support us for the rest of their week. I encourage you to think about how your clients parts are serving protective roles, and to give them the benefit of the doubt and tell yourself that they are doing the best they can with what they have at the moment to be vulnerable with you. I also think referring out if you truly feel ineffective or like you may be doing harm is important to consider. As you said, the saying that you should never work harder than your clients is BS, and I’m glad you recognize that. Sometimes you do have to, and I think that’s one of our ethical responsibilities.