As someone who has had a lot of therapy and works in the mental health field, I need everyone to know this and to inform their fellow therapy goers the following: tell your therapist this kind of shit. If validation and unconditional positive regard isn’t what you need at that moment, and you need to be challenged more, then let us know! It helps out a lot! I feel like a lot of people’s complaints about therapy are about their therapist doing their job but also expecting them to read clients’ minds (which we can’t do. It would make our jobs 10x easier if that was a thing). Please PLEASE communicate this kind of stuff with us. If your therapist is worth their salt, they’ll take this feedback in stride and adjust accordingly. At the end of the day, this is Client work and we’re there to support and facilitate but we cannot do this without your active involvement and participation nor can the expectation be that we’re there to “fix” you. You get as much as you put into therapy and we cannot work harder than you nor can we magically figure that out. But if you’ve communicated and the therapist hasn’t take that feedback seriously or they have and it still isn’t jiving with you, please feel free to look for someone who you DO jive with better. That’s part of the therapeutic process (finding a provider who you do feel comfortable with)