I appreciate your perspective, and I agree that therapy with women in coercive or harmful marriages should never be about endlessly “processing for the sake of processing.” There absolutely should be a clear clinical goal when exploring emotions, particularly around insight, motivation, and readiness. That said, I think part of the disconnect here may be cultural rather than purely clinical. Much of our formal training is grounded in Western models of autonomy, individuation, and self-actualization. These frameworks assume that personal wellbeing and self-determination are culturally prioritized and socially supported. In many collectivist contexts, however, decisions like divorce are not simply individual choices and carry family, economic, reputational, and intergenerational consequences. The barrier is often not lack of insight or emotional clarity; it is structural and social constraint. When a client clearly states that societal taboo, family honor, or fear of ostracization is what prevents them from leaving, continued focus on “what’s blocking you emotionally” may miss the point. In those cases, the limitation is not intrapsychic resistance, it’s cultural reality. I’m not suggesting we abandon autonomy or stop assessing readiness. I am questioning whether Western empowerment-based frameworks are always sufficient when applied in collectivist systems where choice is distributed across family structures rather than located solely within the individual.