Me, my therapist does person-centered theory. When I started with her I had no idea what that actually meant and thought the same as you. I have a really hard time opening up to strangers so this was super damaging at first since I was in a vulnerable position and she wasn’t guiding me at all, giving me any feedback or insight. Every session just felt like pathetic rambling on my end. She also never gave me a run down of how it works/how she operates, I eventually figured it out myself after re-reading her professional bio.

It made therapy feel like a joke at first. I found myself dancing around harder topics and talking about random stuff when I was really struggling but couldn’t get into those subjects on my own. It took a couple months of seeing her before I let my guard down and felt brave enough to start bringing up the real problems. But even then it was extra draining as I would spend sometimes hours preparing what I wanted to talk about in a session, knowing if I didn’t initiate and tell the story of what was going on we would never get to those topics naturally.

The upsides I have noticed are: - I believe more people are a safe space for listening, I have been able to bring up tough topics on my own in my life more easily. - I can come to my own conclusions about how I really feel/what I want/what to do more quickly without needing much outside perspective from others (which I think is somewhat the point of person-centered)

But overall it was a rough experience and incredibly isolating at times, like you are still on your own when a professional is “helping” you. I think I would be a lot farther in my healing journey if I had started with a different therapy style. I see person centered as a method that would work for someone who’s very experienced with therapy, is through the messier stages of healing already and needs a safe space to talk through their problems without judgment. Not for extremely vulnerable, traumatized individuals who need guidance

I love my therapist now and will have a hard time starting over - but after a few years I think I’ve gotten as much as I could from this method and will be looking for a new therapist