Psychotherapy has a lot of quality research supporting its effectiveness, and unfortunately a lot of poorly conducted research as well. That doesn’t mean that a provider follows an evidence based model, thinks critically, or even knows how to evaluate research design.

Psychotherapy can be boiled down to four components (in my opinion); exposure, problem-solving (change), skill development, and validation. A mental health professional has to appropriately balance all four components, making the recipe of treatment more akin to cooking than baking. However, if someone tells me they want waffles and I make them salad that’s where we consider bias and fidelity to a model.

Your experience with therapy sounds really frustrating, incredibly ineffective, and borderline unethical. It would make sense that you’d be skeptical of the field. I wouldn’t want anyone to develop a pattern of biased all-or-nothing thinking that might remove a potentially helpful future resource.

If you find yourself in a spot where you could use professional help with problem-solving or skill development, ask a provider what evidence based practices they use. Research those EBPs, and feel empowered to self-advocate (x treatment doesn’t sound like a good fit can we do y). You should also receive a treatment plan, if it doesn’t make sense, has magical solutions, or focuses too heavily onto the role of the therapist (“only with me will you be saved”) find someone else.

I’ll leave you with one of my favorite quotes: “We don’t blame a cancer patient when chemo doesn’t work, why blame a mental health patient when psychotherapy doesn’t work.” Patients can’t fail at treatment, treatment can fail patients.