Therapists never talk about this but working with clients is a minefield. It’s not a job for the faint hearted. Not only do they deal with enormous emotional impact, but they also, often times, see the most horrible side of humanity and what people are willing to do to each other.
Sometimes therapists start working with a client who present themselves as the victim, when it quickly becomes apparent, they are very capable of creating victims. It’s an accepted part of therapy for a client to lie or to protect a truth until they feel able to be honest with themselves, but sometimes therapists get quoted by clients in an attempt to manipulate a situation, such as ‘my therapist said you are trying to control me’ when no such discussion took place. Experienced therapists are aware that clients do this and when this becomes apparent the use of techniques enable the behaviour to be addressed without being confrontational.
It is not the job of a therapist to make decisions for their clients, rather they act as guides, not decision-makers, aiming to empower clients to make their own life choices rather than creating dependency. They provide a safe space to explore options, helping clients to understand motivations and values so they can confidently own their decisions, even when those decisions are difficult – and they are usually difficult.
The core goal is for the client to get to the stage of trusting themselves. Therapists making decisions for their clients undermines their ability to navigate their own life and fosters a dependency on the therapist. The only expert in a clients’ life is the client. Therapists help clients find their own unique answers in their own unique circumstances, not provide answers from another’s. If a therapist directs your life and things go poorly, it harms the therapeutic relationship and prevents the client from learning and commanding their own life.
Change comes from helping clients understand how past behaviours and thoughts influence your current dilemmas. Usually, a good place to start is understanding what is stopping them from taking action – which is usually buried in past experiences.
Good therapy ensures clients are in the driver’s seat of their life, providing support, tools, and insight rather than taking over the steering wheel.
Bad Therapists Enable
Therapists are ethically bound and trained not to enable their clients, as the ultimate goal of therapy is fostering autonomy, personal growth, and self-reliance i.e. to take ownership and responsibility.
If a therapist blindly validates harmful behaviours or fails to challenge unhealthy patterns they simply reinforce and escalate issues that stop resolution of problems in day to day life.
Enabling—defined as supporting self-destructive or harmful behaviour—undermines the therapeutic goal of improvement, often resulting in harmful, ineffective treatment.
Therapists are there to help clients understand their behaviours, recognise the impact of their decisions, and make changes, not to blindly validate every action. While validating a client’s feelings is standard practice, validation of harmful behaviours or distorted views is not. For example – a bad therapist might validate a client’s role as a perpetual victim, failing to hold them accountable for their own life choices.
They never push back or encourage their clients to explore their role in difficult situations. They enable them to bypass personal accountability, such as constantly blaming others while ignoring their own actions. Therapists who help clients see the consequences of their own actions and empowering them to make different choices is a good match for clients who are serious about change and is critical for effective treatment – however its uncomfortable and hard for the client.
How Therapists Help Clients See Their Role in Their Life
When therapists “hold up a mirror” to a clients behaviour’s, they are using a technique called mirroring or reflection to help clients objectively see their own patterns, emotions, and interpersonal impact. This process involves the therapist reflecting back their words, non-verbal cues, or actions, allowing them to observe themselves from an external perspective to gain self-awareness and initiate change.
The therapist acts as a mirror that reveals client’s unconscious patterns, assumptions, fears, and unspoken beliefs. A therapist might restate what the client said to ensure understanding and to give them a “second chance” to hear their own words, allowing them to re-process information.
The truth is most clients cannot accept the words they use and how they are interpreted. Some clients become aggressive and highly defensive because they are not willing to accept their role in a situation or how they make others feel. They react to their therapist as if they are a critical parent or a judgmental boss, they may reflect this pattern back to the therapist in an attempt to show how the therapist is recreating abpast trauma or relationship.
An experienced therapist usually notices everything, although they will not reveal this insight, they might notice that a clients words say one thing, while their body language says another. For instance, stating they are not angry or begrudging when their nonverbal communication completely contradicts this statement – the blind spots that a client is unaware of.
By hearing themselves mirrored, clients can clarify or correct their message if the therapist mirror is accepted by the client as how the world views them. It helps clients to see the impact of their behaviour on others, which improves social intelligence and relationships. When a client is able to see themselves clearly its usually the first step toward change; it transforms unconscious reactions into conscious choices – the process is never comfortable — it is not intended to hurt, but rather to reveal.
Rejecting The Mirror
When a therapist “holds up a mirror” to a client – reflecting back their words, behaviours, or emotional patterns – and the client does not like what they see, it is often a pivotal, albeit uncomfortable, moment in therapy known as a therapeutic rupture. This resistance is usually a sign that the mirror is accurately reflecting a deep-seated issue, such as old wounds, self-hatred, or ingrained defensive patterns that the client is not yet ready to confront.
When a therapist repeats negative self-talk, it forces the client to hear the inner bully and how cruelly they treat themselves or others, which can feel harsh or devastating. The mirror also reveals “blind spots” or “shadow aspects” of the self, reflecting behaviours and attitudes the client is unconscious of, such as unintentional rudeness or controlling behaviour. The client may feel attacked, misunderstood, or accused by the therapist, even if the reflection is accurate. The client might think the therapist is being manipulative or taking sides as a way of deflecting from or accepting what is mirrored back to them. If a client is in complete denial it usually immediately lowers trust and can often result in the client leaving the therapist.
When a client can sit with the discomfort of not liking their reflection, it often leads to profound change. The goal is to move from unconscious repetition of self-destructive patterns to conscious choice and self-compassion. And when that happens conscious choice means the client is making decisions in their life that’s constructive and the old patterns are broken.
And so, what is the message? If you are reading this and you are looking to work with a therapist, know that, whatever you want to achieve through the process, it’s going to be hard, you will have to hear truth, face up to behaviours you don’t like and understand that you will likely hate it, but the therapists only motivation if to help you foster autonomy, personal growth, self awareness, self-reliance so that you can trust in yourself.
