Your therapist tells you about their own life

Melissa Smith*, a manager at a mental health service says that a therapist must keep their private life out of sessions to avoid the client making links that might prevent them from sharing with the therapist. “There has to be a boundary so that they feel able to open up. They need to know it’s about them. And also, if your therapist is spending time talking to you about themselves, it’s taking your time up,” she explains.

A therapist-client relationship should be one-sided. However, Jesper acknowledges that a minimal amount of self-disclosure on the therapist’s part may help in developing an authentic relationship. For example, it may be appropriate for a therapist to mention that they can relate to a feeling or experience their client may be describing. This can show a client that they are not isolated in their problems. Jesper says before sharing personal information, all therapists should ask themselves: “Are we self-disclosing for the benefit of our client and for their process, goals and outcomes for therapy? If it’s just because I like this client a bit more and I’d like to feel a bit closer to them, that doesn’t feel ethical, right? This is a professional relationship – we’re not making new friends.”

Your therapist expresses preferential treatment between you and other clients

My friend Natasha* described feeling uncomfortable when her therapist told her that she was her favourite client, even going as far as to tell her she loved her. “[The BACP’s] ethical framework does say that we must treat all our clients equitably. We’re not prioritising [or favouring] some clients over others. We treat all our clients with the same degree of respect and empathy and the same high standards of service,” says Jesper.

Both Jesper and Smith question the therapeutic reasoning behind expressing these emotions to a client. If they have been a victim of emotional or physical abuse, a therapist may feel it’s necessary to boost their confidence in this way. “But they certainly shouldn’t be ever, ever, compared with the other clients that they’ve had,” says Smith.

Your therapist is unable to accommodate issues surrounding race, gender, sexuality and deep trauma

“Every single therapist has a responsibility to ensure that they’re well appraised of these issues. We’re doing a lot of work at BACP at the moment to raise knowledge and understanding of a range of issues regarding equality, diversity and inclusion,” explains Jesper. Even once initial training has been completed and relevant qualifications obtained, all therapists must undergo continuous professional development, ensuring they can tackle a range of issues a client may bring to sessions.

To make sure a therapist has a suitable awareness of these issues, both Smith and Jesper say it’s important to use initial consultations with therapists to ensure they can relate to you and your lived experience.

Your therapist enforces a power imbalance

No therapist should feel so superior that they overtly instruct you on how to behave, and should not be making grand claims that they can ‘cure’ or ‘fix’ you. Jesper explains: “Therapy is a co-created process. You’re not going to have something done to you, it’s about working together to enhance your own understanding of yourself and self-awareness in making autonomous decisions about what is the right course of action for yourself.”

Smith adds: “If you don’t understand the power dynamic then there are already problems.” She also notes that your therapist not being actively aware of social differences can reinforce power imbalances during therapy. “If I’m an older white woman and my client is a young Black woman, then our life experience is going to be very different. Should we talk about how that impacts us in this space? Yes, we should,” explains Smith. She says that it should always be addressed and discussed to avoid uncomfortable misunderstandings that arise due to differences in identity.

Your therapist makes you feel bad about not getting better

Your therapist blaming you for your problems is not conducive to a healthy therapeutic relationship and development, either. A therapist should never question how hard you may be working towards getting better.

“There may be things that you agree [to do] in between the sessions. But if the client hasn’t done it, a good therapist will want to understand why and what the barriers are and what’s going on for the client – trying to understand rather than suggesting that ‘if you don’t do this, [therapy] is not going to work’ and making you feel bad,” says Jesper.

To alleviate the confusion and distress of an uncomfortable interaction during therapy, the BACP provides various resources and services with guidance on what is and isn’t appropriate behaviour during therapy.

According to Jesper, a therapist that is registered to any professional body accredited by the Professional Standards Authority should provide similar measures to protect a client from bad therapeutic practice. “These are the best ways that somebody can safeguard that they’re working with somebody who actually knows what they’re doing and has made a commitment to work in it in a particular way. In a way that’s safe.”

What does bad therapy actually look like?