Latest / Just Listen To Me / Not All Therapists Are Safe
Transcript
- Julia Shay: Hi, I'm Julia and welcome back to Just Listen To Me. If love feels confusing or painful right now, you're not broken and neither is your relationship. Let's slow this down together. Today I want to talk about something that can feel uncomfortable to say out loud, but really needs to be talked about more openly. Not all therapists are safe. And I don't say that lightly, because therapy can be one of the most vulnerable spaces a person ever enters. You walk into a room carrying grief, shame, fear, relationship pain, sometimes trauma that has taken decades to speak aloud. And in that moment, there is an enormous amount of trust placed in the therapist. which is why discernment matters. Because while there are many deeply ethical, skilled and compassionate therapists in this field, there are also people working in this profession who are not emotionally safe. People who are undertrained, people operating beyond their competence, people driven more by ego, control, admiration, or money than genuine care. And in some cases, there are therapists whose own narcissism or unresolved pathology can actually make therapy psychologically harmful. So today I want to help you understand what to look for when choosing a couples therapist. Not to create fear, not to encourage distrust of therapy, but to help you develop discernment, because the right therapist doesn't just give advice, they become what we call in attachment science, a secure base. And when that secure base is missing, therapy can start to feel confusing instead of clarifying, intrusive instead of containing, shaming instead of healing. And perhaps the deepest concern of all is that unsafe therapy can sometimes recreate the very attachment injuries the client came in to heal. Emotional invalidation, powerlessness, walking on eggshells, self abandonment, confusion about your own reality. And that is something we need to talk about more openly. One of the red flags I want you to watch for is what I call the expert trap. Now of course therapists should have training. Competence matters. Experience matters. But healthy expertise feels very different to narcissistic expertise. A healthy therapist uses their knowledge to empower your own awareness, to help you think more clearly. to help you reconnect with your own emotional reality. A narcissistic therapist uses expertise differently. They use it to create a power imbalance and slowly your intuition starts getting managed away. You stop feeling like an active participant in your own healing and start feeling subtly controlled by the therapist's interpretation of reality. And this can sound very sophisticated in the room. You're projecting. You're resistant. You're just dysregulated. You're not ready to hear the truth. Now sometimes those conversations are clinically appropriate. But the key difference is this. Does the therapist remain emotionally collaborative or do they become emotionally superior? because narcissistic therapists often position themselves as the ultimate authority on your reality. And if you disagree with them, that disagreement itself becomes evidence that you're the problem. That is not therapeutic safety. That is psychological domination disguised as expertise. And I think it's also important to understand that emotionally unsafe therapists are not always cold or obviously harmful. Sometimes they are incredibly charismatic, insightful, magnetic, confident, socially admired, even highly respected in their field. But charisma is not the same as emotional safety. Some therapists create a very intense emotional atmosphere very quickly. where clients feel deeply seen, but sometimes what's actually happening underneath is not secure attachment, it's emotional overreach, boundary erosion, or dependency disguised as healing. Because emotionally safe therapy does not overwhelm your nervous system with intensity, it helps regulate it. And over time, good therapy should help you become more connected to yourself, not more psychologically dependent on the therapist. That is another really important thing to pay attention to. Healthy therapy gradually strengthens your self-trust, your clarity, your emotional capacity, your ability to make grounded decisions, but unhealthy therapy can quietly create dependency. Clients begin feeling like, I need my therapist to tell me what's real. I can't trust myself without them. They always know better than I do. And the relationship slowly shifts from therapeutic support into emotional authority. A secure therapist helps strengthen your inner world. they do not position themselves as the center of it. In attachment science, a secure relationship helps you feel safe enough to explore, safe enough to feel, safe enough to come back to yourself. A good couple therapist creates the same emotional atmosphere, not perfection, not passivity, but safety. You should feel heard, emotionally held, not rushed, not shamed, not emotionally invaded. And this matters deeply in couples' work. Because emotionally focused couples therapy is high intensity attachment work. People are often speaking from profound vulnerability, fear of abandonment, fear of rejection, fear of not mattering. A healthy therapist helps regulate the room. But narcissistic therapists cannot truly provide a secure base because the room quietly becomes about their needs, their image, their control, their admiration, their authority. And instead of helping clients safely explore emotions, they intrude into the emotional space. They over-direct, over-interpret, over-control or subtly position themselves as the special person in the room who must not be questioned. And afterward, clients often leave feeling more confused than clear. Another thing I would be cautious of is therapists who always seem to need someone to be the villain, especially in couples' work. Now of course, sometimes there absolutely is abuse. Sometimes there is coercive control. Sometimes there are deeply harmful behaviours that need to be named clearly. But ethical therapists hold complexity carefully. They understand that attachment dynamics are often nuanced and layered. Narcissistic therapists, however, often split people into simplistic categories. The healthy one and the toxic one, the enlightened one and the unconscious one, the victim and the narcissist. And while that certainly can feel validating at first, it can also become psychologically dangerous. Because real attachment work is usually much more complex than one good person and one bad person. Healthy therapists slow things down. They stay curious. They tolerate ambiguity. They help clients understand systems and patterns. Unsafe therapists often oversimplify relational pain because certainty gives them power. One of the biggest green flags in therapy is actually repair. Because therapists are human. Good therapists will sometimes misunderstand something, miss something, get something wrong. But healthy therapists can repair. They can say, I think I missed you there. I may not have understood that correctly. Let's slow that down. That humility matters enormously. Narcissistic therapists struggle with repair because repair requires vulnerability. So instead, they often double down, defend themselves, pathologize the client, or subtly punish disagreement. And clients start abandoning their own instincts to preserve the therapist relationship. This is a dangerous dynamic. I also want to talk gently about something happening structurally in this field. Be cautious of therapy environments that prioritize volume over integrity. Clinics that feel more like emotional conveyor belts than thoughtful clinical spaces. Now this doesn't mean every large clinic is unsafe. Of course not. But some managed hub models become so focused on bookings, revenue and throughput that clinical integrity quietly erodes. And in those systems, problematic therapists can sometimes remain protected because they generate income. The system begins serving the business model instead of the client. And you can often feel this in the intake process. No proper screening, no thoughtful assessment, no concern for relational safety. Just here's the book booking link. But couples therapy is not a casual service. It is a high stakes attachment work environment. Ethical therapists assess carefully before proceeding, especially for coercive control, ongoing affairs, active addiction, emotional abuse, or significant nervous system dysregulation. Because in the wrong circumstances, couples therapy can actually re-traumatize people. And I also want to say something important here. Therapy will not always feel comfortable. Sometimes good therapy challenges avoidance. Sometimes it touches grief, shame, fear. Sometimes it asks us to confront painful patterns we would rather avoid. Feeling emotionally activated does not automatically mean the therapist is unsafe. The deeper question is, do you feel emotionally respected while that challenge is happening? Do you feel psychologically coerced or emotionally supported through the discomfort? That distinction matters. So what should you look for instead? Look for therapists who feel grounded rather than performative. Therapists who can tolerate complexity, who don't rush to label, who remain curious, who don't need to dominate the room. Look for emotional humility, clinical clarity, a willingness to assess carefully. And don't be afraid to ask questions before booking. Questions like, how do you assess whether couples therapy is appropriate? How do you approach emotional safety in the room? How do you handle coercive control or emotional abuse? What model do you work from? What happens if a client feels misunderstood in therapy? A good therapist will not be threatened by thoughtful questions. And perhaps most importantly, pay attention to your nervous system. Not every moment in therapy will feel comfortable. Growth can be confronting, but there is a difference between therapeutic discomfort and emotional unsafety. Your body often knows the difference before your mind does. At the heart of all of this, therapy should move you towards greater coherence, greater self-trust, greater emotional safety, greater connection, not confusion, not dependency, not emotional submission. The right therapist will not try to become the most powerful person in your life. They will help you reconnect with your own capacity for secure attachment, healthy relationships and emotional truth. And that changes everything. Thanks so much for listening to Just Listen To Me. If this episode resonated with you, you can follow the podcast on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, or share it with someone who may need help finding safe, ethical support. And as always, you're not broken. Sometimes the system around people simply wasn't built with enough emotional safety, but healing becomes possible when we finally enter spaces where we no longer have to abandon ourselves to stay connected. Thanks so much for listening and I'll see you soon with another episode.