The Most Dangerous Moment in Therapy is…

is when the therapist already knows what your problem is!!

Not when they get something wrong

That can be corrected

The dangerous moment is when they stop being available to discover that they might be wrong

You mention addiction
They already know it’s a disease

Or trauma.
Or attachment
Or dopamine
Or childhood neglect
Or avoidance
Or defects of character
Or a nervous system problem
Or whatever explanation they were trained to see

And then something subtle happens

The questions start serving the explanation

Your answers are interpreted through it

What fits is noticed

What doesn’t fit needs explaining away

If you agree, the model is confirmed

If you disagree, perhaps you lack insight

If treatment works, the model worked

If it doesn’t, perhaps you weren’t ready

Eventually the person can no longer prove the explanation wrong

And at that point I’m not sure we’re doing therapy anymore

We’re fitting a human being into something we already believe

I know this because I’ve done it

For years, I believed I understood addiction because I had lived it, recovered from it and spent decades around recovery

I had answers

A lot of them

What I had much less of was the ability to sit with someone and genuinely not know

Today I begin somewhere different

I may have ideas

I may have experience

I may notice patterns

I may even have a strong orientation towards seeing behaviour as intelligent adaptation rather than defect

But none of that gives me the right to decide what another person’s experience means

The person still has to be able to prove me wrong

Maybe that is one of the simplest tests of any helping relationship:

Can the person in front of you still change your mind about them?

If not, you may no longer be listening

You may just be looking for confirmation