What are the top 3 things which are the most helpful in psychotherapy What are the 3 least helpful things about psychotherapy

Most helpful:

1. Can be life-saving

2. Helps make sense of senseless things

3. Can be life-changing for the better, when it works

Least helpful:

1. Finding a counselor with which you connect

2. Establishing a repoire

3. Establishing complete trust in sharing, being counseled by this person

The "connection" between the counselor and client is pretty important, at least to me. There has to be a way for both to establish a safe, trusting relationship so that the client can work through concerns, trauma, etc and not feel unsafe about any of it, yet be able to accept and understand how to view these problems with the counselor's help so that some resolve can be gained over time, helping the healing process.

(That was a long, run-on sentence, but I'm not going to edit...)

The hardest things, I believe are the issues of establishing trust and safety which require a certain "connection." It's a delicate dance because the counselor has to maintain professional distance while assuring safety and trust, empathy and insight. The client in many cases risks the problems of codependency on the counselor, depending on the issues being addressed. Codependency can be an easy trap to fall into by both client and counselor in some cases.

Those are my thoughts.