{"id":501956,"date":"2026-05-25T15:22:20","date_gmt":"2026-05-25T15:22:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/501956\/"},"modified":"2026-05-25T15:22:20","modified_gmt":"2026-05-25T15:22:20","slug":"how-to-break-up-with-your-therapist-and-the-red-flags-to-look-out-for","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/501956\/","title":{"rendered":"How to break up with your therapist \u2013 and the red flags to look out for"},"content":{"rendered":"

I\u2019m an outlier in New Zealand men by seeking therapy. Only 6.6% of men have sought therapy in the last 12 months, according to the most recent NZ Health Survey \u2013 compared to 11% of women. Yet making the decision to \u201ctalk to someone\u201d is just the first step<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I reached out to friend and psychologist Dr Thomas Whitfield, who routinely posts reels in Instagram about the perils of a therapist who isn\u2019t the right fit. Had I given this psychologist a fair chance, I asked him. Over email he replied, \u201cThis is the part I think a lot of therapists forget, you are working as a team to help the client achieve their goals. This isn\u2019t about what the therapist wants for them, it\u2019s about what the client has said they want for themselves.\u201d<\/p>\n

I now see clicking with a therapist can be as tricky as finding the right romantic partner. <\/p>\n

\u201cSomething I wish I\u2019d learned earlier is that no therapist can work with everyone; with every personality or disorder,\u201d Whitfield explained. \u201cIf they tell you that they can, they\u2019re either lying to you or not being honest with themselves.\u201d<\/p>\n

This is \u201cliterally why specialisations exist,\u201d he continued, but sadly, finding the right therapist with the right specialisation isn\u2019t easy. The sought-after experts in their fields have months-long waitlists.<\/p>\n

Getting in the door is one hurdle. Once you\u2019ve engaged a therapist with a dedication that matches your personality and experience, there are red flags to look out for in your first few sessions. These are the key ones I saw waving at me, but ignored because I just needed someone to talk to.<\/p>\n

You set the agenda<\/p>\n

Vital to look out for is any counsellor or psychologist who seems to be pushing an agenda. I saw this happening multiple times, as the therapist repeatedly tried to get me to discuss mummy and daddy issues that weren\u2019t there. Childhood trauma may have been their go-to area of interest, but not what I was paying to work through.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s more, no person should ever feel judged in therapy, either, whether through silence or pursed lips (as I experienced) or explicit denigration. We go to therapy to feel supported and guided. If, week after week, you don\u2019t feel supported, pack your bags.<\/p>\n

Agreeing isn\u2019t helping<\/p>\n

This isn\u2019t to say a good psychologist or counsellor is there to tell you everything you do is right. Dr Whitfield thinks one of the biggest mistakes in modern therapy is the over-validation of a client\u2019s every thought and emotion. Here flies another red flag. A therapist who blindly agrees with you and lets you carry on unchanged isn\u2019t helping you. \u201cYes, validation is an important part of therapy,\u201d he told me, \u201cBut so is challenging clients to think and behave differently.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a partnership<\/p>\n

What does one do when they feel unsatisfied with their treatment after multiple sessions? The final straw in my relationship with my therapist came in the closing minutes of our sixth session together. As I re-stated my goals for therapy going forward, they went on the defensive for questioning their methods. \u201cI\u2019m the therapist here\u201d, they grumbled at me. I knew trust had been shattered in that moment. What a suitable therapist would have done is found a way to work collaboratively. This is the most positive sign a therapist is a good fit: they are flexible. They take feedback on board and adjust their approach.<\/p>\n

Looking back, I knew circa session three that this person wasn\u2019t right for me. I pushed ahead because I had succumbed to the sunk cost fallacy. Now I see if you\u2019re spending more than a month with someone and the chemistry isn\u2019t there, move on. It\u2019s okay to cut your losses.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve since scoured dozens of psychologists\u2019 profiles on the New Zealand Psychological Society\u2019s website \u2013 which lists specialties \u2013 and found a therapist with a future-focussed approach. This practitioner is a hybrid of psychologist and coach, rather than someone who wants to do an archaeological dig on my childhood and leave me hanging.<\/p>\n

This isn\u2019t to say my previous six sessions were wasted. They showed me what I wasn\u2019t looking for. If every romantic break-up identifies which red flags to avoid in your next relationship, each therapeutic break-up can do the same until you find a true match.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"I\u2019m an outlier in New Zealand men by seeking therapy. Only 6.6% of men have sought therapy in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":501957,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[276],"tags":[829,24195,18,28696,4080,135,8776,19,17,3849,27894,167,502,39615,28404,1214,17619,1213,23602,2046,2924,21003],"class_list":["post-501956","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mental-health","tag-and","tag-break","tag-eire","tag-flags","tag-for","tag-health","tag-how","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-its","tag-look","tag-mental-health","tag-mentalhealth","tag-out","tag-red","tag-the","tag-therapist","tag-to","tag-up","tag-with","tag-you","tag-your"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116635903363381123","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/501956","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=501956"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/501956\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/501957"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=501956"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=501956"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=501956"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}