I Don’t Like My Therapist (Is It Them or Is It Me?)
Short On Time?
Here's two ways to read the article.
We’ve written many articles about how to find a therapist you can afford and how to choose a therapist who’s a good match for you. There are many things you can do to improve your chances of getting a good therapist on your first try.
But what if you put a lot of effort into researching therapists, and maybe even interviewed a few before you picked one, and you still don’t like the therapist you chose? Does that mean you picked the wrong one and need to try a different therapist?
It might, but it could mean other things, too. It could mean you’re still getting used to therapy—or still getting used to your therapist. It could mean your therapist is having a bad month. It could even mean something good—that therapy is already working and starting to bring up difficult feelings.
If the reason isn’t clear, it can help to give it time. Give it a few sessions, then see if you still feel the same way. This will keep you from giving up on a therapist who might actually be right for you. It will also give you time to figure out what exactly you dislike. In time, you should be able to tell whether the issue is that your therapist isn’t so great (or at least not so great for you) or is something you can work through.
Read on to learn some of our tips for what to do when you don’t like your therapist, and how to tell if it means you need to look for a new one.
Want The Inside Scoop?
Listen to Mark and Stephanie share more about this topic in our podcast.
Like what you hear? Hit the subscribe button in the player above, to keep learning how to make the most of therapy.
Why Don't I Like My Therapist?
If you don’t like your therapist, it’s important to try to figure out why. Is it a general feeling or a reaction to something specific?
For example, did they say something that rubbed you the wrong way? Did they do something rude, like take a call during your session (or check their email during your virtual session)? Do they seem cold and distant? Are they too quiet? Do they start sessions late and end them early? Do they just seem kind of useless and like they’re leading you down a road to nowhere?
Or is it something you can’t quite put your finger on? That’s okay. You might not be able to figure it out right away. But it’s good to stay with the question until you do. This will prevent you from giving up and quitting when the problem with your therapist might be a fixable one.
DEEP DIVE
I Don't Like My Therapist Because…
There are many reasons you might dislike your therapist. Some of them suggest you’re not getting good therapy. Others, however, point to something more complicated.
Therapy brings up a lot of difficult emotions, and you might dislike your therapist because you blame them for how therapy makes you feel. So, it helps to sort out whether the issue is your therapist specifically, or therapy in general.
Consider your unique situation, then ask if one or more of the following apply to you. Do you dislike your therapist because:
- You feel judged by them or like they look down on you?
- You feel embarrassed or awkward when you talk to them?
- They’ve been insensitive or careless and hurt your feelings?
- They say or do things that make you feel frustrated or angry?
- They just don’t seem to understand you or your life circumstances?
- They’re not helping you and you feel like they’re wasting your time?
- They’re distracted and aren’t giving you their undivided attention?
- You find their tone, personality, approach, or sense of humor grating?
- You don’t like the method they use or how much (or little) they talk?
These are just a few of the reasons you might dislike your therapist. Unfortunately, none of them tell you right away whether you’re with the wrong therapist or need to wait and see. Read on through the following sections for help figuring out what each one might mean.
It’s not a good sign if your therapist isn’t meeting the bare minimum standard of giving you the amount of time you’re paying for and giving you their full attention that whole time. And there are things they can do that are so bad you shouldn’t give them a second chance to keep doing them.
But sometimes the reason you dislike your therapist isn’t so concrete. You might leave your sessions feeling bad but can’t explain why. What do you do then?
Read on to explore some of the reasons you might be feeling embarrassed, judged, hurt, or angry in therapy. Your negative reaction could be a red flag that something is wrong—or it could just be a natural response to the difficult, often awkward process of therapy.
My Therapist Makes Me Feel Embarrassed or Judged
It’s natural to dislike someone who makes you feel bad about yourself. It’s especially bad when that person has power over you and abuses it to make you feel small.
It’s common to encounter passive-aggression—or flat-out-hostility—in everyday social life. You might have a “frenemy” who subtly puts you down or a family member who judges you harshly and lets you know how much they disapprove of you. You might have a coworker who makes cutting remarks about you or a partner who makes fun of you, then says, “It was just a joke.”
None of this is okay, but there’s one place you definitely should never be judged, mocked, or made to feel small, and that’s the therapy room.
If your therapist is judgy or mean, that’s a huge red flag. Either something is wrong in their life or they’re just a bad therapist—either way, dreading having to see your mean therapist is a clear sign you should ditch them and look for another one.
But wait—don’t run to cancel your next session just yet. No, it’s not right for any therapist to intentionally make you feel judged or humiliated. But sometimes, therapy can make you feel that way no matter what your therapist does (and no matter how they really feel about you).
You talk about some pretty embarrassing things in therapy. You might talk about stuff from your past you want to keep hidden. You may tell your therapist things you don’t feel safe telling anyone else—precisely because you fear others judging or rejecting you for it.
It can feel great to finally be able to talk about it in therapy—but it can also feel awful.
Just talking about this stuff can bring up feelings of shame and self-loathing no matter how warm your therapist’s response is. It’s even worse when your therapist responds with silence or asks a question instead of telling you what they think about what you just said. It’s hard not to feel like they’re sitting there silently judging you and thinking what a weird or bad person you are.
But unless you are, in fact, with a bad therapist, that isn’t what’s happening at all. They’re silent because they’re listening. They’re asking questions because they’re putting things together and looking for patterns that can help them gain insight into your situation. They’re feeling along with you and engaging their empathy before they speak to make sure what they say is helpful.
But without any way to know that, all you can do is sit there and worry. After all, in most social situations that go like this—you say something awkward and the other person just looks at you—it’s a signal the other person is bored, uncomfortable, or can’t believe what you just said.
It can leave you feeling humiliated and like you never want to go to therapy again. And that’s exactly what some people do. They get uncomfortable during their early sessions and don’t come back. They miss out on all therapy could have done for them because they assumed their therapist thought or felt a certain way about them without finding out whether that was really true.
So, please, don’t jump to conclusions. Tell your therapist how you’re feeling and ask them why they respond to you the way they do. You might be surprised by what they tell you.
My Therapist Hurts My Feelings
You probably expect your therapist to be the last person to hurt your feelings.
Most of the time, you’d be right. Therapists want to help you feel better, not worse. But therapists are human, and they have bad days. Sometimes they can get distracted and not be as tuned in to you as usual. They can even uncharacteristically lash out if they’re in an unusually foul mood.
If your therapist says something insensitive, it’s important to note whether it was a rare exception or if it’s becoming the norm. A therapist who frequently says hurtful things isn’t one you should be seeing.
That said, there are so many reasons you can get your feelings hurt in therapy that don’t reflect badly on your therapist at all. Projection can give you unrealistic expectations and transference can make it easy to misinterpret what just happened in the therapy room.
DEEP DIVE
What Should I Expect of My Therapist?
You should expect competent, ethical treatment from your therapist, but it’s not fair to expect therapy to follow a particular script. Unrealistic expectations of a therapist include:
- That they can read your mind
- That they will always make you feel good
- That they’ll agree with everything you say or do
- That they can solve your problems right away (or at all)
- That they always know the answer (but just aren’t telling)
Therapists don’t have all the answers. They’re not experts on life and can be just as baffled by the dilemmas you face as you are.
And while therapists sometimes get intuitive hunches, most of the time, they don’t know what’s going on if you don’t tell them. This is one of many reasons it’s important to talk to your therapist any time something is bothering you.
It’s especially important to tell your therapist when they’ve hurt your feelings. If you don’t talk about it, you may start resenting them, and it’s almost impossible to make progress in therapy if you resent and mistrust your therapist. It makes it inevitable you will need to quit even if your therapist actually was a good match for you, because you never took the time to repair the rupture in your relationship that occurred after they hurt your feelings.
While having that conversation may feel awkward, it’s going to feel a lot more awkward if you don’t have it but keep trying to do therapy anyway. And how your therapist responds to you when you tell them they’ve hurt your feelings will tell you a lot about whether you want to keep working with them.
My Therapist Makes Me Angry
It might seem weird to be angry at your therapist, but it isn’t. It’s the most normal thing in the world.
Why would you be angry? There are so many reasons. It’s easy to get mad when you tell someone something vulnerable and they don’t respond the way you hoped they would.
You might feel like they’re not really hearing you and just aren’t getting it. You might be having a transference reaction that makes it seem that way, or you might be justifiably angry at them for something they did or said that was rude or insensitive. Maybe they really aren’t getting it.
The solution is the same no matter why you’re angry: tell them. Don’t be afraid to express the raw emotion you’re feeling. No, you shouldn’t start screaming and throwing things, but you don’t have to soften your tone and censor your thoughts. You’re not paying your hard-earned money to play nice and try not to hurt your therapist’s feelings.
It’s okay to let it all hang out in therapy—in fact, you need to for therapy to work.
Therapy works in part by helping you access, feel, and express emotions you repress the rest of the time.
If you grew up being taught it’s not okay to feel angry, you might have spent a lifetime stuffing it down. And when you pop the cork in therapy, it can get ugly. A lot of old, repressed anger can rush out.
It can feel overwhelming and like something that shouldn’t be happening. But it’s okay. Therapy is exactly the right place to let it out. Your therapist is trained to handle it and doesn’t need to steer you away from it like most people do. It’s okay even if you’re mad at them.
Therapists expect clients to get angry at them—they even study how to deal with it in school.
The way they respond to your anger will depend on which method they use. Many therapists see anger as a powerful tool that can lead you to breakthroughs in therapy, and they may not only welcome it, but might want to focus on it for a while and see where it leads.
So tell them you’re angry and see how they respond. What they say or do will probably tip the balance one way or the other. Either they’ll respond well and your relationship with them will improve, or they’ll respond poorly and make you dislike them even more. Anger has a way of clearing the air when you let yourself express it.
My Therapist Makes Me Uncomfortable
There are two major reasons you might be feeling uncomfortable in therapy: you’re starting to break through some of your defenses, and you’re feeling things you’re not used to feeling, or your therapist is doing something inappropriate.
Your therapist is going to get personal with you—really personal. They’re a therapist, after all. That might make you uncomfortable. You might not want to talk about certain topics yet—or at all—and that’s okay. It’s okay to tell your therapist you’re not ready to talk about that yet. But it’s not wrong for them to ask, especially if that’s where the arrows of your pain are pointing.
But there are definitely ways your therapist shouldn’t be getting personal with you. They shouldn’t be doing anything that makes you feel unsafe. They shouldn’t be hitting on you or giving you creepy shoulder rubs or trying to get you to go home with them. They shouldn’t be telling you they’re having sexual thoughts about you.
Another thing they shouldn’t be doing is telling you way too much about themselves. While friendships go both ways, the therapy relationship doesn’t. Your therapist shouldn’t be talking about their own problems much (if at all).
You shouldn't leave your sessions worrying that your therapist's life is a mess and wondering if they're actually well enough to help you.
If any of that is going on, feel free to just leave and not come back—and maybe even file a complaint.
But if your therapist isn’t uncomfortably inserting their own needs into your therapy sessions, or crossing professional boundaries in other ways, feeling uncomfortable in therapy might not be a sign that anything is going wrong at all. It could actually be a sign that something is going right.
If the reason you’re uncomfortable is because of the spotlight your therapist is shining on the hidden parts of your own life, ask yourself if this isn’t, in fact, what you came to therapy for in the first place. Moving through these uncomfortable places can help you grow and heal.
Either way, it’s important to tell your therapist that you’re feeling uncomfortable. They may be able to help you process what you’re feeling. They might be able to adjust their method or the pace of therapy so you can still grow without being quite so uncomfortable.
Or they might confirm your worry that the problem is actually them by responding poorly and getting defensive. In that case, you will quickly clarify why you don’t like them and know that it’s time to move on. But the only way to find out is to tell them and see what they say!
My Therapist Just Doesn't Get It
It’s irritating when you keep telling someone something over and over again and they’re just not getting it. It’s beyond irritating when that person is your therapist.
It’s possible the reason you feel like your therapist doesn’t get it is that you’re getting to something deep in therapy and you’re having a transference reaction. Wounds from adolescence may emerge from the psyche with that teenage feeling: “No one gets me!”
But there are plenty of ways your therapist might actually, truly not get it. And if your therapist doesn’t get it—doesn’t get you—they’re not the right therapist for you.
DEEP DIVE
Does My Therapist Have to Be Like Me to Get Me?
Good therapists are gifted with empathy, imagination, and the will to understand their clients. But even the best, most well-meaning therapists are limited by their life experiences.
A therapist doesn’t have to be from the same cultural background as you to help you, but they have to put in the effort to learn about where you’re coming from.
As part of their education, therapists have to read, hear, and learn about how people from different racial, ethnic, or cultural backgrounds experience the world. They have to study how class, race, gender, and sexuality affect a person’s experience.
It’s a requirement of their license that they continue to study and develop their cultural sensitivity and knowledge throughout their career. Good therapists do this naturally anyway.
If they don’t, they can’t do their job—at least not with clients who are different from them. If they can’t see the lens they’re looking through, they can’t understand how it affects what they see. But if they do, they can shift their perspective to better understand how the world looks to you.
So, no, your therapist doesn’t have to be just like you to get you. But they have to do the work. And it’s up to you to grade them on that work and decide whether they’re qualified to be your therapist.
Most of our core wounds have to do with our sense of self and whether we believe other people can understand, love, and accept us for who we really are.
Therapy is all about digging through the calloused layers on top to get down to those core wounds, and as you get closer, you might start feeling things you haven’t in a long time.
“No one will ever understand or care” and “No one will ever love me,” are classic cries of the heart from a wounded core self. Tread carefully when you get here in therapy, and healing can happen. Tell your therapist what’s going on inside. It is likely they will respond with empathy and acceptance.
Realizing your therapist accepts even the parts of you that make you feel the most unlovable can lead to a corrective emotional experience. These moments in therapy can be powerful enough to help you let go of shame or self-doubt you’ve carried your entire life.
Everyone deserves the chance to have this experience in therapy. And it’s almost impossible to have if your therapist truly doesn’t get it.
But ultimately, it’s up to you to determine whether they do, and whether they can help you. (You can go here to find some questions you can ask your therapist to help you decide whether they can.)
My Therapist Isn't Helping Me
It’s hard to like someone when you feel like they’re wasting your time. It’s even worse when you feel like they’re wasting your money. Your therapist shouldn’t be doing either.
Therapists have an ethical obligation to be competent. In order to maintain the professional standards required for licensure, they must never offer any services they’re not qualified to provide. They should also be keeping up with continuing education to make sure their knowledge is up to date.
If your therapist is incompetent and isn’t helping you, it’s time to look for a competent new therapist who can. But before you walk away, ask yourself if you’re sure they’re not helping you. Progress in therapy can be tricky, nonlinear, and hard to track.
DEEP DIVE
How Can I Tell If I'm Making Progress in Therapy?
It’s not always easy to tell if you’re making progress in therapy. Healing deep issues takes time and sometimes you don’t realize you’ve been doing it until you have a “sudden” breakthrough many months later.
That said, there are some signs you can look out for that show therapy is helping you. If you’re not sure whether therapy is working, ask yourself:
- Have my symptoms improved?
- Do I feel less anxious or depressed?
- Have my relationships gotten better?
- Have I changed things I’ve wanted to change?
- Am I feeling less numb and feeling more of my feelings?
- Do I understand myself better? Do I accept myself more?
- Do I have better boundaries around my time and energy?
- Am I doing more things that I enjoy and fewer things I don’t?
- Is it easier for me to stand up for myself and ask for what I need?
- Have I picked up any healthy new habits or dropped any bad ones?
- Have I felt safe enough to try new things and have new adventures?
- Have I made progress on personal goals I had before starting therapy?
- Am I using anything I’m learning in therapy outside the therapy room?
- Have I discovered deeper goals I want to pursue or deeper wounds I want to heal?
These are just a few of the signs that therapy is actually working for you.
Weirdly, another sign of progress can be that you’re feeling a little worse. Therapy is about helping you feel all of your feelings, the bad as well as the good.
It makes sense when you think about it. Having the emotional fortitude to be present with negative emotions can help you move away from bad, limiting habits and take risks that increase your happiness and life satisfaction.
That said, you should be able to see how going through something difficult in therapy is helping you understand yourself, feel and heal old grief, or build the strength to make the changes you want to make in your life. Therapy shouldn’t feel hard for no reason.
It might feel especially awkward to tell your therapist that you don’t feel like they’re doing a good job. But it’s really important.
Therapists get frustrated, too. They want to see you make progress, and sometimes they’re trying really hard to help but can’t figure out what they’re doing wrong.
The only way to break through this barrier is to talk about it. Having an honest conversation about what’s not working for you in therapy can give your therapist the information they need to adjust their approach so it does start working.
Most therapists have a range of tools and techniques they can use to help you. They can swap out those tools as needed. They can speed up or slow down the pace of therapy. They can shift the focus of your sessions from one area to another. They can lean harder into what does work.
But they don’t know to do any of that unless you tell them.
What If I Just Don't Like My Therapist?
There are many reasons you might not like your therapist. Some of them are deep, and particular to the dynamics of the therapy relationship, but not all of them are.
Maybe their sense of humor grates on your nerves. Maybe they’re too warm and bubbly or too dry and intellectual for you. Maybe you just wish you had a therapist who was a little less boring.
Look—it’s okay if you just don’t like your therapist. Therapists are people, and not all people like each other. Not all relationships work even if nothing is wrong with either person in the relationship. There are a lot of therapists out there, and chances are good you can find one who doesn’t work your last nerve.
DEEP DIVE
Does Method Matter?
Sometimes the reason you don’t like a therapist has nothing to do with them personally.
When a therapist uses a therapy method that doesn’t click for you, therapy probably isn’t going to work even if you click in every other way.
As with anything else in therapy, something you didn’t like or respond to early on might start to work after you get used to it. Most therapy methods feel weird at first. So, give it time before you decide it’s not for you.
But some therapy methods just aren’t going to meet your needs—because they weren’t designed with clients like you in mind. Some methods work much better than others to heal trauma or to treat specific mental health conditions like depression or anxiety. Some are better for certain kinds of personal growth than others.
So if over time, you feel like therapy isn’t working, you might need to see a therapist who uses a different method. You can read our article, “Which Therapy Method Is Right for Me?” to learn more about some of the most popular therapy methods and to get a sense of which one might work best for you.
The healing you do in therapy hinges on the quality of your relationship with your therapist. It’s really important to click with them in at least a basic way—to like and trust them enough to open up to them.
You don’t owe it to your therapist to keep working with them if it isn’t working for you. They wouldn’t want you to do that, anyway. They want you to get what you need out of therapy, too. They don’t want to waste your time and money—or their own time working with a client who’s not benefiting from their approach.
Therapists are professionals and understand they’re not going to be the right therapist for everyone. They’re not going to take it personally if they’re not the right match for you. If you tell a good therapist it isn’t working, not only will they not be offended, they’ll probably be able to help you find another therapist who is a good match for you.
Conclusion
If you don’t like your therapist, it’s okay to look for a new therapist you do like. But it’s important to take the time to figure out if the issue really is your therapist first.
Therapy doesn’t always feel good, and it’s easy to make the mistake of blaming and disliking your therapist for making you feel bad when feeling bad is sometimes just part of the process.
You might feel angry or hurt because your therapist saw something in you that you didn’t want them to see. You might feel uncomfortable because feelings you normally repress are bubbling up in therapy. You might feel judged because you’re judging yourself for what you just talked to your therapist about.
Or you might feel angry, hurt, uncomfortable, or judged because your therapist sucks. The only way to clarify what’s going on is to talk to your therapist about it.
If you tell a good therapist that you’re not liking or getting much from your sessions, they will work with you to figure out what’s going on and either adjust their approach or help you find a therapist who’s a better match.
Unfortunately, it’s easy to end up playing out the same pattern with your therapist that you do in your other relationships: you don’t stand up for your needs, or even say what they are, so they don’t get met. Then you start to resent the person who isn’t meeting them.
Therapy is the perfect place to practice breaking this pattern. Your therapist can handle your anger, sadness, and disappointment. Thanks to their training, they’re better at dealing with negative emotions and having difficult conversations than just about anyone.
In fact, progress in therapy often depends on getting those feelings to come out and talking about them.
It’s amazing to have a therapist respond to your anger or pain with openness and kindness instead of defensiveness and to show you that your feelings and needs matter to them.
Being able to resolve problems in your relationship with your therapist not only strengthens that relationship, it can heal old wounds. It can lead to corrective emotional experiences that help you rewrite the scripts you play out in your other relationships. And that can change your life!
So, please, if you don’t like your therapist, don’t suffer in silence. Don’t quit before you’ve had a chance to talk to them about it and figure out why you’re feeling this way. Tell them how you’re feeling. You can be as blunt or as delicate as you like. Their response might prove this just isn’t going to work, but it could also become a turning point. Give it a shot—better therapy could be just one conversation away.