Written by Adrian Yates, psychotherapist and hypnotherapist with nearly 20 years of clinical experience.
Personal reflections on therapy, trust and professional power
Welcome to Therapist Insights. I’m Adrian.
I trained in hypnotherapy and psychotherapy and worked as a therapist for around eighteen years. For more than fourteen of those years, I ran an independent online therapy practice, beginning in 2011 when working entirely online was still unusual and often treated with suspicion by parts of the profession.
I am now semi-retired from full-time practice. Between Paths is one of the ways I use what I learned, not only from training and theory, but from years of sitting with people who were frightened, ashamed, angry, grieving, confused, hopeful, stuck, and sometimes harmed by the very people or services they had trusted to help them.
This page is where I share personal reflections on the therapy world. What I learned. What still concerns me. What I think people deserve to know before entering therapy, while they are in it, and after something has gone wrong.
These are my views, shaped by experience. They are not the final word. Therapy is deeply personal, and what feels right for one person may not feel right for another.
Take what helps.
Question what does not.
Keep hold of your own judgement.
Therapy can be powerful without being beyond question
I still believe good therapy can change a life. I have seen people begin to understand themselves differently, step out of destructive patterns, find words for something they had carried in silence, and make choices that once felt impossible.
But therapy is not magic, and it is not automatically safe because someone has a title, a qualification, a professional badge or a confident way of speaking.
At its best, therapy is a human relationship built on trust, respect, honesty, care and the client’s freedom to think. At its worst, it can leave someone feeling dismissed, dependent, confused, shamed, pressured or less able to trust themselves than they were before.
That is why honest information is important. Not to frighten people away from therapy, but to help them recognise the difference between support and control, challenge and humiliation, professional care and personal need.
Therapists work with people at vulnerable points in their lives. That creates power, even when the therapist is kind, informal or uncomfortable with the idea that they hold it.
Power does not disappear because someone means well.
Therapy is a human interaction
Therapy can draw from research, theory, training and experience, but it still takes place between human beings.
It involves memory, emotion, relationship, fear, hope, personality, culture, context, timing and the meaning a person gives to what has happened. You cannot measure grief in the same way you measure temperature. You cannot put heartbreak in a test tube. A brain scan cannot tell you everything about why a person is sad, frightened or unable to trust.
Evidence has a place. So does professional knowledge. But neither should be used to flatten a person into a diagnosis, a theory or a branded treatment method.
The client is not raw material for the therapist to interpret correctly.
They are a person with their own history, language, contradictions, values and right to decide what fits.
What early online therapy taught me about professions
When I first began offering therapy online, it was not widely accepted. Some therapists dismissed it. Some ridiculed it. A few were openly hostile.
At the time, I did not know how to deal with that level of criticism and aggression, so I stepped back from many professional online spaces. It was easier to keep doing the work quietly than to keep defending something I had researched carefully and believed could help people who might otherwise struggle to reach therapy.
Years later, online therapy became ordinary. During and after the pandemic, many of the arguments against it seemed to disappear almost overnight.
I did not forget the earlier reaction.
It taught me something uncomfortable. When a familiar way of working is challenged, parts of a profession can become defensive before they become curious. Status and group agreement can sometimes be mistaken for truth.
That experience changed how I saw the therapy world. I still valued the work, but I became less willing to assume that professional confidence was the same as wisdom.
A profession should be able to question itself.
A therapist should be able to hear criticism.
A client should not have to become silent to protect either of them.
Qualifications are important, but they do not guarantee safety
Training and professional registration can provide standards, ethical frameworks and routes for complaints. They are worth checking.
They cannot guarantee that every therapist will be emotionally safe, self-aware, honest, competent or right for you.
I have worked with people who came to me after harmful experiences with therapists who were qualified and professionally recognised. Some had been dismissed. Some had been made to feel small. Some had been pushed too quickly. Some had begun to believe that disagreeing with the therapist proved they were resistant, damaged or unable to understand themselves.
This does not mean all therapists are unsafe. It means titles alone are not enough.
Trust should grow through the way someone treats you. A good therapist should welcome reasonable questions, respect your pace, explain what they are doing, and understand that you are not there to serve their theory, ego or need to be right.
Why I remained independent
My experience of professional organisations was mixed. I understand why standards change, particularly around safeguarding, record keeping and online work. Professions have to review what they do.
At the same time, it sometimes felt strange to be told that I needed to update my understanding of online work after it had already been my everyday practice for many years.
Eventually, I stepped back from full-time private practice and let my professional membership lapse. I am not currently registered with a professional body, and I prefer to say that plainly rather than imply an accountability I do not have.
That does not make registration unimportant. It means I do not believe registration should be presented as a guarantee that removes the need for personal judgement, transparent practice and earned trust.
Independence also carries responsibility. It should never become a way of avoiding scrutiny. Anyone offering therapy should be open about their training, current status, boundaries, limitations and the routes available when something goes wrong.
Honesty before reassurance
I would rather tell somebody the limits of what I know than use a confident voice to make uncertainty disappear.
I would rather explain what therapy can and cannot offer than sell hope by promising an outcome no one can guarantee.
I would rather a person question me than trust me because they think a therapist should not be questioned.
Why I still write about therapy
I write about therapy because I still care about what good therapy can offer.
I also care about what happens when it goes wrong.
The two positions are not opposites. In fact, I think anyone who values therapy should be willing to look honestly at its risks, blind spots and power imbalances.
Criticism is not an attack on therapy. Sometimes it is part of protecting what therapy is supposed to be.
Good therapy should not ask you to hand over your judgement at the door. It should not make you smaller. It should not train you to mistrust every feeling, memory or boundary that does not fit the therapist’s interpretation.
It should help you become more connected to yourself, not more dependent on the therapist’s approval.
Not anti-therapy.
Not anti-therapist.
Pro-awareness.
Pro-client.
Pro-honesty.
If you are looking for a therapist
You do not need to begin with blind trust.
You can begin with curiosity. Ask about training, professional registration, confidentiality, records, fees, contact outside sessions, supervision, methods, endings and what happens if you disagree.
Pay attention not only to the answer, but to how the therapist responds to being asked.
Trust is not something you owe because someone has letters after their name. It is something that develops through consistency, honesty, respect and the freedom to remain a separate person.
You are allowed to pause. You are allowed to say that something does not fit. You are allowed to seek another opinion. You are allowed to leave.
You are not being difficult because you want to understand what is happening. You are not unreasonable because you want therapy to feel safe. And you are not alone if an experience has left you confused, disappointed or hurt.
Therapist Insights and therapy-safety resources
These pages explore different parts of the therapy relationship. They are written for people considering therapy, people already working with a therapist, and people trying to understand an experience that did not feel right.
Red Flags in Therapy
How to distinguish difficult therapy from patterns involving dependency, secrecy, pressure, exploitation or loss of trust in your own judgement.
Therapy Safety
A wider introduction to boundaries, warning signs and what respectful professional support should look like.
Healthy Boundaries in Therapy
Why clear boundaries protect the client, the therapist and the honesty of the work rather than making therapy cold or distant.
Therapist Accountability
What accountability means when a therapist makes a mistake, causes harm or refuses to hear a client’s concern.
Why Some Therapists Are Bad, or Become That Way
A reflection on power, isolation, certainty, poor supervision, unmet needs and the gradual erosion of professional boundaries.
When Therapy Marketing Misleads
Neuroscience language, testimonials, certainty and promises of transformation can create persuasion without giving people honest evidence.
The Cognizance Therapeutic Principle
The principle that the client remains in charge of their own meaning, choices and pace, even when a therapist offers challenge or another perspective.
Is This Abuse?
A careful reflection on control, fear and harm, including situations where professional authority or care is used against someone.
Between Paths provides general information and personal reflection. It is not a professional regulator, complaints service, safeguarding service or substitute for legal, medical or emergency support.
Therapy should support your sense of self, not take it away.
Trust should be earned.
Your questions belong in the room.
