Why a therapist is more than a friend for hire
A professional therapist needs to learn how to manage their own emotional responses in the consulting room; they need to become practised at noticing when and how the patient is avoiding sensitive topics, and critically they need to learn what not to say. Psychotherapy is sometimes dismissed as nothing more than a sort of paid-for friendship, but there is more to it than that. Our friends support us and listen to us, but they don’t necessarily have the same commitment to paying careful attention and challenging our assumptions; friendships have an element of mutuality – sparing someone’s feelings, or mirroring them – that therapy may need to omit. At the same time, it is an active process; the therapist can try to foster thinking but cannot do it on behalf of the patient. It comes into its own when patients are trying to work something out, and are genuinely perplexed about their mind or relationships.