Time to Fire Your Therapist?

#5: Paws & Reflect with Steve & Nigel

Mar 16, 2026

Last week, I was working with a group of men on the topic of building intimacy with their current partner (or, for single men, a future partner) when I asked the question: “Do you believe an abuse-free relationship is even possible?”

The whole reason I asked the question was my sincere uncertainty about their position on the matter. I wondered: Am I wasting my time trying to teach this to men who fundamentally don’t believe that a good relationship is impossible to achieve so long as abuse remains an option?

I was pleasantly surprised by the unanimity of the responses. Not only had this particular group of men seen that abuse—of all kinds—was inhumane and therefore morally wrong, they also saw the elimination of abuse as a logical foundation of a good relationship: one that was enjoyable and truly intimate, where both parties could feel safe enough to open up and share who they are with one another.

The group also had a collective understanding that the development of intimacy—that is, safely sharing our lives with one another—is a process, not an all-or-nothing proposition where one instantly proceeds from Law of the Jungle yelling and screaming to Zen-like patience and perfect behavior.

With my question answered, I began to move forward; however, one of my clients had a disturbing story to share.

His girlfriend, who had recently moved to LA, had found a new therapist. When she went to her first appointment, things got really weird.

All therapists try to do some assessment of their new client’s issues, and they are usually pretty socially skilled as they get to know the client in an effort to develop what we in the therapy business refer to as a “therapeutic alliance.” This alliance is part of joining with the client because, surprise, surprise, no one can help someone in this kind of work without some basic level of trust.

This therapist, who happened to be a woman, was no exception to this getting-to-know-you process. She asked a few questions about her new client’s boyfriend (my client) and then learned that her client earned a rather substantial amount more than he did.

Her next comment threw her new client off-kilter. “Oh, that’s never going to work,” said the therapist. “You’ve got to get rid of him.”

Even relating this story now, I feel that same off-kilter feeling the girlfriend described to her boyfriend. It’s the feeling you’re really not supposed to have in a therapist’s office—the feeling we all get when someone is dismissive of our lives and our choices, when we’re badly misunderstood, when something feels wrong. What did I just sign up for? This isn’t therapy, is it?

The girlfriend had done enough work of her own that she spoke up to the authority figure, explaining to the unsolicited-advice-giving professional: “Oh, that doesn’t matter to either of us. We don’t care about that. What we’re working on is building an abuse-free relationship.”

The therapist sneered and said, “Oh, that’s not a thing.”

Things got pretty quiet as the client reflected on the two significant responses she’d received following her disclosures about what she wanted from therapy and what she was comfortable with in her relationship. Giving unsolicited advice was bad enough—and made worse by the therapist’s sexist gender expectation of the male as primary provider. But for a therapist, who presumably was not in favor of verbal abuse, much less domestic violence, to repudiate the very notion of an abuse-free relationship as “not a thing” was stupefying.

In that moment of clarity, the client realized: I’ve come to the wrong place. I’ve got to get out of here. And she did—never to return.

Sure, this is the story of an unskilled therapist who clearly needs more therapy of her own. But it is also a story about each of us as consumers. Whether it’s a doctor, a lawyer, a dentist, or a therapist, we each have a responsibility to look out for ourselves—or, as the Romans said, caveat emptor: let the buyer beware.

There are professionals in every field who don’t really know how to do their jobs, who don’t subscribe to the ethical principle of primum non nocere—“do no harm.” There are also professionals who don’t think rationally, and sometimes you encounter someone who claims to be a relationship expert and then goes on to explain that earning money is a man’s job and that an abuse-free relationship is simply not a thing. Sorry, but no.

We need to be ready, at a moment’s notice, to fire such people.