So ...self-therapy, when one faces this obstacle?
You can't really suggest for yourself anything you haven't already thought of, it severely limits your options.
There must be cases where it is the "autonomy" should be the factor. Those with compulsion or even ADHD (executive control dysfunction) could probably use the structured method. What you describe also sounds compulsive; though you recognize the self-defeating nature, you're drawn into the person like a magnet through their behavior. You know what the whole set up is about, why it's structure that way. You are being self-aware about this, sure, but perhaps they didn't recognize the nature of this in this way, which would have them offer an appropriate strategy?
Even if they were to be patient with that or even play along by unprofessionally yielding things about their personal lives, I still haven't really seen them suggest something that's otherwise helpful and likely tried and pondered over already.
If it works for the therapist to be in therapy, my first question would be over if they found therapy to be helpful before they became a therapist. A lot of why the methods work are seriously like a combination of the Doctor professionalism angle and the mentalism of a modern magician, which is why they'll even opt for placebo solutions or mind tricks at points as long as it doesn't breach their contract with the field.
So far they've had nothing to offer, and I'm not really sure what they could provide other than someone to talk to who will not have a real conversation.
The thing is, though, plenty of therapists have their own therapists, don't they?
How often do you think that ends up helping them?
What I think isn't necessarily pertinent, but probably as much as anyone else, perhaps with a little added suspension of disbelief (which may certainly feed into more neurosis).
I often figure that if they went into the field of psych that they were looking for some way to either help themselves or have a history with a troubled family member.
It often goes back to the urge to help others over how they cannot help themselves, like an alcoholic one I knew for a while who, in spite of that, stayed sober for his work in trying to help other alcoholics quit.
He'd try to couch their desperation as things they were doing, like telling us how some would drink Scope for it's alcohol content when desperate enough, but... he understood the problem intimately.
There has to be some meta-level available to even therapists, for they are human too, and you're well aware many get into the field from the simple fact they have the interest because of their own problems.
They tend to fall into the deep end of the Dunning Kruger problem; The more they know, the harder it becomes to be confident over it.
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