Your Therapist Has Biases. The Question: Is What Do They Do With Them?

Therapists aren't neutral human beings. Our histories, relationships, values, experiences, and beliefs enter the therapy room with us. The clinical responsibility is making sure they don't quietly become our clients' treatment plans.

Two days after I published an article asking whether therapists may sometimes contribute to family estrangement, The Wall Street Journal published piece:

“Is Your Therapist Biased? Personal Agendas Are Creeping Into the Therapy Room.”

Apparently, we're having this conversation.

And I think we should.

But I want to start somewhere slightly different.

Your therapist is biased.

So am I.

Every therapist is.

I know that sounds like a strange thing for a therapist to announce publicly, but there is a little bit of duh in the question for me.

Clinically, we often use words like lens.

A trauma lens.

An attachment lens.

A family-systems lens.

A psychodynamic lens.

A religious lens.

A cultural lens.

And yes, whether we acknowledge it or not, therapists also have political beliefs, personal values, relationship histories, family experiences, identities, losses, successes, failures, and opinions about the world.

We are human beings.

The goal of becoming a therapist is not to somehow scrub ourselves of everything that makes us human until we become perfectly impartial therapeutic robots.

The responsibility is much harder than that.

We have to know when our stuff is entering your therapy.

And then we have to decide what to do with it.

Bias Isn't Always a Bad Thing

This is where I think the current conversation can become oversimplified.

Bias is often discussed as though the mere existence of it demonstrates poor clinical practice.

But our lenses influence what we study, what we notice, what populations we understand particularly well, and even why many of us entered this profession.

My own clinical niche is working with Cycle Breakers.

I work extensively with trauma, attachment, family-of-origin wounds, intergenerational patterns, relational ruptures, estrangement, and people trying to build something different from what they inherited.

I care deeply about that work.

Some of that passion comes from professional training and years of clinical experience.

Some comes from personal experience.

I am a cycle breaker too.

I know what it is like to examine what you inherited, decide what you want to keep, confront what you don't, and intentionally build the life you want.

Of course that influences me.

Pretending it doesn't would probably make me less clinically responsible, not more.

The question is whether my experience helps me remain curious about yours or convinces me that your healing should look like mine.

Those are very different things.

Clients Are Choosing Therapists Based on Bias Too

There is another part of this conversation we shouldn't ignore.

Clients increasingly seek therapists whose values, identities, specialties, or worldviews align with their own.

Some people specifically want a Christian therapist.

Others want an LGBTQ+-affirming therapist.

Someone may want a therapist who understands a particular cultural background.

A client may intentionally seek a politically progressive therapist.

Another may specifically want someone who shares conservative values.

Some clients want therapists who understand nontraditional relationships.

Others want someone who understands that religion and family obligation are central to how they make decisions.

And sometimes that shared lens is incredibly important.

A client should not have to spend half of therapy educating their therapist about fundamental parts of their experience.

But shared values can create another challenge:

Are we choosing someone who understands us, or someone who will agree with us?

Those are not always the same thing.

Sometimes My Internal Clinical Response Is: “I Beg Your Finest Pardon?”

I work with trauma.

People tell me about painful things other people have done.

They tell me about parents.

Partners.

Exes.

Siblings.

Family members.

And yes, there are absolutely moments when something comes out of a client's mouth and my internal reaction is essentially:

I beg your finest pardon?!

I'm human.

I have reactions.

The important part is what happens next.

My internal reaction cannot automatically become:

“Your partner is terrible.”

Instead, I have to return to the person whose therapy this actually is.

Tell me what happened.

How did that feel for you?

What did you need in that moment?

What did you do next?

Has this happened before?

What happens when you try to talk about it?

What would have felt different?

What meaning did you make of what happened?

Sometimes I need to widen the lens even further.

Suppose a client tells me:

“My partner is completely emotionally unavailable.”

Maybe they are.

But before I accept that as the definitive explanation for the relationship, I want to understand more.

Does this person have close friendships?

What are their relationships with siblings like?

How do they interact with their children?

Can they express emotion in other settings?

How do they attempt to connect with their partner?

Are there bids for connection that the couple is missing because they look different from what the other person expects?

Are we looking at a person incapable of emotional intimacy?

Or are we looking at two people inside a relationship that has become so injured that emotional connection no longer feels accessible between them?

Those possibilities lead us toward very different conversations.

Curiosity protects us from turning our first interpretation into the only interpretation.

Clinical Intuition Is Real. So Is Countertransference.

Experienced therapists recognize patterns.

That is part of developing clinical expertise.

When you have spent thousands of hours working with trauma, relationships, attachment, or family systems, sometimes something catches your attention quickly.

That doesn't mean every strong clinical instinct is bias.

But it also doesn't mean every strong feeling is clinical intuition.

Sometimes it is countertransference.

Sometimes the client reminds us of someone.

Sometimes their parent sounds like our parent.

Sometimes their marriage activates something about our own.

Sometimes their decision collides with one of our deepest values.

Sometimes we are simply exhausted.

Maybe it is the sixth emotionally intense session of the day.

Maybe we didn't sleep well.

Maybe something happened in our personal life.

Maybe we are burned out.

Therapists have nervous systems too.

Responsible practice means being willing to ask:

Why am I reacting this strongly?

And then doing something about it.

That might mean consultation.

Supervision.

Our own therapy.

Talking something through appropriately with a trusted colleague.

Rest.

More training.

And sometimes recognizing that we are no longer the right clinician for a particular client.

Self-awareness doesn't mean never becoming activated.

It means not making the client responsible for what our activation does next.

Validation Is Not the Same Thing as Agreement

I talked about this in my article on therapists and family estrangement, but it belongs here too.

We have become very good at talking about validation.

That's important.

People need spaces where their emotions are taken seriously.

But somewhere along the way, I think parts of therapy culture have begun confusing:

“Your feelings make sense.”

with:

“Your interpretation must be correct.”

Those are not interchangeable.

I can say:

“I understand why you felt abandoned when your partner didn't respond.”

without saying:

“Your partner abandoned you.”

I can validate someone's anger toward a parent without diagnosing that parent.

I can understand why a client experiences something as rejection while remaining curious about whether rejection was actually the other person's intention.

Feelings are information.

They are important information.

They are not always objective facts.

Good therapy should be able to hold both truths at once.

Therapists Have to Challenge Clients

I believe this pretty strongly.

Therapists have to be willing to challenge clients.

Not shame them.

Not humiliate them.

Not impose our values.

Not argue with them for sport.

Challenge them.

There is a difference.

Trauma processing requires discomfort.

Grief requires discomfort.

Accountability requires discomfort.

Changing deeply ingrained patterns requires discomfort.

Post-traumatic growth and resilience require learning that we can experience discomfort without automatically needing to escape it.

And culturally, I think we have become increasingly uncomfortable with being uncomfortable.

Sometimes the work of therapy is recognizing:

This belongs to someone else.

Sometimes it is recognizing:

This part belongs to me.

If therapy only helps me identify everything everyone else is doing wrong, I may feel incredibly validated while remaining completely stuck.

That isn't the goal.

When Challenge Becomes “We're Not a Good Fit”

There is another modern variable that I think deserves more conversation.

Therapy has become extraordinarily accessible.

Telehealth has been transformative.

Someone living in a small community may suddenly have access to specialists hundreds of miles away.

People who could not regularly travel to an office can receive therapy at home.

Clients can search for therapists with particular specialties, identities, modalities, and values.

Those are meaningful improvements.

But accessibility creates some unintended consequences too.

On some large therapy platforms, a client can switch therapists almost as easily as changing something in an app.

Sometimes that's exactly what should happen.

There are bad therapists.

There are therapists who aren't competent in the client's needs.

There are genuine cultural mismatches.

There are clinicians who invalidate clients.

There are therapeutic relationships that simply don't work.

Fit matters.

But there is another possibility we probably don't like talking about as much.

Sometimes people keep searching until they find someone who confirms what they already believe.

One therapist challenges the client's interpretation.

Not a good fit.

Another asks about the client's contribution to a recurring relationship pattern.

I felt invalidated.

Another doesn't agree that Mom can be diagnosed as a narcissist based on what has been described.

They don't understand trauma.

Then someone says:

“Yes. Your mother is toxic. You need to protect your peace.”

Finally:

Someone understands me.

Maybe that therapist really is the better fit.

But maybe what changed wasn't clinical competence.

Maybe what changed was agreement.

That possibility deserves some honesty too.

Therapists Can Become Afraid of Rupture

There is another person affected by this environment:

the therapist.

Newer clinicians in particular can take client departures very personally.

A client stops scheduling.

Someone requests another therapist.

Several clients discontinue within the same month.

And suddenly the clinician is wondering:

Was it me?

Did I say something wrong?

Did I challenge too much?

Sometimes the answer is yes.

We should examine that.

Maybe the therapist pushed too hard.

Maybe they moved too quickly.

Maybe they misunderstood something important.

Maybe there really was a rupture they failed to repair.

But sometimes it simply wasn't the right fit.

Sometimes the client wasn't ready for that work.

Sometimes life happened.

Sometimes the client wanted something different from therapy.

Not every client leaving means the therapist failed.

If therapists become so afraid of losing clients that we stop challenging them, the therapeutic relationship becomes distorted in another direction.

Our job cannot become keeping everyone comfortable enough that they continue scheduling.

Social Media Has Entered the Therapy Room Too

Clients aren't the only people scrolling TikTok.

Therapists are there too.

We're on Instagram.

Facebook.

LinkedIn.

We consume podcasts.

We follow clinicians with enormous audiences.

We participate in professional groups.

We absorb cultural narratives like everyone else.

And social media rewards certainty.

Nuance is difficult to fit into a thirty-second video.

“Here are five signs your mother is a narcissist” performs considerably better than:

“Here are several behaviors that could occur for many different reasons, and an accurate diagnosis would require a comprehensive assessment by a qualified clinician.”

One is catchy.

The other is responsible.

There are also people presenting themselves online as mental-health experts who have enormous audiences and very little meaningful clinical training.

Followers can create the appearance of authority.

And people are making real-life decisions based on that content.

That concerns me.

Not because psychoeducation online is inherently bad.

I am writing a mental-health blog on the internet as we speak.

The question is whether we are educating people or handing them conclusions about their lives based on generalized content.

No, Everyone's Ex Is Not a Narcissist

This deserves its own section.

People understandably want to know why someone hurt them.

Especially after chronic trauma.

If someone has experienced years of emotional, physical, or sexual abuse, neglect, manipulation, or instability, the brain wants to make sense of what happened.

Why did they do that?

Why didn't they love me differently?

Why couldn't they stop?

Why did they keep hurting me?

A diagnosis can feel like an answer.

Maybe they're a narcissist.

Maybe.

But diagnosable personality disorders are not an explanation for every difficult parent, selfish partner, emotionally unavailable ex, or painful relationship.

Instead of rushing to diagnose the absent person, I often think there is more therapeutic value in getting curious about the question itself:

What would knowing why give you?

Would it make the experience make sense?

Would it help you feel less responsible?

Would it give you predictability?

Would it validate that what happened was real?

Would it finally organize years of confusing experiences into something coherent?

Those are important needs.

And eventually, healing may require tolerating a frustrating reality:

You may never completely understand why someone did what they did.

You don't need their diagnosis to know how their behavior affected you.

“Encouraging Victimhood” Needs More Nuance Too

This is one place where I think the Wall Street Journal's framing deserves some caution.

The article's subheading references therapists encouraging “victimhood.”

There is a legitimate conversation underneath that phrase.

If therapy repeatedly reinforces:

Everyone hurts me. Everyone else is the problem. I have no agency. There is nothing for me to examine because everything happens to me.

then yes, therapy may inadvertently reinforce helplessness.

But people are also actually victimized.

People experience abuse.

Sexual assault.

Domestic violence.

Coercion.

Neglect.

Discrimination.

Exploitation.

Trauma.

Acknowledging that someone was victimized is not encouraging victimhood.

And prematurely demanding that someone identify “their part” in being abused can cause tremendous harm.

We need enough clinical sophistication to distinguish:

“Something was done to you that was not your responsibility.”

from:

“Nothing in your life is ever yours to examine.”

Those are radically different statements.

Bias Can Push Clients Toward Relationships Too

There is another reason I'm cautious about framing therapist bias primarily as therapists encouraging estrangement.

Bias can operate in the opposite direction.

A therapist may deeply value marriage.

Family loyalty.

Religion.

Forgiveness.

Parental authority.

Reconciliation.

Traditional family structures.

Perhaps the therapist believes children should remain connected to their parents regardless of what happened.

Perhaps divorce violates the therapist's values.

Perhaps abortion does.

Perhaps estrangement does.

“But she's your mother” can be every bit as agenda-driven as “cut her off.”

So can:

“Marriage takes work.”

“You need to forgive.”

“Family is everything.”

A therapist's agenda doesn't become clinically appropriate simply because it favors preserving a relationship rather than ending one.

The client's life still belongs to the client.

Can I Help You Build a Life I Wouldn't Choose?

I think this is one of the most important tests of our work.

My clients do not need to share my politics.

My religion.

My family structure.

My parenting philosophy.

My relationship values.

My beliefs about what makes a meaningful life.

I don't need to want their life.

They do.

My role is to understand what matters to them and help them build a life that aligns with their values, needs, circumstances, and goals.

There are obviously ethical and safety limits to that.

But outside of those limits, effective therapy cannot require someone to become more like their therapist.

Maybe my version of growth would involve greater independence.

My client may deeply value interdependence.

Maybe I would leave a relationship.

My client may want to repair it.

Maybe I would reconcile.

My client may decide they are finished.

Maybe I would parent differently.

It's not my family.

We are not trying to build the best life for me.

We are trying to build the best life for them.

“What Do You Think I Should Do?”

Clients ask therapists this all the time.

And sometimes concrete guidance is appropriate.

Parenting strategies.

Communication tools.

Grounding skills.

Ways of approaching a specific problem.

Therapy does not have to become an elaborate game where the therapist refuses to answer every question.

But when the decision belongs fundamentally to the client, I am much more interested in helping them understand what is making the decision difficult.

What are your options?

What are you afraid will happen?

What would each choice cost?

What do you want?

What are you trying to protect?

Whose expectations are influencing you?

What keeps you from trusting yourself?

Because there is a difference between:

“I want to talk this through with my therapist before I decide.”

and:

“I need my therapist to tell me what the right decision is.”

The first can be thoughtful reflection.

The second is where I begin paying attention to dependency.

Therapy Should Not Make You Need Your Therapist More

This may be the piece of the therapist-bias conversation that matters most to me.

Therapy should increase your capacity to understand yourself.

To recognize your patterns.

To tolerate uncertainty.

To make decisions.

To recover from mistakes.

To identify what belongs to you.

To recognize what doesn't.

To trust yourself.

That doesn't mean clients should stop wanting support.

It doesn't mean there is something wrong with bringing major decisions into therapy.

But I become concerned about therapeutic influence when someone begins believing they cannot make an important decision until they know what their therapist thinks.

I don't want my clients leaving therapy asking:

“What would Sarah want me to do?”

I want them increasingly able to ask:

“What do I believe? What do I need? What aligns with the life I am trying to build?”

Because eventually, I shouldn't be necessary for every decision.

That is not abandonment.

That is the point.

So, Is Your Therapist Biased?

Yes.

I am too.

The better questions might be:

Does your therapist know what their biases are?

Can they tolerate your values being different from theirs?

Can they validate you without agreeing with everything you believe?

Can they challenge you without trying to control you?

Can they distinguish what they would do from what you should do?

Can they recognize when their own history is showing up?

Can they say, “I don't know”?

Can they seek consultation when they need it?

Can they help you explore a relationship without diagnosing someone they have never met?

Can they tolerate you ultimately making a decision they would not make themselves?

And perhaps most importantly:

Is therapy helping you become more capable of building your own life—or more dependent on your therapist to tell you what that life should look like?

Your therapist's lens will always enter the room.

The goal isn't to pretend it doesn't exist.

The responsibility belongs to us as clinicians to know when we're looking through it.

Because good therapy shouldn't teach you to see your life through your therapist's eyes.

It should help you see your own life more clearly.

Related Reading

This conversation overlaps with my ongoing series, Breaking the Silence: Understanding Modern Family Estrangement.

In Part One, “Are Therapists Contributing to Family Estrangement? Looking Beyond the Headlines,” I explore therapists' influence on decisions about family relationships, why validation isn't the same as agreement, the problems with diagnosing people who aren't in the therapy room, and why no contact should not automatically become the therapeutic goal.

In Part Two, “Is Family Estrangement Really Increasing, or Are We Just Talking About It More?” I examine whether research actually establishes that estrangement is increasing and how technology and changing expectations for family connection may be altering what we consider distance.

About the Author

Sarah Benitez-Zandi, MSW, LCSW is a trauma and relationship therapist and owner of Trauma Wise Healing LLC. Her Cycle Breaker approach integrates trauma-informed, attachment-focused, somatic, and relational work with individuals, couples, and adult families.

Her work focuses on trauma, attachment injuries, family-of-origin patterns, intergenerational cycles, relationships, family estrangement and reconciliation, and helping clients intentionally build lives and relationships that reflect their own values.

Sarah provides virtual psychotherapy to clients in Wisconsin, Florida, Illinois, Ohio, Iowa, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Minnesota, North Carolina, Indiana, Colorado, and Virginia.

This article is educational and is not intended to provide individual mental-health treatment, diagnosis, or medical advice.

Sources & Further Reading

Elizabeth Bernstein, The Wall Street Journal, August 22, 2026. “Is Your Therapist Biased? Personal Agendas Are Creeping Into the Therapy Room.” The article that prompted this response. It examines therapist bias, countertransference, personal values, cultural influences, and concerns about therapists steering clients toward particular conclusions or decisions.

American Psychological Association. Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct. Professional ethical guidance addressing competence, conflicts, multiple relationships, avoiding harm, and the importance of recognizing factors that may interfere with effective professional work.

National Association of Social Workers. Code of Ethics. Ethical standards relevant to client self-determination, conflicts of interest, cultural competence, professional judgment, consultation, and the responsibility to avoid imposing personal values on clients.

Research and clinical literature on countertransference. Countertransference has long been recognized within psychotherapy as an important clinical phenomenon requiring therapist awareness, reflection, supervision, consultation, and appropriate management.

Related research on therapeutic alliance and rupture-repair. The psychotherapy literature consistently identifies the therapeutic relationship as important to treatment and recognizes that disagreements, misunderstandings, and ruptures can sometimes become clinically meaningful opportunities when they are recognized and repaired rather than automatically avoided.