I felt a surge of annoyance that quickly turned to despair when I read Courtney Boyer’s article in the Telegraph this weekend about how she had “opened up” her marriage.

In the article, Boyer described how she married in 2005, had three children with Nate, and then, bored with her domestic situation and at the suggestion of her life coach, proposed an open marriage on the evening of her 17th wedding anniversary. Nate, a busy doctor, was satisfied with their life together, but Boyer, who had by then retrained as a relationship therapist, wasn’t.

As a practicing psychotherapist, I find it misguided to frame this kind of behavior as healthy or self-actualizing. It is nothing more than pseudo-psychology, no deeper than a puddle, which can lend self-serving behavior a veneer of credibility. That is not what psychotherapy is for.

An inherent flaw within the therapeutic process is the superficial presumption that the client in the room is the most important element and that they should “honor their needs” no matter who is hurt in the process. If the client wants something, then the therapist or life coach, according to this belief system, should help them get it. In this way, the therapeutic process has been demoted to “therapeutic support”, and therapists are repositioned as supporters of the client. No longer does therapy offer a challenging but valuable process; instead, in some contexts, we seem more like guide dogs. If therapists aren’t careful, we may induce selfishness.

Indeed, if life coaches and counselors across the world are encouraging adults with real-life responsibilities to act on their passing desires, what will be the fallout for those who rely on them for stability? I know a mother whose 14-year-old told her she had to be allowed to play music at any hour of the night because her therapist said it was beneficial. This created chaos within the household, where younger siblings were forced to listen to techno blasting through the walls into the early hours of the morning.

For Carl Rogers, the father of person-centered therapy, “it is the client who knows what hurts, what directions to go, what problems are crucial, what experiences have been deeply buried.” While this might be inspiring, it is also unrealistic. Clients are often deep in avoidance, and their defense mechanisms prevent their recovery. If therapists allow clients to lead without challenge, destructive behavior can follow.

There are times when it is better for everyone if the client learns to live with something less than perfect because this is the right thing to do. While it is not healthy to promote self-sacrifice or martyrdom, in some cases responsibility to others matters more than personal fulfillment. Yet today’s culture resists this, and rampantly individualistic, self-serving behavior is frequently encouraged. Now that ordinary compromise can be reframed as self-erasure, and responsibility to others is treated as an unacceptable burden, therapy risks becoming an echo chamber for the self rather than a space that balances autonomy with accountability.

When I first studied counseling and psychotherapy, I was a true believer. Now I’m like a priest who has lost his faith. I don’t think therapy is suitable for everyone, and I believe it is clearly unsuitable for some. Many people would be better served learning to direct their own lives in whatever ways make sense to them.

Therapy is not always the answer; sometimes, there is no answer. At times, we simply need to get through life as best we can and cause as little hurt as possible along the way.

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Stella O’Malley is a psychotherapist and bestselling author. She is Founder-Director of Genspect, an international organisation that advocates for a healthy approach to sex and gender.

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