Additionally, most of the people I know who practice it professionally were by far the most traumatised people I know. YMMV of course. I feel like in an attempt to heal themselves, they gravitate towards trying to heal others.
Ding ding ding, my pet theory is that the people who are traumatized or repressed are drawn to psychotherapy in an attempt to self-diagnose and work things out for themselves. Even if they do go for psychotherapy with a doctor it is typically is not very effective in my experience. There are three people I know well who have gone down this road, all three were probably traumatized as children. One uses psychopharmaceuticals to deal with their depression in addition to avoiding discussing anything they view as "negative". Another is a repressed homosexual whose closet goes to Narnia and is an avid Trump supporter. The third was molested by their father for years and never developed a stable relationship as far as I know. Yet they feel that their psychological knowledge is sufficient to diagnose and treat others when the issues that drew them to getting into psychology remain unresolved. Go figure.
