55 Times Therapists Couldn’t Help But Pass Judgment On People They Met

Being a therapist means being exposed to a wide range of personality types. Part of their job is to examine these cases objectively, but they’re only human, too. And because of how absurd certain situations can get, some cannot help but pass judgment. 

These responses to a recent Reddit thread may provide further insight into what these professionals deal with from time to time. The stories tackled disturbing parenting practices, questionable romantic relationships, and people’s life choices that may make you shake your head in disbelief or second-hand shame. 

If you’re a mental health professional, your work and services are greatly appreciated. Feel free to share your own experiences in the comment boxes below. 

#1

I worked with a teenager who was struggling with eating disorders, to the point she’d been hospitalized for organ damage at one point a few months before. I went to dinner with the girl and her mother. Her mom spent the entire dinner counting the individual pieces of rice she (the mom) was eating so she could accurately count the calories she consumed. I asked the mom to stop and she just stared at me and asked why she would do that because she had to watch her figure. I wonder where the 15 year old got her eating disorder from…

Edit: for those of you wondering why I was eating with the kid and the mom, the teen was in patient and the mom was visiting. I was working as a psych tech, and the kid wasn’t allowed to eat un-observed since I had to document her food intake to make sure she was eating sufficiently as a part of her treatment plan, so I joined her and her mom in the cafeteria for the meal. I definitely passed along the info about the mom’s eating habits for the therapist to follow up with in family therapy.

Image credits: othybear

#2

When I was an intern in my MSW program I had a 19 year old client tell me she was pregnant, didn't know who the dad was but had narrowed it down to 3 guys, was NOT going to stop smoking m**h and had no intention of attending her obgyn appointments. However, she was going to keep the baby to let her mom raise it, like she did with her other children.

Image credits: SpareToothbrush

#3

I had a woman once bring in her child for scholastic issues. The child clearly had Fetal Alcohol Syndrome. I asked her gently if she consumed alcohol while pregnant, which she confirmed. When I told her that is likely the cause of the scholastic issues, she said "I don't feel bad about it".

FAS in general gives me a case of the WTFs.

Image credits: Complete-Hurry-7160

#4

Had a patient in a group ask for advice because she was feeling pressured into s*x she really didn't want to have. A "friend" had traveled 2 hours to see her and gotten a hotel room for them. The group heard her out, asked questions, and the consensus was something to the effect of "yeah, you probably owe it to him."

It remains one of the only times I've dropped any effort at experiential/socratic questioning and just flatly told people "absolutely not."

Image credits: Not_the_tractor

#5

I had a client admit that they knowingly infected someone with HIV because they themselves were miserable and dealing with active d**g a***ction at the time, and they wanted someone else to be as as unhappy as they were. 

Edit: This is and always has been a hotly debated topic in the healthcare world, for what it’s worth. To clear some things up: No, I cannot call the cops just because my client does something illegal (and this is not an action that was always considered illegal or is considered illegal everywhere, btw!). It has to be something that is actively causing harm, or my client has to have active intent or a plan to cause harm. Whether or not you believe knowingly infecting someone falls within those standards is up to your personal beliefs and the laws and code of ethics of your particular state. And no, I cannot just ignore my career’s code of ethics in the name of doing what I feel is right just because I find a client’s actions abhorrent, or based on my personal interpretation of the code.

Image credits: Square-Raspberry560

#6

My very first intake session ever as an intern was someone telling me they had been hooking up with their cousin since they were kids 🙃 It was quite the introduction to being a therapist! Haha.

Image credits: Tight-Artichoke1789

#7

A client once proudly told me they brush their teeth once a week because 'they don’t want to wear them out and i was likeeee... oh s**t 🤣.

Image credits: lollie22x

#8

I'm not a therapist, but I did volunteer for a year for a s*****e prevention line. I once had a white male client who was essentially seeking help for his sadness relating to POC/queer people. 


He was a white supremacist who wasn't seeking help to y'know, not be a neon*zi anymore. He was sad/disturbed at the state of the world not fitting his racist worldview. Dude tapdanced all around it, but said essentially "I'm upset/sad because not everyone is straight and white" .

Image credits: separatebedhead

#9

I evaluated a child and had to testify in family court. During the court session I learned that the mother had "rented" her oldest daughter to her friends when the daughter was 15-17. The mother told the daughter she "had to do it" otherwise her siblings would be homeless and hungry. Mother used most of the money for d***s. Father pays rents and brings grocery every week because he knew mother didn't have money. Custody was 50/50 when this was happening.

The judge did not terminate the mother's parental rights and mother got supervised weekend visits. The judge said it wasn't clear the mother's intention was for her friends to r**e the daughter so she wasn't going to terminate the mother's parental rights. She went on about the importance of children having a mother in their lives. Till this day, I judge both the mother and the judge.

Image credits: unicornofdemocracy

#10

A client left their pet rabbit on their balcony and knowingly let it starve to death. Didn’t feel bad about it at all.

Image credits: Important_Dark3502

#11

A woman was so desperate for male validation that she allowed her then-boyfriend to install a camera in her teenage daughter's bathroom.

She was the sweetest lady, you would never guess. And she actually had a decent upbringing with positive familial relationships, just her dad worked a lot to support them and wasn't present.

Image credits: sandsstrom

#12

I had this client tell me they were afraid to move forward in their relationship because they thought their partner might become a secret vampire. They were worried that one day their partner would literally start sucking blood. It took everything in me not to burst out laughing. The things people come up with when they're feeling stressed. I totally get it, anxiety can make your brain go wild. I helped them sort through it, and they ended up realizing they were just projecting fears from an old horror movie. Still, that was one of those did I just hear that right moment for me.

Image credits: burtalistu

#13

I had a client report she was happier than ever in her new relationship. She had a stable partner who would help provide for her son. And the best thing was there were no awkward introductions because her son already knew him! He’s her half brother.

Image credits: ABTH88

#14

One of my now adult clients told me about the “child fight clubs” their dad would run. Whoever won got to eat that night.

Image credits: Possible_Ear6115

#15

I once had a man who was attending family therapy with his 3 children, admit that his last child (a girl) was an “accident we tried to abort - we only wanted boys”. The sad thing is, the girl didn’t even look bothered; she had clearly heard it all before. They were attending family therapy as the girl was actively s**cidal and they “didn’t know why”.

Image credits: TheAnxiousPangolin

#16

I heard concerning information about the way a child was being treated (not my patient, but a sibling of the patient that I had never met), called CPS and reported it that day, and the following day found out the child had died. It was traumatizing, and 6 years later I still think about it a lot.

Image credits: rorypotter77

#17

A lovely teen girl was brought to her first appointment with me by her dad. Her mom had, as diplomatically as he could spell it out to me, recently up and left the family to go live some selfish new age lifestyle with a “reiki healer.” Just abandoned him with two kids to raise solo, and he was doing his best for them.

Therapy was the daughter’s idea; she had been having troubling intrusive thoughts lately about school shootings, like…how to plan and execute one, and these thoughts were upsetting to her and she did not want to act on them. I can still picture how scared and sad she looked telling me this. I just wanted to wrap her in my arms, but instead I offered so much praise and encouragement for her seeking help and trusting me with this information. She also met most of the diagnostic criteria for onset of a schizo-affective disorder.

We pulled dad into session, caught him up, explained the most urgent part of the plan: he was going to take her for a full eval with a great psychiatrist colleague of mine who understood the situation and was going to get her in stat. Daughter seemed relieved, dad seemed relieved, we scheduled time to talk soon.

Well, mom woke up from whatever festival ditch she had passed out in to angrily call my office and flip out on me.
How DARE I?!
Am I trying to poison her child with pharmaceuticals?!
Did I EVEN draw her blood and check her vitamin levels?!
Do I want a bad google review or worse yet, a warrant issued for my arrest?!
Do I even understand herbal supplements?!


I need to stop now because my head hurts remembering all of this.

Image credits: justheretoleer

#18

Worked with a former therapist. Most memorable she had was a guy with serious emotional issues. His hands were all scarred up and always had fresh scabs on the knuckles when he came by. He said when he got mad, he would go to his shed and punch the “soft” concrete he had or do the same to a dumpster when he was at work. In his words, he did this to avoid doing it to his girlfriend and kids like his dad to him.

Image credits: SheZowRaisedByWolves

#19

The dad that told me I had 2.5 sessions to "fix" his daughter.

Teenage client who got a giant tattoo of a band she had never heard of.

An extremely a*****e (like I got physically sick reading the reports of what she did to her children) mother who had her children taken by CPS, complaining about the food at the foster home not being fresh enough.

Image credits: Mission_Muscle812

#20

As an intern, I had a couple where the woman was chastising the man because his mother is in an "a**sive cult that tortures children" (mormon). The guy had ex-communicated and doesn't interact with his parents and hasn't for years. She thought this is a good reason to not let him parent his children, like he's not allowed to go out on his own with them because his parents are Mormon. She says she's worried that he will let his mother kidnap her kids and was asking me for support for her beliefs. She was also just calling him names, it was weird.

The whole time he's like "... I don't even talk to my parents and I love my kids".

In the end she said "I guess I'm just a b***h, aren't I?", looking at me as if to get my reaction and I accidentally blurted out "your words, not mine". Woops.

Image credits: Dull-Fisherman2033

#21

Mine is way milder than everyone else's, but when someone brings their child to me and they can't tell me the child's date of birth. It gets me every time. WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU DON'T KNOW?

Image credits: Complete-Hurry-7160

#22

I worked with a man who expressed support of a violent reinstatement of chattel slavery.

Image credits: FreshPressedTofu

#23

A kid came into inpatient hospital after burning down the house with his family still inside, and when asked if he meant to k**l them, all he said with a blank look was, "They got out, didn't they?".

Image credits: ekellyhan

#24

When I was an intern, I met with a father who was having a sexual relationship with his teenage son. The father showed no remorse and accused the son of seducing him because his shorts were too short.

Image credits: Maleficent-Peace-461

#25

There was a car accident, Mother was drunk driving and ended up in a ditch, mom's friend and 8 year old had mild injuries and were admitted to ER for check ups. Medical information for the child didn't match up to what the mother was saying, for some reason a blood test was done and they found out mom wasn't mom. Mom's friend was the actual mother but gave away the kid at a year old due to being tired of being a parent (her words not mine).

It was one of those wtf moments.

Image credits: Sea-Rough-5874

#26

I work as a mental health counselor (I’m licensed as a marriage & family therapist) at a middle school (ages 11-14), I never judge any of the kids actions but some of these parents though. I have had kids literally tell me they’re s**cidal and then I have to call their parent who is effectively annoyed that they have to take their kid to get assessed. I also had a kid in the past who’s parent was about to move across country for some woman they met on the internet and knew for 2 months! Some scary stuff.

Image credits: deweyriley96

#27

Used to work in an acute child psych ward. Saw a lot of angry preteen/elementary (think 8-12 yo) mostly boys, and most often than not, parents treated the kid really harshly and were *shocked* this only made the kid worse. Also worked in an area where they did NOT want to hear their “old school” parenting could be a problem.

Had one dad who said “well ya I will spank him (11yo son) when he gets angry, look I know everyone nowadays doesn’t like that but I was spanked my whole life and I turned out FINE.” It took my entire ability to bite my tongue and not to say “….sir, you just got out of prison 3 months ago after serving 5 years for a violent felony.”.

Image credits: Just-lurking-1122

#28

I work in prison. Anything to do with child s*x offenses or animal a**se pisses me off.

Image credits: psychissick

#29

I was an intern working with veterans. One of them was a s*x offender and was given to me (male) since he was super harrassy with the female social workers. He boasted about how he was wrongfully imprisoned because the two girls he r***d were lucky they got to experience s*x for the first time with an experienced man as opposed to a young boy.

Image credits: DestinyPandaUser

#30

Sitting in a couples session. First session ever with them. And they are openly discussing how they have 10 children between them (from previous relationships) and regularly physically fight each other.

Both described raging so hard they would black out and not remember fights.

Unfortunately after they were unwilling to make a pledge that they would no longer use violence I eventually had to end our therapeutic relationship.

Image credits: Flimsy-Opportunity-9

#31

A woman we'll call Joe who regularly complained of her relationship with her daughter. Her daughter had been taken from her when she was a child (approx 8 years) because Joe wasn't able to parent properly. Joe's driving ambition in life was to get custody of her daughter back but everyone (including her daughter) were conspiring to prevent that from happening.

It turns out Joe's daughter was 21. You can't get custody of a 21 year old, but Joe's fixation is what had driven her daughter away. Imagine stalking your own child trying to get custody of them when they're an adult. Because her daughter was 21 I didn't have to worry about any 'duty to warn' statutes which is good, because that one would have been murky as hell.

#32

NA therapist, but a PO. I worked exclusively with s*x offenders for a long time. Lots of incest and bes******y stories come out during testing. I had a client who had a sexual relationship with their twin, which was…shocking. Other clients engaged in long term sexual relationships with their mothers - I don’t really think there’s much hope for someone who is involved in that kind of a dynamic. I don’t really judge - after 20 years in the business I’ve seen some version of it all by now. I just feel sad for these folks, and their victims.

#33

We get some wild consult requests from time to time, like people who fetishize the profession and non-consensually involve us in their kink via email/phone.

#34

My ex was a therapist and she told me about a patient who kept sleeping with a guy, who'd tell her to get the f**k out the next morning. She was in love with him, but he was openly just using her for s*x. Like he told her that to her face.

This situation happened for over a year. The patient refused to address the situation with him, and despite her claiming to never speak to him again, she'd go out of her way to bump into him and sleep with him around 2-3 times a month.

My ex said she did some research on if she could put a restraining order between the two of them.

#35

Once had a patient fake a seizure for about 30 minutes. When EMTs arrived and checked her, they said “wow, that must be tiring. You could just stop.”

#36

All the couples coming in for marital therapy as a result of deciding to become swingers. WTF did you think was going to happen to your relationship?

#37

Mom admitted she didn’t love her adult kids. The following week she wondered why her kids were “screwed up” and were “so unlikable”.

#38

For me, it was more of a series of moments- I can't help but to feel some kind of way when a parent brings me their teenager who is s******l and/or depressed, and clearly does not care, and the kid knows they don't care. I can have intellectual empathy that something happened to the parent for them to behave that way, but I really struggle when parents bring their teens to me with the intention of "fixing the kid" rather than providing support and guidance for the family. It crushes my soul when I see a teen who is so used to being cast aside that they don't bat an eye when the parent throws a fit because the teen needs to be assessed for safety/s**cidality and it was an inconvenience to the parent, and it's REALLY HARD to withhold judgment in those situations.

Another holy sh*t moment is when one of my clients openly admitted to being racist, homophobic, transphobic, sexist, etc., and he felt good about the fact that he could claim those labels. That was only one of the reasons I had to transfer him, but it sent a chill down my spine when he looked me in the eye, knowing I am a queer therapist, and proceeded to tell me all of the ways in which he hated my community. So ya, there have definitely been some interesting moments.

#39

I was a therapist pretty briefly and moved on to another profession, but I’ll never forget one client in particular during my internship.

My internship was at a site that primarily did court mandated therapy sessions for people who were going through the criminal justice system. This client was in the system because he had m*lested his girlfriend‘s 12-year-old daughter while the mother was in the bed as they slept one night.

As a therapist, they drive it into you pretty hard during your training that we’re all basically good as human beings and I believe that with very few exceptions but this man was an exception. He felt no remorse or guilt for what he had done and what’s worse is tried to justify his actions.

It was clear in speaking with him that this wasn’t the first time something like this had happened not just with this child, but with others. Sitting with him for an hour at a time was difficult and he stopped coming after only a few sessions.

The email I sent to his parole officer stating that he had missed his court mandated sessions was the only one I sent gladly in my time there. I’m sure this man had a terrible childhood himself and perhaps over several years could get to a better place, but in my view, the only place for him was in a jail cell for the time being.

#40

Had a mother in family therapy with her two sons, say how she had paid for a pr**titute for the 16 year old and would do the same for the youngest when he got older because she wanted them "to learn how to do it properly".

#41

I had a dad call me and yell at me for 20 mins because I told his son that he had to take responsibility for himself and his actions.

His son was 16.

Another, I had a middle school kid come in with, what I thought to be his grandfather, actually be his dad. His dad said the mom had run off and wasn’t in the picture. Fast forward 3 months later a very young Eastern European woman comes in wanting to talk to me about her son. When I started to put the pieces together, something seemed…off.

She was a mail ordered bride & admitted to it. The son then confirmed “yeah I know my dad ordered her”.
Wild times.

#42

One man complained about being turned down for jobs that he was eminently suitable for. He had the biggest ego, thought he was perfect. He had a caution on his record for child a**se. His 13 yr old daughter was biting her nails and spitting the bits out. So he r**ed her on the knuckles . . . With a rolling pin.
"It's wasn't a big rolling pin, though".

#43

I had a week where I had multiple male clients who said they couldn’t understand why their wives were upset after they cheated on them/hired s*x workers. It was more so all of those cases together where I was like they can’t ALL be this dumb and insensitive…right?

#44

When I was in my clinical internship shadowing, a client said he was getting off on e**culating into a cup at work and filling it up with water from the communal Brita filter and drinking it around his female colleagues. This poor fellow was horribly sexually a**sed as a child and had several issues with sexual deviancy we discussed, but that one made me think HR HELLO PLEASE STOP THIS MAN.

#45

I had a 11 year old patient proudly show me the tattoo his uncle gave him. I definitely judged that uncle in my mind.

#46

A man in substance a**se group was telling a story and casually mentioned:

"Yeah I grew up in the country.. we were always outside as kids, building forts, playing tag, drowning the stray cats down the well..."

It took the group a minute to absorb the info... and honestly, I just let them have at him.

#47

When a client told me about her grandmother who used to "use her mouth to clean her son's p***s" and check under her skirt to see if she already had pubes or not...

#48

The guy who decided to take a marathon p**s while I’m trying to have a phone conversation about his kids diagnoses. And no porcelain. Only water.

Sweet baby Jesus my brother in Christ: I’m willing to wait for two minutes if you gotta drain it!

#49

I had a preteen client whose guardian kept requesting progress notes to see how they’ve “been doing”. It’s against clinic policy for clients and parents/guardians to have access to the notes; they’re allowed to have access to everything else though. The client was “very defiant” to everyone but was a wonderful kid throughout their treatment with me. When I met both with the guardian and parent, who both insisted on knowing everything about the kid, everything started making sense. Once the parent requested to switch therapists only because I declined their request to the notes, I knew how unhealthy the family dynamics were. I felt bad for the kid because they were opening up more about the family dynamics and how they impacted them; we had a good therapeutic relationship.

#50

We can judge, in fact we have to judge harmful from helpful to be effective at this job. We also have to do no harm and provide the greatest beneficence to our clients.

With that said…I’ve worked with child a**sers and domestic violence perpetrators. On a number of occasions I’ve worked with m**ders and even a few folk involved in dog fighting. The thing that always struck me was not the sociopaths or how many former cops I saw but how easy a few changes in your life and/or brain can lead to someone being just as susceptible to pretty terrible impulses.

#51

Nothing shocks me after 30 years in the field, so I never think "holy s**t." However, the most depressing thing I come across from time to time is the female patient who submits to an a**sive relationship in the "kink" community.

#52

I’ve seen and heard a lot as a therapist. However, my holy s**t moments never come from what my clients say or do. It’s from what their families say/do. I have had two clients that were victims of factitious disorder imposed on another, better known as Münchausen by proxy syndrome. Those mothers surprised me repeatedly. The lengths they would go to keep their child “sick” and to try to convince medical professionals that their child was sick was so extreme. The most insane part is they fully believed the delusion despite numerous professionals stating their child was not sick.

#53

I’m an addictions therapist so I’ve seen people from all walks of life in all sorts of conditions, find it hard to judge anyone for anything as a result.
BUT
I do judge when I’ve got a doctor/lawyer/wealthy individual in my chair, acting like their a*******n is somehow less damaging because of their income, profession, or social status. That their “bad” behavior somehow gets a pass. Respectably, no.

#54

It wasn’t necessarily that it was that bad but completely caught me off guard. I was in a role where I did groups with people who worked together and I also saw them individually. They all knew (through each other and the program they were a part of).

After working with them for almost a year and heading into my final sessions with them, one of them told me that their married coworker (who was also my client) had confessed they were in love with them, wanted to leave their spouse, and wanted me to do a joint session with them. My eyes went wide because it was so unexpected. The married client had never given me any indication of those feelings. And I knew I was terminating with them both shortly.

I didn’t do the joint session with them. And I learned then to have a much better poker face.

#55

I started doing therapy with grandma and her 5yo grandson who she had custody of. She was concerned that he was waking up several times at night screaming. And he kept putting PBJ sandwiches in the VCR and destroying them. Found out she was he great-great Grandmother at 60yo. When I suggested she put the VCR in her room so he couldn't have access to it she said it was his VCR in his room. (She had replaced it 3 times in the previous 6 months). When I asked what kind of shows he watched on the VCR she said, Jason, Michael Myers, and Freddie Kruger. No s**t the kid is waking up at night scared and couldn't sleep!!!

Worked with another grandmother who complained that her grand daughter (13) was dressing too grown and inappropriate and she didn't like it. When I asked they girl what she thought about what her grandmother said her response was..."If she don't like the clothes I wear why she keep buying em for me? I didn't even ask for them. She just keeps bringing stuff home for me when she goes shopping.".