How to Find a Therapist Who Actually Gets It (If You Grew Up With a Toxic Parent)

If you've ever worked up the courage to share your childhood trauma in therapy, only to have the therapist say something like "but she's still your mom," then you already know how hard this is. Finding the right therapist when you grew up with emotionally immature parents is no small feat.

The Problem With "Keep the Family Together" Therapy

Let's name the elephant in the room: the mental health field hasn't always gotten this right. There's a long-standing belief in the therapy world that preserving family ties should be the ultimate goal. But when you're dealing with a parent who has unmanaged borderline personality disorder (BPD) or narcissistic personality disorder (NPD), that advice can be actively harmful. In these relationships we're talking about abuse, and it boggles my mind how any mental health professional can argue that a victim of abuse should continue to tolerate abuse or somehow be responsible for fixing it.

Your Therapist Needs to Actually Understand Personality Disorders

Working with adult children of parents with borderline or narcissistic personality disorder is not your average talk therapy. It's complex, it's layered, and it involves identifying and unpacking gaslighting, emotional manipulation, and deep attachment trauma. The abuse can be insidious and hard to identify without experience and training.

That's why it's important to ask a potential therapist:

• What's your stance on a client going no contact with a parent?
• Have you worked with clients whose parents have borderline or narcissistic personality disorders (or clients with narcissistic or borderline personality disorders themselves)?
• How do you support clients navigating toxic family dynamics?
• And how do you support a client who's trying to decide whether or not to go no contact?

The goal isn't just to find someone licensed. It's to find someone who will believe you, support your autonomy, and help you untangle the chaos in order to protect your peace, even when that means going against the traditional "family is everything" script.

You're Allowed to Prioritize Your Mental Health, Even If It Disrupts the Family Narrative

So many adult children in dysfunctional families were conditioned to believe their job is to keep the peace, keep the connection, and keep trying, even when it's quietly destroying them. Consider this your permission to stop.

You do not owe a toxic parent another chance. You do not have to stay in a relationship with a parent who has BPD just because they're "trying." You're allowed to choose healing even if it disappoints everyone around you, and your therapist should be backing you up on that, not talking you out of it.

Your therapist should also not be pressuring you to go no-contact. They should be supporting you while you figure out what makes sense to you.

A Good Fit Matters More Than a Good Resume

Credentials matter, but so does alignment. If a therapist dismisses your pain, minimizes your trauma, or insists you just need to "talk it out" with an abusive parent, it is completely okay to walk away. A good therapist should help you set boundaries with toxic parents, not pressure you to tolerate more pain in the name of family.

You Deserve Support That Actually Feels Like Support

Therapy should be a safe place to finally tell the truth, not one more room where you get gaslit, invalidated, or guilted into betraying yourself.

Ready to Feel Seen?

Check out my podcast, You're Not Crazy where I go deep into the nuanced layers of growing up with and healing from parents with borderline and narcissistic personality disorders.

Listen to the You're Not Crazy podcast