Contents

Peak-Growth Mindset

Being Belittled

When people belittle others, it is often a defence strategy, designed to keep them “less than”, the individual doing the mocking, and this allows them to stop listening to that individual, to pretend to themselves that they are irrelevant.

This behaviour is tolerated and encouraged, in places, by society. I’ve just been speaking to one individual where two therapists ended up belittling them, by suggesting their issues were so funny, they should go on stage. I suggest that the individuals experiences were potentially so terrifying to those councillors, that they were heavily in trigger avoidance mode.

Belittling is very often a defense, and when it comes from therapists it is not only defensive but also harmful and unethical.[1][2]

“‘Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too can become great.’ Mark Twain” by QuotesEverlasting is licensed under CC BY 2.0

Belittling as a defense mechanism

Psychological projection and related defenses work by exporting what feels unbearable in oneself onto someone else. When a person mocks or trivializes another’s experience, they can be:[3][1]

Pushing away their own fear, shame, or sense of inadequacy by locating it “over there” in the other person.[4][2]
Creating a quick “one‑down” position for the other so they can feel “one‑up” and therefore safe and in control.[5][6]

In that sense, “If I can make you look and feel ridiculous, I don’t have to take you – or what you stir in me – seriously.” That lines up with the behaviour of our therapists: keeping the other “less than” as a way to justify not listening and to avoid contact with something frightening in themselves.

When therapists do it

Client reports and qualitative research on negative experiences in psychotherapy identify therapist devaluing and invalidation as a common and deeply damaging pattern. Examples include dismissing concerns, making sarcastic or mocking remarks, or treating the client’s problems as trivial or laughable.[7][8]

Such behavior:

Violates core therapeutic principles of respect, validation, and non‑judgment.[9][8]
Often reflects the therapist’s own defensiveness, bias, or unresolved material, not any “truth” about the client.[10][5]
Can leave clients feeling ashamed, confused, and questioning their own reality, with long‑term effects such as self‑doubt, people‑pleasing, and internalized worthlessness.[11][12]

Professional commentary is very clear that mocking or ridiculing clients – whether in session or “offstage” – is an ethical breach and a form of client devaluation, not a legitimate intervention.[13][8]

Fear and trigger avoidance in therapists

Defensiveness research notes that criticism or confronting material that threatens one’s identity can provoke strong defensive reactions, including denial, minimization, and attack. For therapists, hearing experiences that resonate with their own fears, traumas, or shadow material can be terrifying, especially if their reflective capacity is limited at that moment.[5]

In that context, the hypothesis makes psychological sense:

The client brings material that is terrifying or overwhelming for the counselor.

Instead of acknowledging their own activation (“I’m struggling to stay with this”), the therapist flips into avoidance: turning the client’s experience into something “funny,” “over the top,” or “stage material.”

This shifts the emotional burden back onto the client and lets the therapist escape their own anxiety by distancing and ridicule. It is effectively a form of victim blaming.

That fits with the idea of defensive projection and image‑distorting defenses: the therapist protects their self‑image and comfort by distorting and devaluing the client’s reality.

The Peak-Growth Response

From a Peak‑Growth/Peak‑Humility standpoint, a key reframing for people face with this, is:

Their experiences are not “stage material”; the mockery reveals the therapist’s defenses, not the client’s lack of seriousness.
The correct clinical response to frightening or unusual material is curiosity, validation, and, if needed, consultation or referral – not belittlement.
Feeling hurt, angry, or retraumatized by this is completely understandable; it is a kind of relational invalidation that can itself be traumatic.
However, in Peak-Growth, we would understand that everyone is dealing with “stuff”, and that this projection is their defence, and not yours.
Honour, tell you that they are dishonouring you, and that you should leave, and not pay for that visit, due to that therapists behaviour. A boundary alert will be in place.
If they are governed by a governing body, ask them who that is, and where you will need to send the complain to, should you hear anything more about it. However, they may already have gone too far, that is for you to decide.

Seen this way, any client’s sensitivity and refusal to accept being mocked are signs of healthy self‑respect and an intact sense that therapy should be safer and more honoring than that.