The Hilary Silver Podcast - Why This Ex-Therapist Is Now an Outspoken Critic of Therapy

Episode Date: February 13, 2026

After 14 years as a licensed therapist, Hilary walked away from her practice because she stopped believing in the long-term model. Therapy, she argues, is powerful when you are in a true crisis or dealing with real mental illness. It can pull you out of the hole. But once you are stable, why are so many smart, capable women still sitting on the couch week after week talking about the same problems? At some point you have to face the fact that therapy isn’t moving you forward. This conversation challenges the culture of endless processing, over-identifying with labels, and outsourcing your clarity to a paid professional. Insight feels good. Validation feels even better. But are you being challenged? Are you building skills? Is there a clear endpoint? Hilary makes the case that awareness without action keeps you looping in the same patterns, and that real evolution requires structure, accountability, and someone strong enough to tell you the truth. The question she leaves you with is simple and a little uncomfortable: are you actually moving forward, or are you just really good at talking about why you are stuck? Episode Highlights: When therapy is absolutely the right tool and when it is not How long-term therapy is actually a problem Why insight alone rarely creates real change The cultural obsession with labels and attachment styles What to look for if you want growth instead of endless processing Episode Breakdown: 00:00 Why I Walked Away From Therapy 03:02 When Therapy Actually Works 06:12 How Therapy Creates Dependence Instead of Self-Trust 11:53 Why Insight Alone Does Not Create Change 15:10 The Problem With Endless Therapy and No Clear Endpoint 17:53 Coaching vs Therapy for Real Personal Growth ✨ I’m Hilary Silver, LCSW, former psychotherapist turned master coach and founder of Ready for Love. I help high-achieving women show up in love as confidently as they do in their careers. 💡 Through this podcast, I share my WOMAN-centered, SELF-centered approach—time-tested methods that blend psychology, brain science, relationship skills, and no-BS dating advice. 🎙️ Since 2017, we’ve helped over 10,000 women with a 98% success rate, making Ready for Love the #1 program in the world for women who’ve tried everything else. ✨ Ready to stop repeating the same patterns and finally create the love you deserve?  🎯 Watch my free masterclass to learn the proven 4-step Ready for Love Method: https://readyforloveinc.com/masterclass 💬 Apply for a free Love Breakthrough Call with my team: https://readyforloveinc.com/apply Self-Centered Bundle: Built to Support the Real You Three intentional programs that work better together, plus The Daily Journal. Find it here! AquaTru: Ultra-Pure Water You Can Actually Trust 20% Off Your Countertop Purifier Use Promo Code: READY at AquaTru.com

I can already anticipate all the hate I'm going to get for today's episode, but it's a PSA I have to give because that is how strongly I feel about our topic today. I was a therapist for 14 years, a licensed clinical social worker in private practice, hundreds of clients. I even had other therapists working for me. And in 2017, I closed my practice and walked away, not because I burned out or because I needed a break, but because I stopped believing in the model. So today I'm telling you why I'm an outspoken critic of therapy, the truth about what's broken and what actually works instead. Hi, it's Hillary. Welcome to the Ready for Love podcast. So let me be clear, I am not anti-therapy across the board. There are good therapists out there, and there are people who genuinely

need therapy. And there are certain situations where therapy is absolutely the right answer. And here are two of them. First, therapy is meant for treating mental and emotional illness, real diagnosable conditions like clinical depression, chronic debilitating anxiety, OCD, trauma, things like that. Anything that is impacting your ability to live, love, work, and to get by in daily life because you're just not well. And then second, therapy is appropriate when you're feeling disoriented or destabilized due to a major life event, something like a huge transition, such as divorce, discovering infidelity, which can feel like trauma, or losing someone that you love. And because, really, in those situations, you're just not well. You're not yourself in those difficult times.

I like to put it this way. You go to therapy, and you're deep in a hole and you need help finding the surface. Again, just to regain your stability and your sanity. So therapy in those circumstances is highly effective and is the best option for getting well. But I'm going to give you five reasons why I think the therapy profession is messed up and the model is broken. So reason number one that I'm antitherepy is because it's being misused. It's the wrong tool for the job because the vast majority of people, who are sitting in therapist office every week are not mentally ill or in crisis. They're highly functioning adults who want to improve their lives, fix their relationships, or figure out just

how to be happier and more fulfilled. And so therapy is not the right tool for that. Like I said, therapy is designed to help you get out of the hole, to stabilize, to get back to functioning mode after being in a crisis. It's designed for that. And when you're in a hole, that is not the time to be doing higher level advanced personal growth work. You're just getting back to status quo business as usual. And so it's really not going to help you grow and evolve and become a better version of yourself. For that kind of growth, you need a different tool. You need coaching and mentorship, but most people don't even know that. Therapists don't even know it. I didn't know it when I was practicing as a therapist. I hadn't even heard of coaching before. Coaching was my style of helping

I had a very coachy approach to working with my clients, but I didn't even know I was doing it. So you stay and you stay and you stay hoping to get to your next level, but you're really not getting there. And that's where the second problem begins. Reason number two, it creates dependence on your therapist instead of on yourself. You build a relationship with this person, so you stay and you stay and you stay and you stay. Because therapy is relational. It is a relationship. real intimate relationship that happens between therapist and client. You share yourself in the most

vulnerable raw way. You are witnessed by another human, often in ways that you can't experience anywhere else in your real life. And it feels really good. You feel seen and understood and accepted and supported unconditionally. And so even after you're out of the whole, even after you're stabilized, you keep going. Not because you still need treatment. but because the relationship feels good. The relationship becomes the thing that you're going back for. It feels good to have someone in your life like this. But that's where it becomes dangerous,

especially when you go into therapy, when you're in the hole, and you're vulnerable and you really need this person in your life. Because over time, you become attached to them and you become dependent upon them. This isn't a real relationship, though. Really, it's contrived. You're paying for it. You're paying this professional someone to listen to you and to care about you and to be your sounding board, your confidant, your mentor, your chosen mother figure.

Those are roles that you are paying someone to fill, not real relationships that exist in your actual real life organically. And here's the crazy part. Therapists are taught that the relationship itself is the most therapeutic part. I'm quoting now, the therapy, relationship accounts for why clients improve or fail to improve, at least as much as the particular treatment method. To build and maintain a strong therapeutic relationship is the core of your work as a therapist. End quote. So yes, feeling safe and understood is important. You want to have a good fit with your therapist, but that relationship should be temporary. I think of it as scaffolding. It's there to hold you up until you're strong enough to stand on your own.

But instead it becomes a permanent fixture and you become dependent. Have a problem? Call your therapist. Need to make a decision? Ask your therapist what they think. Upset about something? Go process it with your therapist. You depend on your therapist to tell you what to think, how to feel, what to do,

and over time you stop trusting yourself. You don't even ever really learn how to trust your. self. You don't learn how to be your own sounding board, to solve your own problems, or become fully self-reliant and centered in yourself. Instead, you depend on your therapist to tell you all of these things, outsourcing your answers, your certainty, and your guidance to someone else. That is not empowerment. That is codependence. And then your big wins in life are owed to them rather than you being able to take credit for it. You give them credit. And maybe they even credit themselves for the amazing things that are happening in your life. They become your hero,

rather than you becoming your own hero. And here's the insidious part. The model rewards this. If you learn to trust yourself, you won't need therapy anymore. But if you depend on your therapist, you'll keep going. You'll go back indefinitely. The goal is to become healed, whole, healthy, and able to trust yourself so you can be fully self-led in your life. And sadly, I just know because I hear it every single day, that is not what is happening for most people inside the therapy office. And that leads me to the next problem. Reason number three, therapists often won't challenge you so you never really see your part. Therapists aren't going to tell you that you're the problem. The entire model is built upon validation.

and empathy and support and healing and being on your side, if you've been through trauma or you've experienced infidelity, for example, most therapists aren't going to ask you, so what was your role in the dysfunctional marriage? Right? They don't want to hurt you or upset you. They are just going to tell you how great you are and what a great job you're doing and they're going to validate you.

But really, this is enabling. It is totally enabling when you are going for life improvement. So you feel like someone is on your side, and you don't feel so alone in your struggles. And this helps you feel better temporarily. But it certainly will not help you be better or do better. So when you go to therapy with a problem like your boss or your mother or your relationship or your job, your therapist helps you solve that problem with that person and that situation.

And they validate you and they agree with you and they point the finger at the other person or the difficult situation and help you deal with that. Your boss being unreasonable. Your mother is toxic. He's emotionally unavailable. Let's get you through this divorce. And all of that might be true and okay and helpful for the short term. But it's not helping you grow into your next level because you're focusing on them,

the external problem, the other person. And when you focus on what everyone else is doing, you never have to. look at what you're doing. You never end up taking responsibility and you never really end up growing. You can't see your patterns or your blind spots or your role in part in creating a dynamic or in the problems that are going on in your life so they just keep repeating. Different boss, same conflict. Different partner, same dynamic. Different job. Same frustration. Because you haven't changed. Therapy is not designed to help you achieve this. What you need is someone who will love you enough to be honest with you and to hold up a mirror and show you how you're creating

these situations in your life, someone who will challenge you, who will call you out, and who will help you be accountable. But again, therapists aren't trained to do this. They are really leaning on their relationship with you being there for you in perpetuity. They enable you. They just do. They keep you comfortable and unfortunately this keeps you stuck. Did you know three out of four homes in the U.S. have toxic chemicals in their tap water? Even when it looks clear, it can still contain chlorine, lead, forever chemicals, and microplastics, which are all linked to fatigue, hormone disruption, and even cancer. I'm really intentional about what I put in my body, so when I learned that, I got an aquatrue

countertop water purifier. Its patented four-stage reverse osmosis system removes 84 contaminants, way beyond what standard fridge or pitcher filters can do, so my family and I get pure, healthy water I can actually trust, and there's no plumbing or installation needed. Aquatrue has been featured in business insider and popular science and was named Best Countertop Water Filter by good housekeeping. Join 98% of customers who say their drinking water is cleaner, safer, and healthier. Go to aquatrue.com now for 20% off using promo code ready. Aquatrue even comes with a 30-day best-tasting water.

guarantee. That's aquatrue.com, a-Q-U-A-T-R-U-A-T-R-U-D-com with promo code ready. One of the ways I've been upgrading my life lately isn't through big changes. It's been through small ones that actually add up. I started noticing the places where I'd gotten complacent, especially with bras and underwear. Wearing things that looked worn out, didn't fit that well or just didn't make me feel great, but I kept wearing them anyway because, well, they were just there. And once I noticed that, I couldn't unsee it. So I started paying attention to the things I use every day that I have a clear preference for, and then I decided to replace the rest with the best. That's where the Fit Everybody collection from Skims comes in. The T-shirt bras have

underwear that supports without cutting in, and they make me look smooth and lifted in all my clothes. And the thongs are both invisible and comfortable, the kind I forget I'm wearing in the best possible way. It's an easy upgrade, but it changes how my day starts, even if no one else sees it. And if someone else does, well, that's just part of being well-dressed. Shop the Skims Fits Everybody collection at skims.com. That's sk-I-M-S dot com. After you place your order, let them know we sent you. Select podcast in the survey and choose Ready for Love in the drop-down. And so that brings us to the next problem. Reason number four, it keeps you looking backward when you need to move forward. The traditional therapy model is obsessed with the past. Why am I the way I am? What happened to me

as a child? How did my parents mess me up? I'm sure you've heard of the type of therapy called It's the quintessential Freudian lay on the couch and relive your past approach. With that, people go multiple times a week for years. And if you ask me, it's quite narcissistic. Look, understanding your past can be very valuable. I'm not saying it's irrelevant. But here's the problem. Therapy becomes an endless retelling of old stories. You relive the trauma. You re-experience the pain. You analyze it from every angle. And every. Every time you tell and retell that story, it only cements it deeper into your subconscious and your identity. You become the girl whose dad left, the woman whose mother was narcissistic, or the person who was bullied in middle school.

And you may even start wearing it like a badge of honor, which I see all the time now. I have abandonment issues. I'm anxiously attached. I have daddy issues. And when you over-identify with a problem, you don't solve it because you become it. I've spoken to women in their 60s and 70s. And when I ask them the question, what do you think is the real problem underneath everything that you've been experiencing in your love life?

The first thing they will say is, well, my parents or, oh, well, in my childhood, or my dad, or they refer to something that happened to them when they were growing up. Still, in their 60s and 70s, pointing the finger backwards, still blaming after decades. That is not healing. that's being stuck in a story and having it be your identity. Here's the truth. Insight does not create change. Knowing why you do what you do and where it all comes from doesn't help you know what to do

and how to do it so that you can just move forward and actually be happier and healthier and get more out of this life. Understanding where it all started doesn't tell you how to stop it. What you actually need are tools, skills, and a roadmap for what to do. do differently. Not more analysis of the past. Not more understanding why. You can spend the rest of your life asking why and you may never figure it out. That is not going to help you be the woman that you want to be and have the life that you want to have. And so here's where therapy is the problem. You need to stop languishing in old stories that don't serve you and start writing a new story to chart a

new path forward and build skills for the future. Insight without. action is just spinning your wheels. And that brings us to the final problem. Reason number five, there's no clear endpoint. So it can just go on forever and ever. So here's the fundamental flaw in the therapy model. There is no contract to solve the specific problem. There's no timeline, no structured treatment plan, no clear endpoint. Instead, it becomes aimless and endless. You show up every week. The therapist says, so what are we talking about today? How many of you have heard that question when you go to therapy? That puts the onus on you to guide the work when it should be the therapist leading you towards the solution. You don't know what you need, but they should,

and they should lead you step by step toward the solution that you've identified together. But session after session, you talk. Maybe you feel better because you've vented or because you've been validated, but you're not actually solving anything. You're not getting to the root. You're just talking. And without accountability to get to an end, it can just go on indefinitely. And one of the reasons it goes on indefinitely is because of how therapy is designed. Visiting your therapist in session should be a check-in for how you've been implementing, integrating, and applying the growth in your real life, and then getting additional feedback for how to continue that growth. But the therapy session becomes the work itself, just talking about it. Going to therapy

is just doing time if there's no accountability in between sessions. And just by nature of the model itself, going to session after session, there's no way for the therapist to provide support and accountability in between sessions. You're paying for the hour, not for their time to support you in between. And there's also no time for the therapist to provide you with information or the lessons or the teachings that you need to have to ground the work that you're doing together. Most therapists do not have a programmed, structured, step-by-step plan or method to guide you to an end point. What needs to happen, which isn't happening, is that when you start with a therapist, you're not sitting down and you're identifying a very clear problem that

you're solving. Here's the goal we're working on. Here's the plan. Here's how long I estimate this will take and here's how we know we will be done. Has a therapist ever done that for you? No one ever did that for me and I know it has not been done for the more than 12,000 women I've spoken to in the last eight years alone. About 80% of these women have been in therapy, sometimes on and off for years, sometimes even with the same therapist for years, even decades. And they're still struggling with the same issues. One woman had been seeing the same therapist for two decades. She called it Wednesdays with Ruth. And another woman I spoke to, 10 years with a therapist who she said was reparenting her. Ten years. The therapist should not be reparenting.

parenting you for a decade. A therapist should be showing you how to reparent yourself so you can move on with your life and just go live it outside of the therapy room and not needing this relationship in perpetuity the rest of your life. So you could just happily go live your life with the problem resolved. Bottom line here, if a therapist can't help you make significant progress in a reasonable amount of time, they're not going to be able to help you, period. And ethically, they should refer you out, but they usually don't. And why we're having this conversation today is because you can recognize that you're not really making progress. You don't have to suffer and struggle with a problem your whole life. You can actually solve it, but that rarely

happens because it's easier and more profitable to just keep you scheduling for next Wednesday, as long as you are willing to keep going. We get used to having therapy in our lives. We identify with being a lifetime therapy goer or a self-help junkie. But when you have a built-in cheerleader or somebody that actually you feel cares about you, and maybe they really do, why would you want to stop going? But the truth is this. Going to therapy in perpetuity is a waste of time and money. Stop spending your time and money to not solve a problem. So before I tell you what to do instead, I do want to address one other thing that's happening in our culture right now. We've done a complete 180 as a society. We went from therapy is private and taboo and there's a stigma around it.

Two, everyone has trauma and everyone wears their attachment style like a badge of honor. For younger people especially, it's almost cool to be disaffected. And thanks to social media, anyone with a microphone can become an expert. Everyone is throwing around terms like narcissist and toxic and trauma bonding and codependence, but most of these people aren't trained professionals. They're armchair experts and wannabe psychologists, so the misinformation and misguided advice is rampant. So now we're in over-therapized culture, too aware of every little thing seeking labels for everything. And people can end up building their entire identity around being an anxious attached person. Maybe you've noticed it, but people are now kind of overly identifying

with their attachment style. I'm an avoidant. I'm anxiously attached. Or I'm, of trauma. And when you over-identify with a problem, you don't solve it. You become it. This isn't healing everybody. This isn't growth. It's the opposite. So here's what you should do instead. If you're genuinely struggling to function, if you're dealing with a major mental illness or an acute trauma or a major life transition, and you don't feel well, like you don't feel like yourself, just like physical therapy, psychotherapy can absolutely help you stabilize. But once you're on the surface and you're functioning and you feel better and you want more, that is not therapy.

That is coaching. Think about it. Serena Williams didn't hire a therapist to become a champion. She hired a coach, aiming for the 1% edge to be a champion. Because coaching isn't about digging into pathology. It's about growth, improvement, evolution. It's about becoming the next level version of yourself. But here's the critical part. Not all coaches are created equal. Coaching isn't a regulated industry

like therapy. And as I said, anyone can call themselves a coach. Just because someone achieved a goal for themselves doesn't make them an expert at helping others. And just because they took a six-week coaching program and got a certificate doesn't mean they know how to help you. And also, I should say, just because they're good at making a two to three minute video for social media, also does not make them an expert. Here's what I know to be true. You cannot fully thrive in your life if one area is growing and the others are quietly being neglected.

Eventually, the imbalance catches up to you. That's why I created three programs to support women in the areas that matter most. Self-devoted helps you reconnect to your body, your health, and your self-care. Self-satisfied helps you create relationships that feel secure. Fulfilling and aligned. And self-made helps you shift your money mindset so wealth not only feels possible, it feels inevitable. These programs are not random. They are intentional and when they are done together, the impact is powerful. When you choose the full bundle, I include the daily journal. This is a practice I use myself and it's the tool that helps you apply what you're learning

every single day. So change becomes real, not theoretical. If you're ready to invest in yourself in a way that actually supports your whole life, go to Readyforloveink.com forward slash courses. You can explore the programs and the bundle at Readyforloveink.com forward slash courses. So here's what you're looking for when you're looking for help. Number one, the person is living what it is you are seeking to achieve for yourself. If you want a thriving relationship, don't hire a coach who's divorced three times and has a shit show of a love life. If you want financial freedom, don't hire something. someone drowning in debt. I personally would never hire a financial advisor who isn't a millionaire.

Find someone who's actually living the life that you want. Number two, look for proof, expect to see proof that they've done it for many others, not just for themselves. Look for success stories, testimonials, a proven track record. If they've only been able to help themselves, that doesn't mean that they are qualified to help you. Number three, I really truly believe in working with people who are credentialed. There must be some kind of credentials. Don't work with just anyone who's a self-proclaimed guru if they haven't had extensive training, whether that is therapy training or lots and lots of coach training or specific modality. Look for somebody who has certifiable credentials. Number four, they must have a method,

a structured step-by-step curriculum, not just talk, not just what are we working on today. A clear roadmap, a proven process, a system that helps you learn and integrate new concepts into your life that combines education and skill building and a combination of lots of different techniques. True growth and change isn't one-dimensional. It's a mindset and inner work combined with how-toes. Talk without structure is and. Nameless. Number five, make sure you have someone who is strong enough to be honest with you. No one wants to get lied to, but it happens all the time with the best intentions, but still,

I have fired coaches when they just tell me I'm great because I want to grow to my next level. Challenge me. Help me see what I can't see for myself. Point it out to me. And here's the thing. Women who've had a lot of struggle or they've suffered a lot or they've been through trauma or they've been widowed or they've been cheated on or also women who have very strong

personalities will potentially find helpers that just lie to them and tiptoe around them and don't want to upset them and tell you what you want to hear. That's not going to help you. And finally, you need to be coachable. Invite the truth. Have a growth-oriented mindset and embrace honest feedback. You can't get offended or defensive when you know that this person is on your side, being your champion, and giving you the feedback that will get you to your next level. It can be hard to hear, but welcome it. No one can help you if you're not really open to being helped. When we're inviting women into Ready for Love, we require them to be coachable.

Because while we are loving and compassionate, we are also honest. And that is critical to achieving any desired outcome. So if this sounds all too familiar to you, hear me now. It is okay to end a therapy relationship. Outgrowing it is the point. So thanks for listening. If this episode resonated with you or you know someone who's been in therapy for years and is still stuck, please share it with them. I'll see you next time.