Obligatory Disclaimer: Therapy is helpful to many people. If therapy is helpful to you, great! No one is saying otherwise.
Having said that.
Please stop saying that abuse survivors and traumatized people "need" therapy in order to avoid abusing others.
Please stop saying that if a traumatized person is respectful towards others, it must be proof that they've been through therapy.
The assumption underlying these ideas is that the default, natural response to traumatic experiences is inherently to become abusive to others, and that it's only through active counter-programming that this can be averted. This is, first of all, false. There are plenty of non-abusive abuse and trauma survivors who, by choice or by circumstance, have never been through therapy. There are plenty of abusive people who have been through therapy. There are plenty of abusive people who have never been abused or traumatized in any way. Being traumatized isn't like being bitten by a werewolf; it doesn't doom you to become a predator yourself.
Aside from that, therapy aimed at preventing a traumatized person from becoming abusive is bad therapy. The goal should be to help the traumatized person improve their emotional well-being, not to defang them and render them safe for society. Traumatized people are already safe for society. It's society that is unsafe for them.
If you are seeking therapy to help you cope with a traumatic experience, and your therapist is operating from the assumption that their services are necessary to keep you from becoming abusive, please, please, find a new therapist. There are plenty of kind, helpful therapists out there who won't see your natural human responses to traumatic experiences as rendering you abusive or dangerous. You deserve better.
