What to Say When a Client Says 'My Last Therapist Did It Differently

You’re twenty minutes into a session, tracking the narrative, feeling the rhythm of the work. Then your client pauses, looks just past you, and says it: “It’s just… my last therapist used to do it differently.” Your chest tightens. A dozen thoughts fire at once. Am I being criticized? Do they want me to be someone else? You feel an immediate, visceral pull to defend your modality, to explain your rationale, or to dismiss the comment as resistance. You might find yourself searching for the right words, typing “client comparing me to previous therapist” into your browser late that night, looking for a way out of the bind.

This moment isn’t just a critique; it’s a critical junction. The client is, often unconsciously, running a diagnostic on the relationship. They are testing the frame. The tension you feel is the pressure of a hidden loyalty test combined with a request. They are simultaneously honouring a past attachment and asking you how you will hold it. If you treat it as a simple complaint, you miss the relational data. The difficulty lies in responding to the unspoken question beneath the surface: “Can you handle the part of me that is attached to someone else?”

What’s Actually Going On Here

When a client brings a former therapist into the room, they’re not just making a comparison. They are activating a relational triangle. The client’s memory of the last therapist becomes an invisible third party, and how you engage with that figure defines the safety and potential of your own therapeutic dyad. This isn’t just about the client; it’s about the pattern they are inviting you into.

Consider a client whose previous therapist was exceptionally nurturing and directive, perhaps to the point of fostering dependency. The client might bring this up not because they consciously want to repeat that dynamic, but because it’s the only model of therapeutic “help” they know. By saying, “She would have given me a worksheet for this,” they are unconsciously trying to pull you into the familiar role of the Rescuer. If you resist by saying, “I don’t use worksheets,” you position yourself as the Withholding Figure. The system, the client’s internal model of relationships, remains stable. They have successfully recreated a familiar pattern, just with you in a different role. The trap is that both moves, rescuing or withholding, keep the focus on the old therapist’s methods instead of the client’s present-moment experience.

This dynamic also functions as a powerful, albeit unconscious, method for managing intimacy. Talking about a past relationship is often far less threatening than engaging with the one that’s live in the room. By keeping the conversation focused on “what she did,” the client can keep you at a safe distance. The comparison becomes a buffer, a way to be in the room with you without having to be fully with you.

What People Usually Try (and Why It Backfires)

Faced with this conversational pressure, most of us default to a few well-intentioned moves that inadvertently reinforce the problem.

• The Methodological Defense: You launch into a gentle explanation of your modality. “That makes sense. In my work, we focus more on exploring the feelings that come up rather than using structured exercises.” This response, while technically accurate, shifts the focus from the client’s experience to your theory. It intellectualizes a relational moment and can be heard as “You’re wrong to want that.”

• The Competitive Validation: You over-focus on the positive aspects of the past work. “It sounds like she was incredibly helpful for you. Tell me more about what worked so well.” While validating, this move can cede the therapeutic frame entirely. You risk spending the session being an audience to the previous therapy, implicitly agreeing that you are a runner-up.

• The Quick Re-Direct: You acknowledge the comment and immediately try to move on. “I hear that, and it’s good to know. Now, getting back to what you were saying about your boss…” This is a subtle dismissal. The client has just shared something important about their map of the world, and by brushing past it, you signal that this part of their experience is not welcome here.

• The Pure Inquiry: You ask a question that keeps the focus safely in the past. “What was it about that approach that you found so helpful?” This is a classic therapeutic probe, but in this specific context, it can be an avoidance. It keeps the energy on the “there and then,” preventing an exploration of the “here and now” dynamic between you and the client.

A Better Way to Think About It

The most powerful shift isn’t in finding the perfect words, but in changing your objective. Your goal is not to win a comparison, defend your approach, or even to fully understand the previous therapy. Your primary goal is to use the client’s statement as an entry point into the immediate, live relationship between you and them. The intervention happens at the meta-level: you are not just discussing the content (the other therapist), but the process (the act of bringing them up, right now, in this room).

This means treating the statement “My last therapist did it differently” as relational data. The client is giving you a gift. They are showing you their blueprint for attachment, their anxieties about the work, and their way of testing connection. The move is to accept the information about the past while gently but firmly relocating the focus to the present dyad. You are not ignoring the figure of the previous therapist; you are turning to the client and asking, “What is it like for you to have the memory of that person in the room with us now?”

By doing this, you refuse to be pulled into the pre-existing triangle. Instead, you create a new conversation about the experience of comparison itself. You validate their past without becoming a replica of it, and you establish your therapy as a space where all parts of the client’s experience, including their attachments to others, can be explored without threat.

A Few Lines That Fit This Move

These aren’t scripts, but illustrations of how this shift in thinking can be translated into language. Notice that each line validates the past while anchoring the conversation in the present moment.

• “Thank you for telling me that. It helps me understand what’s felt useful to you. What’s it like for you to notice that difference between us right now?”

  • What this does: It frames the comment as helpful data, validates the client’s perception, and immediately pulls the focus to their present-moment experience of the comparison.

• “It sounds like you’re carrying something really important from that work. I’m wondering what it felt like to bring that up with me today.”

  • What this does: It honours the past attachment (“carrying something important”) and uses a process-oriented question to explore the motivation and feeling behind sharing it now.

• “That’s valuable for me to know. It seems like part of you might be missing how she worked, and maybe another part is wondering if I can be helpful in the same way.”

  • What this does: It names the implicit ambivalence, showing the client you can hold both their loyalty to the past and their hope (or fear) for the present work.

• “I hear that. It makes me wonder if there’s a concern you have about how we’re working together that we haven’t talked about yet.”

  • What this does: It directly translates the comparison into a potential concern about the current therapeutic alliance, opening the door for a direct and honest conversation.