”No-one who, like me, conjures up the most evil of those half-tamed demons that inhabit the human breast, and seeks to wrestle with them, can expect to come through the struggle unscathed.”
Sigmund Freud
On the 19th January, 2026 Rebecca White, a 44 year old therapist was murdered in her office in Orange County, Florida. A former patient forced his way in while she was with another patient and, when she refused to see him, stabbed her to death in front of that patient.
This has been an absolute tragedy that has shaken those that knew her professionally as well as the wider community of psychotherapists.
Many of us feel not only devastated but also angry. How many late nights have we worked, accommodating patients, trying to offer care, holding complexity, sometimes making mistakes? And yet sadly therapist safety is not something we usually confront directly, until it’s too late.
Psychotherapy is not neutral work.
I have written before about the over-inflation of therapy culture: a world where image often supersedes substance and therapy is reduced to an aesthetic, a mere lifestyle brand. If you scroll through TikTok or Instagram one might think that therapists spend their days in mid-century offices, filming dances with colleagues amongst their plants and celebrating breakthroughs with high-fives. Therapy is presented as endlessly containing, inherently safe and benevolent. Trauma is worked through with affirmations, optimisation, and soothing language. This version of therapy is appealing precisely because it shows us that suffering can always be soothed, wounds can be healed, and a better, more regulated self is available to all.
But real psychotherapy concerns itself with the shadow aspects of the human psyche: dependency, humiliation, frustrated entitlement, envy and aggression. The psychotherapist’s office is a place where dark fantasies that are rarely spoken aloud, including violent or sadistic ones, can emerge, not just in words but in the relational field itself. Power dynamics, childhood wounds and personality patterns are activated. Endings and limits are enforced, and not everything can be soothed or resolved.
Experienced therapists know this. Many cope with dark humour. Far from what you see on TikTok, the life of a therapist can be incredibly lonely and few recognize the emotional toll of sitting alone in an office all day, holding material that others cannot. This is not a complaint. On the contrary, this is what gives the work meaning. In a culture that denies and represses the shadow, it is a privilege to meet it so honestly.
But because of this we need to be honest: this simply isn’t risk-free work.
Clinicians are often caught in a double bind. We are asked to be endlessly open, tolerant, and non-rejecting. Abandoning a patient is rightfully considered a very serious matter. However, many trainings place little emphasis on safety, risk, discernment, or the limits of therapist capacities and indeed those of our patients. Alongside this, well intentioned efforts to destigmatise mental health have sometimes been accompanied by a reluctance to speak plainly about volatility, aggression, or danger, leaving many clinicians on the front lines without adequate support. I am grateful that my mentor and supervisor has consistently challenged me to make sure I absolutely prioritise my own well-being. Institutions are not immune however from the pressure to be seen as moral and have often been slow to acknowledge that therapy cannot solve all problems, that criminality is not cured by care alone, and clinicians are frequently left exposed when things go wrong.
So when the worst happens, the profession is shaken. Tensions rise. People search for explanations, and sometimes someone to blame. I believe that not all tragedy is avoidable, however there are always lessons to be learned, especially if we are allowed to speak honestly.
If psychotherapy is to retain its integrity, we must be willing to hold reality alongside care. To resist both fantasy and panic. And to acknowledge, without denial or moral posturing, that working deeply with the human psyche carries real power, and real risk.
Sophie Frost is a psychotherapist based in Berlin and the founder of The Primrose Practice. She writes about depth psychotherapy, therapeutic limits, and the psychological impact of contemporary culture.