Agreed on all points. Really when I say "black magic" therapy, I'm being sloppy because what I really mean is that if you're not that good of a therapist, you s

Agreed on all points. Really when I say "black magic" therapy, I'm being sloppy because what I really mean is that if you're not that good of a therapist, you shouldn't be offering anything but basic, rigorous types of therapy. I wouldn't go so far as to say that a good therapist offers a "human element", but skilled therapists are more observant, have stronger communication skills, have a more intuitive sense on when to challenge their patients, etc., and that allows them to go deeper into murkier waters than others. But to boil all of that down to "the relationship" and the "human element" feels overly reductive. There's still something quantifiable about the qualitative aspects.