First, I think your friend might do better with cognitive therapy or another modality that is about the nitty gritty and usually has a short term course.
I was just about to mention Albert Ellis: the creator of one of the first types of cognitive therapies. He was known for being blunt and even pushy at times, and his therapy was much shorter term than was typical when he originated it. Here's a bit about him (from the book 'Learned Optimism' by Martin Seligman)
....Gaunt and anglular, always in motion, he sounded like a (very effective) vacuum-cleaner salesman. With patients, he pushed and pushed until he had persuaded them to give up their beliefs that sustained their depression. "What do you mean you can't live without love?" he would cry. "Utter nonsense. Love comes rarely in life, and if you waste your life mooning over its all too ordinary absence, you are bringing on your own depression.You are living under a tyranny of should's. Stop 'should-ing' on yourself!"
I do think that there are certain qualities all therapists should have. Even in an blunt approach like the above, the client should feel respected and listened to. You can respect someone as a person even while showing them that their beliefs or actions are absurd. And you'd need to continually listen to people and be open to new information about them, rather than quickly deciding what someone's deal is and what's best for them and stubbornly pushing that no matter what (last counsellor I saw did this...
really pissed me off). Just to mention a few necessary abilities/traits, I'm sure there's more.
I dated a woman (I won't say the type lest I offend those who share her type BUT YOU CAN HAZARD A GUESS!?! haha) who saw the same therapist for like 8 years. I think the therapist was one of those misguided bleeding hearts who really wanted to "help people". But her version of helping people was basically coddling them and being a mother figure and nodding sympathetically no matter what their patients told them and basically stroking the patient's ego. The girl I was dating never said what a great or effective therapist that woman was, just that she ENJOYED spending time with her pretty much and felt good that the therapist seemed to like her. DEAR GOD.
Heh. Well, at the risk of being suspected to be the same type as your ex (and I'm "hazarding a guess" that it isn't the one I've listed), I'll confess to having been in that position myself. Not for eight years, but too long. It wasn't that I thought feeling good around my therapist was enough...but I liked being around him so much I kept rationalizing it to myself, telling myself it
could start working at some point. It was like people can get in bad relationships: telling themselves 'we can make this work, we can make this work' because they're attached to the person and don't want it to be over, and it isn't until it has been over for a while that you look back on it and go 'What the hell was I thinking?'
To his credit, he did question me about what I wanted out of therapy, tell me things needed to change if I wasn't getting it, asked me if I wanted to see someone else. He didn't aim to just be my friend. But it wasn't happening for me, and I just wouldn't admit it to myself for a long time. I don't know if it was his style (he was very non-directive, and I often just felt lost and aimless), or my own ambivalence, or what. I've never actually had a successful experience, so I can't say. You hear so much, "It's the relationship that matters" and it's not bad advice, but it would be helpful to hear exactly
what to look for in the relationship. It's not just rapport, or trust, or empathy or kindness. You can have all those things and still have ineffective therapy.