You can't bring back their dead; you can't cure their physical disabilities; you can't change the discrimination they face; you can't get back all the years they spent being depressed and miserable. You can never go back in time and give your client the happy childhood they deserve, the parental love they needed and still crave. Your client is an adult, and you are not their parent, and that time is gone.

Very true. And ultimately, their not being able to come to grips with this was why I fired my first therapist.

You have no control at all over what they do outside the therapy room. So don't waste your time and theirs trying to get them to do what you would do.
And that would be why I fired my second therapist. (Where the "trying to get me to do what she would do" == be more femme, stop being poly, quit being bi. .. yeaaaahhno)