Well clearly it's hard to comment on any reading that we weren't there for, but I do think there are some points to consider.
One of them is that it's very hard to be responsible for the reactions of others, and people come to readings in all sorts of strange mental and emotional states, with all kinds of weird and wonderful expectations. People aren't taught how to be the subject of a tarot reading, and we have to be mindful that they often won't know how to respond to what they're told.
But in defense of the client, the reader has to behave responsibly anyhow. I see this is a counselling position, and it's worth considering that every other kind of people who delivers advice or talk therapy in our society is required to receive some training in how to speak responsibly with the people they consult to. Tarot readers, on the other hand, often come with little more than a sense of their own power and a conviction that they are 'right' in everything they say to a querent.
I wish I had a dollar for every reader I've worked alongside who arrogantly used the cards and the environment to make the poor (paying) client a captive audience to their own sense of what is correct and what is proper. The readings are so often filtered through the reader's own value system.
So often we're not just irresponsibly pushing unqualified advice about sensitive areas to vulnerable and impressionable people - often we're pushing our own morals and opinions onto clients as well. And yes, they have every right to get offended.
I'm currently working in a new age shop with three other readers, and one of them generates incredible amounts of negative feedback from distressed customers - the counter staff get to hear all about this reader who tells people what they ought to be doing with their relationships, their lives, etc and passes judgement on all of them. This reader will tell you she has a gift and is helping people. From where I sit, I see her upsetting and angering a lot of people who have no intention of using her "help" no matter how valuable it might be.
And it's not just readers who have built-in values to filter everything through. So do the cards. Each card stores an idea that represents the creator's philosophy. I started learning the RWS and Thoth, and while I was impressed at the profundity of the systems, I found the writings of crowley, Waite and Paul Foster Case to be pompous and offensive - assuming lot's of value judgements that I found offensive as a 15-year old and reject even more vehemently now.
The cards, having a set of philosophies, marginalise and pass judgements. I used to be uncomfortable with this, but didn't question what I assumed was the authority of ancient wisdom. I now regard a lot of it as archaic medieval bollocks that is both irrelevant and unfortunate, and believe that Tarot doesn't have to be that way.
Someone made a comment somewhere in this thread that readers can be wrong but the cards never are. I find that offensive - it's an opinion offered as though it were a fact, and that's one of the things that really pushes my buttons. For the record, the ideas offered on the cards are just that - ideas... often primitive ones, and ones that vary wildly from deck to deck. I find no evidence to support the idea that ideas painted on cards are never ever wrong. I find no reason not to be a little more humble when using these things with people.
When you consider that the cards have embedded value judgments and assume authority.... and then know that readers also have embedded value judgments and assume authority... it's easy to see that the reading environment is potentially a minefield of unqualified people passing judgment with hubris that potentially has massive consequences and causes incredible offense to the person unfortunate enough to have stumbled into the wrong reading room.
I'm not suggesting we regulate this stuff, but I'd be careful before claiming in any reading that a sitter (hate that term) takes a reading "too personally" (whatever *that* means), and urge everyone lucky enough to be dispensing counsel in a field that requires no license or proof to demonstrate some empathy with their querents and take some ownership if it's possible that we have caused offense.
I'm sure I've offended more than a few readers here with this post and for that I apologise
