I completely agree with the American narcissism bottom part of your post!
I was trained not to baby the "client".
By baby I am hearing that you wish to be truthful with clients, and not lie to them, or pretend in any way, that having T Saturn on their Plutos and T Pluto on their Saturn/Neptune/Uranus stelliums is easy or doesn't matter. Or more personally, less generationally speaking - say natal Sun/Moon opposition Squared Saturn - don't tell them that they live on easy street.
If this is what you mean by baby then I agree with you totally. But partly because the client already knows they got born into a war zone.
Many people search out astrology for fluff and want to hear all about how great they are at this, that, or the other, but giving a person praise does not solve their problems, nor does it shine awareness upon their problems.
Really? People search out astrology for fluff? I've never experienced this. Or never noticed this, at least.
How about our Sun/Moon opposition Squared Saturn client? S/he wants to be flattered and praised? Or does s/he simply wish to find a way through? If the astrologer doesn't tell this client about how amazing their lives can become, with work and practice, then who will tell them? Certainly no one around them is likely to have ever noticed their good side or seen their potentials.
And honest praise (as distinct from flattery) does indeed help people and having high goals helps lots too. There are many great reasons why high souls choose challenging scopes/lives and lots and lots of good reasons why people with challenging scopes can, and do, go far, very far. Being the first person to mention the fact that their lives are not fatally/eternally cursed is actually a great honor, I feel.
It is not my job to stroke egos. Mental masturbation poses great obstacles to emotional healing and spiritual evolution. I stand by this statement.
Egos automatically sort/measure by comparison, better/worse, high/low. So yes, encouraging people to think they are better/higher than others, or worse/lower than others, that they are among the elite blessed, or cursed worms this life, that there are good scopes and then there are bad scopes - yes, very bad. I don't wish to cater to egos, or people's self esteem problems, no matter which way they swing.
Now I am not trained as a psychologist this life, nor a doctor. I enjoy depth therapy - as in, at times in my life I have put myself into therapy, face to face, behind a closed door with someone with lots of training - gone very deep, and really gotten a whole bunch out of it. If you are not a trained and licensed psychologist already, I hope you go into that field because again, you are very talented.
But on the internet?
And even face to face, most people who come to me as astrology clients are NOT desiring to enter depth therapy with me, and if they were, again, I am not licensed for that. This doesn't make them less adult. And me focusing on what the client is asking and wanting from me, wanting from astrology, wanting in their lives, isn't babying my clients either.