I suspect she never learned how to read faces or tell tones of voice apart, which is why has so many problems when her empathic powers are supressed. She can sense sarcasm through an opaque soundproof wall, so why would she need to know that people sound different when they're being sarcastic?
The same episode also did show her in a session when she still had her powers. She was giving rote, generic advice to a crew member that was obviously not impressed.
The whole episode was her learning to do her job. Which is odd, the empathic power should have been a tool, not just something she sat around with.
In conclusion, Troi is an underwhelming therapist, and that’s concerning since she’s on the flagship of the fleet.
I don't think that any character got shittier writing than her, with the exception of maybe Yar's death, and even then I think you still have to give it to Troi because she's got many more episodes. But her episodes are the ones that are the most consistently bad. Data's are mostly great, Worf's also pretty solid, Geordi has some stinkers mostly because the only thing they could figure out to do with him is have him lust after an unavailable woman, Crusher only has a few that are hers and honorable mention for one of my bottom five TNG eps of all time, Sub Rosa, but Troi's are pretty much all stinkers. The only one that I can think of off of the top of my head that I like is the one where she decides to take the command test.
Great take. How many people who are not deaf or hard of hearing really read nonverbal communication as well as they do (excepting hearing kids raised in Deaf families).
[off topic] In the comic version, evil Barclay was the most successful at infiltrating Star Fleet. People were so used to ignoring Reg that he could do just about anything.