excellent interpretation, sunny! i think you may be spot on with it, apart from this bit: "that a plus of LI is that it doesn't require the therapeutic relationship, that what is more important is the client relationship with self, the T is in the background this technique does not foster undesirable dependence on the therapist. These are words he might share with a colleague, who can appreciate the effort and drain of trying to connect with client after client day after day"...

i don't think your T finds you draining, or probably most of his clients draining (there may be a few, however - most Ts get 'em). i am wondering if he really did use the phrase 'undesirable dependence'.

yknow, for someone like me, who is so scared to open up to someone, something like what your T is describing sounds great! like - give me the techniques, and i will practice at home by myself. it took me years to get to the point where i could disclose stuff to pdoc. and then even more years to disclose a little bit more. i am finding it really difficult with my new T to trust him, and i know it'll just take time, but gosh - it feels like i'm wasting money and hours in the meantime - just waiting until i've sussed out that he's ok.

so i could see why it would get a lot of Ts excited. if clients were given more control, you could speed things up a bit. not because you want to get rid of them, but because it'll help them achieve their goals faster. and, because it teaches them to rely on themselves, these are skills they can take with them even beyond therapy.

i can totally understand why it would have hurt to hear that, though. even though i don't trust new-T yet, it still hurt when he said to do my work by myself. like, i wasn't good enough for his personal attention. i would be pretty devastated if pdoc said something like that to me, even though i could intellectually appreciate why he would say it.

and i'm someone who's scared of being dependent! so i would imagine it'd be even more difficult for you, who values the relationship so constantly (i vary between 100% love and 100% fear of it - i am not saying that you think it's ok to be 'dependent').

p.s. i'm sorry about my earlier post. i'm not discouraging you from trying LI. i think your considering LI is a wise decision, especially because you've found similar techniques helpful in the past. i think i just got a bit upset myself by my interpretation of your interpretation (ha!) and wanted to poo all over T's new toy so that he would go back to being regular, reliable T who is not rejecting you under any possible interpretation.