I think this is a very complicated issue.

I know for me the concept of being dependent on someone was very foreign to me when I entered therapy. I grew up very quickly, taught myself a host of wrong things, and basically foraged my way through life. I found it very challenging to even think that there might be someone who is there for me and has my best interest exclusively at heart.

Where it gets complicated is the fact that the dependence on the therapist is, at best, a qualified one. If we reach for complete, utter dependence we will face plant against that therapeutic boundary. If we decide, I can do this on my own, well, why are we in therapy?

Perhaps it might help to think of therapy as a class that meets regularly, but not every day all the time.

We are control of the material presented in the class, reflect on it, discuss it, bawl over it, but the class ends. We can, or at least IMO should, be able to contact our therapist within reason out of session, but the homework is up to us to complete on our own.

There will be another class, there wil be another session, we can depend on the therapist being there, but do have to live our lives and do our work outside of the session.

With the consistency of meeting and occasional contact between session, I know I was able to incoporate this qualified dependence as good enough and much less scary.