Stopdog, it sounds like you want to be an island so that no one can ever interfere with you again (did you get a lot of interference from your family?)

It also sounds like you want to intellectually understand any process before you will ever consider entering into it (your legal background? Why did you become a lawyer?)

Some things just will never be understood until you enter into them. They have to be experienced.

You write that you can deal with people but that you feel horrible. I think that what you feel is from the past and if you want it to leave you alone you need to express it in therapy. But now you view the therapeutic relationship as a trap and you can't let your guard down. Healing is not going to occur in this scenario.