Reading this thread has made me understand something. My first response was based entirely on my experience. Now I look at all the thanks on the OP post and realize just how widespread elliemay's experience apparently is, and how different my experience was.

My T never treated me this way, nor made me feel this way.

Of course, when I was confused about something, if there was a reasonable connection to be made to past experience, we'd explore it. But along with deep empathy for my experience, he always coupled it with a recognition of the strengths I developed--but had no recognition of-- to be the person that I am. I think it goes hand-in-hand with his being careful to not encourage regression. The degree to which I regressed was supported at the moment, but I was never encouraged to believe that it was a solution-- it was expected, yes, but not a goal to be pursued in order to heal.

I think it's what is meant by "neutralization" of emotions. It's a developmental process that begins around 1 1/2-2 years of age and continues through early adolescence. It's the growing recognition, acceptance, and experiencing of emotions not as 100% good or bad, but as a mixture of the two. And that experiencing one emotion doesn't negate the existence of its opposite emotional state.

And maybe this also connects to why difficult points in the therapy process never resulted in a rupture. And why our post-therapy relationship is able to be normalized.

I need to think about this some more. Thanks, elliemay.