I may have missed something, but I don't believe it is an 'expectation' of 'so many people' here that the T 'love' them or be their 'mom' or give them special treatment - and I haven't heard of anyone making such demands. What I have seen are people expressing these DESIRES, these feelings - thinking of the therapist as something of a 'mother figure'...

Desires and expectations are two different things.

Button30 actually posted an excellent link the other day (http://www.integrativetherapy.com/se/articles.php?id=28) to an article which touched on some of this - the pain a client can go through when someone finally cares, someone finally listens, someone FINALLY understands, and you feel that caring - and then comes the realisation of what has been missed out on earlier in life. It seems this is quite a normal response - and I'm sure a feeling which many of us who come here can relate to, to some degree.

I hesitate to post.. but I feel it is important, actually.. because I actually felt a little hurt reading your original post. It hit a nerve. I don't assume it is your intention to come off as judgmental, but.. to me, as a rational adult who has been having these feelings (of which I already feel shameful) of 'wanting T to be mom' (whilst fully knowing and accepting she can't) - it stings a little.

Feelings aren't always rational.. but I would hope this forum is somewhere that people can feel comfortable to post about their feelings, about these issues that they're struggling with, and not to feel judged, but get some support.

I'm perhaps being a little sensitive here, I'll own that - and I don't want anyone to think I'm being confrontational, for this reason I hesitated to respond at all - but I just wondered what your motivation was for posting about this, if it isn't your own issue? I just wonder how you yourself might react if someone posted a thread questioning, for instance, why it was so hard for some people to talk in therapy - something you personally struggle with and something they don't themselves have issues with and can't understand. Wouldn't you feel a little 'got at'? Wouldn't it seem to you a little like: 'come on, you should know better than this/that.. that isn't rational..'? Things aren't always as simple as they might appear to be to others, are they?

We all have our own foibles, and are at our own places in 'the process'... I would hope we can all respect where each of us are at. I'm sure we're all doing our best to deal with our own stuff.