Cool about your studies :-)
I'm studying this kinda stuff now, that is why my little eyes lit up ;-)

> It seems part of me is quite formidable, but it doesn't help. I know that what I need is something, someone, some circumstances, that make me feel better. I know - from experience - that once I've got that, other stuff falls into place. I'll be honest: I think people find me difficult...

Is it maybe that... Connection with people is what ultimately is the most helpful but that... Connection with people is also what can be the most terrifying thing of all? I have this push-pull thing going on... Intimacy is something that I really need / crave, but then at the same time I'm frightened of it and sometimes I push people away because I just need them to back off.

> I probably make unconscious demands on people to give me what my parents never did....stuff like that....

Ah. Yeah, I understand. Psychodynamic therapists can help with stuff like that. Help you with these patterns... Looks like you are pretty good at figuring them out / appreciating them... Since you are pretty good at that a psychodynamic therapist could be helpful with respect to facilitating your figuring out what to do about this so your life is more enjoyable.

> But I don't feel I know how, or think that I can, or have any resources offering me an alternative. Its what I see; essentially, my 'feeling nature' is much the same as it was during my teens. The lens appears to be broken. Maybe it needs a filter, or a srew-on attachment, to change what it perceives. Other than that, I'm really not sure.....

Sometimes it can be about... These hostile people in our lives in our formative years. When kids and teenagers aren't shown love and appreciation then their emotional needs aren't met when they aren't appropriately nurtured and respected. What can happen is that we then continue on through life expecting that others will continue the pattern of frustrating our emotional needs and of not appropriately respecting us and caring for us and stuff... If one hasn't EXPERIENCED different then one can tell oneself 'rationally' till one is blue in the face it simply isn't going to help.

Psychodynamic therapy is about having some positive experiences to counter the hostile ones. Other varieties of therapy can be about that too, of course, but cognitive therapists tend to get diverted into worrying about rationality (which I find to be fairly unhelpful).

I find that my relationship with my therapist... I start to play out the patterns of the past. Putting out the 'BACK OFF LADY!!!' signals when I feel vulnerable. Pushing. Pulling. And through the process of the therapist being able to nurture the way you deserved to be nurtured in your formative years... After some time... I start to internalise the positive feelings instead of all the negative and hostile feelings of the people around me when I was a kid. At least... Thats the theory of how it is supposed to go lol. I have a long way to go...

I can't change the lenses at will either. But sometimes the world seems like a fairly nice safe place and other times it seems fairly hostile and ominous. I don't really understand why sometimes the lens changes... But I'm spending more time with the first lens because of helpful therapists, I think it is fair to say that.

Though... I shouldn't undermine the role of people on boards with respect to that... People on boards have helped me immensely too...