I was always afraid my T had changed when she went away and then came back. My background was a bit different, my father had to go to sea for 8 months with the Navy a couple years after my mother died and when he came back I didn't recognize him and thought he was an impostor. I think it has to do with trying to hold a "model" of our mother/father/therapist in our head to be "sure" of it only people don't stay looking, feeling, or behaving the same over time. You and I don't remember our real mothers and I think that's distressing to us so we try to make the other people who "matter" stay the same but are aware that people don't stay the same, they go away or die or get angry (my stepmother) or cease caring/being interested in or focused on us (your foster mother) and shatter our worlds again and that shattering is so very hard!

I helped myself a little with the T afraid-she'd-changed problem by using that to start the discuss immediately when I saw her again. Recognizing the anger at her going away, feeling the "warmth" of her being there with me/back from vacation, finding from talking to her she hadn't changed -- having all that happen with her in the first half hour or so healed a lot of the worry/fear so we could get back to work on what we were working with before she left. It also helped the next time she went away; it was a real "shared" experience I could draw on and know I could recreate the "next" time so I wasn't so unhappy/scared, etc. when she went away next.