My apologies if this question has already been posted in the past but I could really use a different perspective than my own warped one.

I started seeing a new t because I felt very strongly that my old t wasn't providing me the level of support I needed to make any forward progress. He was professional to the point of seeming cold and uncaring to me and he had very rigid boundaries. We talked about his method in our last session and he said he thought of therapy with a water metaphor - his clients were in the middle of a lake trying not to drown and he was in a boat that he kept just ahead of where they could grab it because his job was to teach them to swim, not provide support to keep them from drowning. I had asked him what he did if one of his clients were seriously drowning and he said he'd move the boat closer but not close enough so they could grab on. I didn't think this was a good method for me and it solidified my resolve to terminate with him.

So now I have a new t who is very supportive and is (I think) trying to undo a lot of the damage the last t did because he really wants me to trust him. He reaches out to me a lot outside of session - not big things but little things like texting me on Mondays to check in because he knows weekends are hard for me. He's also told me while in session that sometimes all he wants to do is give me a big hug and tell me that everything is going to be OK. I told him that would completely freak me out and he said he would never do it without my permission but that he wanted me to know what he was really thinking while I was talking to him so I would stop attributing my own thoughts ("Stop whining you useless ******!!") to him.

So I've been working on trying to trust him and his support is starting to chip away at my defenses. But now, I'm starting to really count on his contacting me outside of session, to the point that I'm obsessing about it. On the days I don't hear from him, I must check my phone a thousand times to see if any texts have come in. And I find myself wanting to initiate texts just so I can hear back from him.

I'm afraid this isn't healthy - like his support was "too much of a good thing" and I can't handle it. I really wanted support like this and thought it would help me get better but now I'm wondering if my old t would have been better for me in the long run, rigid boundaries and all. Or am I just scared and looking for excuses to push the new t away because support is something I'm really not used to and it's painful for me to let my defenses down for anyone?

Thanks for listening to me ramble...