I think that therapy is working when you feel secure and calm.

I don't think the grasping, anxious, need-filled reports that so often appear on this board are anything like good therapy. People file it under 'attachment' and think it's healthy. It's not.

Attachment, I have learned, is one of those words that can mean almost anything. Healthy therapeutic attachment is where you hold a therapist in positive regard and can get good work done. Anything more than that is pathological, in my opinion and should never, ever be encouraged.

If you find yourself so dependent on a therapist that you experience serious disruption when the therapist is unable to fulfil your desires / needs, then I think you're in a therapeutically dangerous situation and need to dial it down. I think therapists which encourage close physical contact, fail to maintain healthy boundaries and / or allow their clients to become dependent on them are unethical.

When I first started coming here and reading about therapy, I was frankly horrified at some of the stories I saw. I was terrified that I would end up feeling the same way. I don't. I don't think (or fantasize) of my therapist as my mother, or my lover or even a friend. She's my therapist and I'm comfortable with her and I trust her. If she goes away for a while, that sucks, but it's not the end of the world. If we had to discontinue our sessions, I would be saddened, but I'd move on to another therapist.

I think that's good therapy.

I think a lot of therapists accidentally (or perhaps even knowingly) encourage people to become hopelessly dependent on them, addicted to them, needful of them in entirely inappropriate ways. I don't think that's therapy at all. I think that's just a path which always ends in tears.

Just my two cents, YMMV.