M-L, I didn't realize your setbacks with this woman go beyond recent rupture and extend to your response for your entire treatment. Do I understand correctly?

Though my situation was different, I still had the problem of "demoting" a therapist team. The common element was their jurisdiction made me feel worse, yet I was awestruck by what I believed to be their power and authority. Leaving physically was a much easier project than leaving emotionally.

I told you I read your earliest posts; your original intentions. I was struck by your clarity, resolve and your...independence. You even stated concern that the process would leave you too dependent. I wonder if it might be grounding to review where you were before you began and your intentions and goals for therapy. Then in hindsight you can assess whether this therapy seems to be the road to your desired destination.

I personally was in a traumatic bond. A therapy was doing me absolutely no good, these therapists were frankly blustering fools, yet emotionally I still had this pull to be under their "protective" wing. They had manipulated my child-like responses to make me feel subordinate and beholden to them. I've had to remind myself repeatedly they were merely people who went to school and earned a degree, they performed a specific role, and nothing they knew or studied conferred any special wisdom on them.

I don't know farmers, but I've known ranchers and horse people. I admire their breadth of knowledge and their skills to care for animals, land and machines. I know you can find the strength you have to carry through this painful interval.

Though therapists pretended to help me, I actually was carrying and caring for myself all along. I had to think back to all the times of strength in my life to reconnect with the answers to were within.