Stopdog, Your wishes about how your attachment, or lack of it, or not wanting it, makes sense to me. I've been in that arena longer than I can recall. My only reason for not wanting attachment, and wanting to change that I have it is because the loss of T feels worse than dying. So, I feel I have to go all the way through my personal Attachment jungle to hopefully reach the natural end of it and leave T on my own wish. At least my T reassures me that growing out of the attachment will be my desire, like the bird wanting to fly off the nest
rather than being pushed off. I'm counting on it working out that way.
I just read Maroda's book , "The Power of Counter Transference" and it made good sense to me about the dependency issues. I thought she was humane about the ending of therapy, letting the patient feel ready. I've read many of those textbooks now by the "experts" like Wallin, Seigel, Chessick, Winnicott, Balint, etc. Stolorow has the best ideas about endings, in my opinion...the patient decides.
What I've gleaned is that I should, and deserve to, decide how I'm ready to attach, and also how to end the therapy, IF I feel I'm getting to the end. My beef with all the therapies has been over the termination theory or style. I now reject any therapy, therapist, or book, that schedules a termination countdown or gives an ultimatum. That is totally cruel and traitorous. Many therapists did this termination regime, such as Masterson, Stark, Giovachini, Bollas, Yalom, etc. Even Freud and Jung didn't seem to give the patient enough slack on this, in my reading of them. In my opinion, Martha Stark is a sadist who has no business with any patient, according to the traitorous bait&switch she describes with attachment in her book, "Working With Resistance". So, I've gradually learned to follow the books and docs who are flexible about the ending of therapy, and sometimes will just skip that termination chapter to save myself the anger.
I'll confess I read books to head off painful surprises ahead. More than I should, I'm sure.