There is a lot of rightness in what SkyscraperMeow wrote, but it pre-supposes a uniform nature to ALL therapeutic relationships. As I wrote earlier, my first T was forthcoming about her life, her needs, etc... We crafted a therapeutic relationship that was based on mutual needs; certainly tilted towards me, but with her getting a lot in return. From my naïve perspective, psychotherapy generally exists on a spectrum, where T/patient relationships grade from mutual and personal to one-sided and psychoanalytic. It depends on the people and the reason for the therapy.

I think what came across from that post was more of a text book version of therapy than what many of us have experienced. It undervalues the power of the T/patient dynamic and reduces it to an applied formula.