Your feelings make total sense to me, Granite. One of the things I have been working on in my own therapy is my desperate desire for things to be different NOW. I know what my mother did was crappy. But I desperately want the people in my life now to have my back, be willing to stick up for me, be willing to defend me when I am being unfairly attacked or treated badly. My T thinks that focusing on the source of the desperation behind that wish for someone to be on my side: i.e. how badly everyone in my life as a child failed me, we will somehow drain some of the intensity of that desire away. So far that has been completely unsuccessful. My guess is that your T has a similar theory.