I'm having a sort of rupture with my T right now, and I was thinking of how her approach to me differs from my marriage counselor's. And I realized that part of it was that he tends to normalize things I'm feeling/thinking, while she tends to pathologize them, to say that they're something I need to fix/change, that they're part of my mental illness. It's not quite as black and white as I'm making it sound here though. But I'm curious as to how other people's T's approach it.

For example, the desire for reassurance. T would say that I shouldn't seek reassurance so much, that I should just be able to reassure myself. Like my need for reassurance is a sign of my depression, anxiety, and/or OCD.

Whereas MC would say it's totally normal/natural to want reassurance, like it's a basic human desire. But that there are times when there's no way to know how things will turn out, so reassurance might not work then. So I need to learn to live with that anxiety.

I respond much better to MC's approach. I already feel like I'm screwed up, so to hear that something is just another sign of my mental illness and that I shouldn't want/need it just makes me feel worse. To hear that something is a completely normal desire, that makes me feel much better. It's validating. Yes, I need to learn to live without frequent reassurance, but knowing it's a natural human desire makes me feel less like there's something wrong with me, less like I should be suppressing my emotions, less like I'm broken.

So just wondering how your T's approach stuff like that and how you respond. (I could give more/better examples, this one is just particularly fresh).