> pachyderm, your therapist is not your mother and, presumably, didn't know your mother so the "reminders" are coming from your head/thinking.

I don't fully agree with this. I think he does some things that have the same origins or motives that the things my mother did had. The same kinds of psychological processes take place in people who aren't clinically disturbed as in those who are. "Disturbed" people are not some kind of human that is essentially different from "normal" people. It's a matter of degree. It makes it harder for me to separate the two in my mind.

I think the degree to which healthy people differ from unhealthy ones (psychologically speaking) is the degree to which those people are consciously aware of why they are doing the things they do. Sometimes, I think, my therapist does things (says things) inadvertently for reasons that he does not understand at the time he does them.

Needless to say I do that sort of thing all the time. I am increasingly aware of the fact that I do not understand what I am doing many times.