I always felt Peck was creepy and the whole reparenting idea creepy.

A therapist's fake paid "love" is going to heal the pain, fear, anger, loneliness, isolation from formative experiences? Paleez. He/she could get transferred, close their practice, take a leave to teach, or, yes, get sick or injured and die.

One shrink explained to me that he thought there was no such thing as unconditional love. Maybe that was as close to re-parenting as I got because the insight of that truly floored me. I was studying Buddhism at the time and my therapist practiced Zen...so I guess you could say this idea of relativity with regards to love was actually a great comfort to me, and continues to be. **** happens. A parent or partner gets Alzheimers and completely forgets their child or spouse. Where does the love go? **** happens in the brain and poof. Love gone.

I had to read Peck's book in grad school and I considered it a piece of garbage but the process people loved it. Different strokes.

Trauma wrecks innocence about love. When my brother returned from Vietnam he made a piece of art for me. It was a quote he made up -- words sort of exploding out of a pair of combat boots. It said, "Cars love Shell. How can I say I love you when Cars love Shell?" At the time that was Shell's slogan. When my brother returned after the war he found the idea of unconditional love a trivial and impossible notion, but he was and remains one of the most caring, considerate people I know.

The therapist: "You pay me to speak to you. How can I say I love you when you pay me to speak to you?"

Needless to say, I am not in therapy. If I found a good CBT person I'd go...but the last time I spent a lot of money on a so-called counselor who knew **** about CBT so it made me therapy shy.

The phrase unconditional positive regard came from Buddhism. It was meant to address a person's BuddhaNature or soul, not their karmic and flawed "body body" --- In Buddhism there really is no word for love. There is lust, yes. Friendship like agape, yes. But not love as we westerners use it. The love of a mother for her child is used a lot...but Buddhist scholars would call this more instinct than pure love, and definitely not unconditional. Because it is rooted in biology.