I don't read any modesty or humility in the psych literature. Most everything I've read conveys authoritative conclusions about how life, emotions, diagnostic and treatment modalities regardless of whether these beliefs are supported by science. Some psych literature strikes me as downright conjuring or mind reading, presenting the therapist as something of a wizard.

If a provider brings this hubris into the therapy relationship, I think it easy for a distressed client to default to idolizing. I think it common for therapy to stir responses from childhood when most of us depended on a stronger person for survival and had to bow to the judgment of parents, teachers and other authority figures. Almost everyone I know (well enough) has deferred to "strong men" in one situation or another.

I see human hierarchy established quite subtly, through speech or gesture, who has the questions or claims to have answers, who labels, who gives direct advice, who makes judgments, who initiates standing or sitting or touching, who keeps time, who makes rules. I don't see falling into a dependent or deferential a relationship--particularly within the highly managed therapy structure--indicating some deficiency. I believe the relationship can be engineered to encourage it.

And yes, I would see statements like "You need to let go of this dependency," as belittling and fueling an authoritarian/supplicant dynamic.