I have also experienced it being involuntary. It sort of fills whatever space in your day that you leave for it to fill.

When it was first starting out, I used to just be myself in therapy, no different than I was in the rest of my life, albeit amidst a great deal of anxiety about seeking help. Well, she identified with me, enjoyed being with me and became very over-involved with me. Emotionally, we were so close that it was impossible to identify any boundaries between us. That also created the desire to be physically close, have warmth and affection and be inseparable.

However I began to realize that I had not come to therapy just to be close with someone, I came to therapy to get help for my problems. I tried to get her to help me with my problems. And she couldn't do it. Eventually she felt guilty that she couldn't help me with my problems, and resented my insistence that she help me, and she refused to see me anymore or speak to me in any capacity.

But the emotional bond between us had never even changed. I still had all the desire for closeness and affection and warmth. So it was factually the case that she had allowed us to be close as long as I not only paid her money each week, but also did not expect her or pressure her to be able to help with my problems or provide any services. By which I mean, she would not allow me to say my feelings. IF I said my feelings, she would punish me with withdrawal or ultimately abandonment. So I was conditioned to be emotionally dependent on our closeness and then had my dependency leveraged against me when I try to put words to it.

What I didn't understand was that, even if I knew she was irresponsible and even if I chose not to recognize or respect her as an authority figure, my emotions had still become conditioned as such. My emotions still reacted to other authority figures in the same way they were conditioned to react to her... AKA, fearing that I would be thrown out and denied service if I expected them to perform any of their professional duties. Fearing that my needs were totally unimportant and I was totally expendable.

Another consequence of that conditioning was the feeling that I would not be loved or cared about by anyone unless I 100% sacrificed my needs. So I began avoiding people in general to spare myself the feeling of being unloved. I became isolated.

Because of that emotional conditioning, I was unable to seek help after that therapy ended. I believed emotionally that to seek help would cause me to be used up and abandoned again. So after therapy I sat there needing help, every day of my life, and unable to seek that help. This was a very bad place for me and for a long time I was constantly in pain, constantly an inch away from suicide, though even that felt too selfish of me.

It didn't matter whether I thought about her or didn't think about her. Because the point is, I was stuck and in pain and I could not seek help for it without opposing an EXTREME inner dissonance. And the SITUATION was caused by the conditioning I experienced in my relationship to her, but my inability to seek further help was what preserved that conditioning, it didn't require me to think about her at all. The pain was a reminder of her. The pain WAS her. She was not just in my thoughts, she was in my body and my soul which were rapidly dying because of what I experienced as a result of my relationship to her.

I am trying VERY hard to begin to act as if my needs matter and to make attempts to get my needs met. But it is VERY HARD because my emotions have been hardwired to resist and evade any kind of support or help. WHen I try to utilize professional services, I'm BOMBARDED with fears of all the ways I may be exploited, taken advantage of, betrayed, held captive, denied, punished, stolen from, etc. I have developed extreme fears and avoidance of needing others and an extreme distrust toward authority and professional responsibility. That is her footprint in my life whether or not I think about her at all anymore.

And even when I think about friendship or companionship, I'm bombarded with fears that I am unlovable, unwanted, not cared about, inconsequential, worthless.

I know it doesn't have to be that way but that conditioning kept getting reinforced for like four years. It became VERY strong and extremely hard to oppose. I hate that this happened to me. I deserved so much better than this and it hurts so much. I feel so broken.

So yes, I am terrified of therapy in principle because of the sheer invisibility of the harm as it takes place. If a repairman fails to fix your car, there is obvious evidence of it. If a surgeon botches a surgery, it is obvious. If a restaurant serves moldy food, it is obvious. If a hairdresser slips and cuts your ear off, it is obvious.

If a therapist exploits you, there is not necessarily any evidence. Nothing material that you can show people so they will understand your complaints are legitimate... because the damage is done directly to your SOUL. Your essence.

There is no concrete product of therapy. The service being rendered is a completely subjective experience. As long as your therapist does not exploit the treatment setting in OBVIOUS ways, they can exploit you in any number of covert ways and in doing so, they are COMPLETELY above reproach. Untouchable. It just so happens that my therapist was the type of therapist who dedicated all her energy into being untouchable and beyond reproach. Performing, on the surface, the motions of therapy, with absolutely no acknowledgement of the individuality and the individual needs and feelings of her clients. Literally just doing a performance and not providing a service, yet calling it a service, insisting that it is a service and billing it as a service. It leaves no evidence of abuse, other than the gradual worsening of her client's ability to function, which can easily be blamed on her client and not on her own efforts.

This situation could never have happened to me so invisibly and covertly if it were any other profession. It terrifies me.