Haha, exactly! I think what makes it especially powerful are the elements that it is limited and typically involves intermittent reinforcement. Also, all those things when people complain that the T is not available or responsive enough, for example report intense discomfort when there is no response to emails or texts - it really sounds to me like symptoms of acute withdrawal.

I remember when I was in therapy and walked in the neighborhoods where my T's office was located between sessions, I had these super intense urges to see or at least contact the Ts - that was very much an environmental cue response (my brain associated the experience of sessions with the environment around them). Also, I used to wonder why some people have the urge to drive or walk by the Ts office or house, what does that provide? I think the same. It is often described as feeling a connection with the T, but what is it really? A neurobiological reaction and behavioral response.

The idea behind long-term therapy, that it often takes time to have an effect and then the effect to last, is also well-supported by modern neurobiology. It takes time to influence certain ingrained biochemical mechanisms indirectly. Unfortunately, they can also be affected in destructive ways by bad therapy and then those effects can also be very stubborn and hard to change/recover from. This is why I always think that it would be important to leave harmful therapy ASAP, before the effects become very solid. Unfortunately, the addiction-like aspect works against this in many cases, people stay to "work through it" and it just makes it even more difficult and addictive.

Another aspect is related to the classic psychodynamic-type therapies, which attempt to use the T-client relationship heavily. It gets people hooked on something completely unnatural and claims to model natural relationships, but with all the limitations and artefacts, which easily elicits dependence on something that does not even exist in everyday life. Very much like getting hooked on a drug, which is not normal part of our physiology, but provokes a very powerful response.