That makes sense...maybe I've ended up caught up in psychodynamic terminology/theories from ex-MC and/or just reading stuff online. T does seem willing to examine my past--he was saying in one of the sessions this past week that he didn't feel he had that good of a sense of my childhood. That maybe we needed to discuss that more. In the past, he's said he doesn't tend to focus on clients' childhoods, but he realizes with me, it's important to do. (That was one of the comments that made me think he was adapting more to my needs.) He's also talked about possibly having one or both of my parents come in to join me for a session at some point. From talking Tuesday, he seemed to understand that one way of working through transference is to go back to my childhood and examine what was going on there. Like...it doesn't all have to be about him and my relationship with him. He clearly seemed open to examining how childhood stuff continues to affect me.

But I agree with what you're saying, that I need to focus on what his strengths are, not his deficits. And I was thinking that at one point after Tuesday's session, that maybe I could keep seeing him to focus on the areas that he's good at, where he's already helped me, as opposed to throwing away the relationship entirely. Like, not expecting him to deal with/help with the transference stuff, but to sort of use him for other issues. So maybe I should just focus more on those and adjust my expectations?