Mine never said anything like that directly - fortunately, as I might have come back with something cynical such as "if you cannot do anything else as a professional but be in a relationship". My last T said other things about using the relationship in therapy for insight. I have no problems with that because I analyze how I relate and react to people on my own as well. But my issue with therapy was exactly that I never saw much therapeutic in it - it was having conversations with someone, little else, for me. Some of it were good conversations (especially with my last T) but nothing I cannot have with intelligent friends/colleagues, where the relationship/collaboration itself is usually much more beneficial than the artifice of therapy. Also that whole idea about therapy providing a safe environment - I experience that in good mutual everyday relationships much more than what therapy could ever create. For me, what could have been useful perhaps is if the Ts challenged me and called me out on my BS in insightful ways - this is what a very few people in ordinary relationships will do but when it happened with people I respected, it helped me more than anything. That can be a uniquely useful relationship for me that is not easy to find anywhere. None of my Ts did that well. One mostly just created artificial drama centered around him when we had conflicts and the other one was way too accepting.

I have no problems seeing how the relationship with the T can be an important element of some people's therapy but I think it's going too far to generalize that concept. Not even everyone aims to address interpersonal issues in therapy, I think - I wasn't, for example. I was interested in addressing bad habits and negative patterns that got in the way of achieving my goals and made me stuck in circles. Of course it can be interesting to uncover the origin of those, which sometimes go back to old relational issues, but my lack of discipline and making bad choices for myself are present issues that I practice on my own, not much to do with relationships.