i use to feel this way, often, starting from a young age wanting to feel specail with any adult who would pay me any kind of attention. including with the neighbour who sexually abused me (he often told me i was special). i definilty felt it strongly with both of my ex-Ts when i was in therapy, it is part of the dynamics of what makes the transference and attachment so strong. what moxie said about this is mostly correct:


i've seen this refereed to as 'wantedness', and that it is communicated to babies from their mothers at a very early stage, some believe it most likely starts in utero. the feeling of being wanted is critical to a child learning to self-regulate and feeling safe in this world. a baby who does not experince the world, or their mother as safe, is going to fear for their survival. these feelings of fear will be encoded, not only into the early developing brain, but into the body as well. to overcome the early encoded feelings of fear the adult client needs to learn (train the brain/form new neural connections) on how to regulate (self-sooth). when the mind and body start to regulate, then the client can start to feel mothered. this is where attunement with a therapist is important and can be helpful. if the attunement with a T is sustainable, then this can be quite healing for some clients. personally, it wasn't enough for me and i had to seek other means to learn how to regulate my mind. for me it was with with the help of neurofeedback in conjunction with my therapy, but there are others methods as well. as i started to experince the regulation and calming, i was able to positively start connecting and working internally with my younger parts and was able to start soothing them successfully with the help from the supporting relationship with my husband. that was very crucial, because my husband could provide the time, support, and physical 'soothing' connection that my T realistically could not. essentially, my husband was becoming more attuned to me and my needs than my T and it was through this safe attunment that my brain learned to form those new self regulating neural pathways (connections).


this is the part i don't agree with anymore. i use to...especially each time i got annoyed when i felt like my T was brushing me aside and telling me i had to learn how to sooth myself. the problem though was realistically that neither i (who had no clue what this concept was because it was never 'encoded' to me) or my T had any clue on how to do that effectively with the limitations of talk therapy and the dynamics of the relationship. this is where i had to seek other means to learn that and get those needs met. once one can learn to regulate the mind and body, this is where the real healing can begin. for some clients, the attunment with T can be enough, but unfortunately for many of us with CPTSD this is not enough and that regulation must be found through other means,i.e. body centred therapies (somatic experiencing, neurofeedback, EMDR, etc),than talking alone and a limited 'caring' non-reciprocated relationship.