I apparently needed several (though less than a dozen) strangers on the internet to help me figure out -- to suggest an alternative point of view -- that therapy wasn't, and hadn't been, good for me in lots of ways.

I did need, and have needed, other people in my life. Other "safe" people, or a sense that it was safe to read or listen to their views and decide for myself. Therapists, and I saw a lot, did not convey that to me.

Nevertheless, given what is available to you, Sarah, I wonder, if you can find a way to work with the therapist to get some new ideas which could help you get to a place where life is meaningful for you? Given your experience with past therapists, keeping her at "arm's length", or further, seems reasonable. And yet -- it does seem that you want closeness with someone, or some ones, given how much the loss of your last therapist hurt you?

Maybe this therapist can't provide the warmth and closeness that you want -- starting, then, from a place of disappointment, is there anything that you can think of that you might gain from being with her? Perhaps just the experience of being with another human being, given that you don't have a lot of them/us in your life right now?

I tried a bunch of therapists after the horrible experience with my last longish-term T (6 years). It ended up just confirming that they were (all) terrible for me. Their attitudes were "helping" rather than respecting, which is what I guess I needed, though I didn't know that. I had this forum, and a real life support group, and eventually have given up completely on them.

But I've said often enough on this forum how many years I did try, and "believe in" therapy -- felt it was the right thing to do, felt I had no other real choice. If I were in your shoes, I think I would continue to try it again because -- well, it is an opportunity to be with another human being and if nothing else to decide for yourself what you don't like -- and maybe even some things you do like -- about her. So it seems to me that could expand your experience base. Maybe that's not what psychoanalysis is normally about -- but it's your therapy and it seems to me you can use it for whatever and however you want, within the boundaries of the therapy session.