I eventually came to all the same conclusions.

I found it to be an infantilizing, dysfunctional, degrading, disempowering, parasitic, exploitive, contrived, faux relationship. Or, in many cases, it was simply pointless.

The asymmetry, which is aggressively promoted as the magical ingredient that makes therapy so special and so necessary, is actually what made it so toxic.

And yes the structure promotes dependency and addiction and extremes of behavior and emotion, and most therapists will blame and pathologize the client for falling into this trap, and cite this as evidence that the client needs years of therapy. It's racketeering, though probably many therapists don't realize what they're doing.