Psychoanalytic therapy has been by far the most challenging therapy. The change primarily results from the T not engaging in your patterns and the transference work changes your mindset. Challenging your defenses leaves no place to escape from the truth...

I have tried many different therapists of many different types and this one had been transformative. But I have a history of severe/pervasive trauma, so I needed practitioners with advanced training and cannot work with therapists who don't have analytical training. That may not be an issue for some.

Not sure if this would interest you but throwing it out there.... Joining the military (this was before therapy) really helped me too as it was the first time in my life I experienced discipline, so was forced to change. I was involved with juvenile delinquency, then became a teenage mother, so the military helped me immensely as a transformational phase in my life. It was also like having a family who cared, which I never had growing up.

So for me, intensity helps me change. I can't find the right words. My past experience before this therapy was that Ts engage with my patterns, so I didn't change. My T is the first one I ever had who keeps his needs out of the therapy, can see what is coming from me vs him most of the time, relates to me as a separate person, and is solid.