Interesting! I like how you described it. I go back and forth on this, but right now I do feel like I need things from my therapist. I need him to be trustworthy and reliable, to be present and attentive during our sessions, to care about my wellbeing, to be knowledgeable about my needs, to be insightful and deliberate in what he says and asks, and I need to know that he and I are working towards the same things in my therapy. In some ways these are pretty basic job requirements, in others they're pretty demanding. Sometimes simultaneously both.

Some of these needs are "within therapy" needs, where it's more about what I require in order to engage in therapy. Some are just needs, that I could meet elsewhere too or instead. In some cases I do also meet those needs elsewhere. The general needs that I don't meet elsewhere tend to point to key things I'm working on in therapy, so it's interesting to think about what categories various things fall into.