My T is very empathetic, compassionate and non judgmental but he is also progress driven. He will let me lead the session to an extent a a long as we are working on ways for me to progress and get better. He will not allow me to come in and gripe about my week or my day unless I am telling him how it makes me feel and then we have to work on those feelings and coping mechanisms or ways to better deal with the situation at hand. He will not allow me to come in session after session just for support. He believes that allow me to come in and gripe about my week or my day unless I am telling him how it makes me feel and then we have to work on those feelings and coping mechanisms or ways to better deal with the situation at hand. He will not allow me to come in session after session just for support. He believes that allowing that type of behavior does not help clients improve and it's unethical so if a client does not make any progress or improvements within one year he will refer them.

All of my problems come from childhood I have a history of extreme abuse and neglect. My therapist also does EMDR which we work on regularly with sessions interspersed with CBT and DBT skills.

Occasionally I do have a session where we just talk back and forth but he is still providing alternatives and suggestions for how to better deal with my feelings and he is constantly asking how does that make me feel and where is that in my body blah blah blah I hate it but he seems to feel it's very important.

I guess what I'm saying is I don't think you need to go to psychodynamic just to deal with issues from childhood. You also don't have to go to the Other Extreme with a warm-and-fuzzy therapist that doesn't help you progress. There are therapists out there that provides the compassion but are still progress oriented I guess that would be something to ask during the interview.