I have come out of retirement to comment on this because it's something I've experienced, and maybe it will help you to hear.

Like others have said, this guy is not the therapist for the kind of work you're looking for from him. Those kind exist, and they would love to use the therapeutic relationship as a laboratory for seeing how you do life, but it's not just having someone hold all your feelings for you and be gushy. It's painful, hard work, fraught with shame attacks and fear. It's not all about what other people have done wrong. The past is a launching pad for how you experience life now. Some kinds of therapy help you get interested in finding ways as an adult to be more functional and happy with yourself. In relational therapy, you can show up and accuse the therapist of talking too harshly (maybe they did) or being dismissive (probably were)--they don't get defensive, though, they get curious and that makes you curious, and pretty soon you metabolize all those unbearable feelings and come up with a different approach for yourself--and you do that over and over and over and over again. The trust has to be there that they aren't going to walk away when you have a shame attack and freak out, that they're going to stick it out until you can put out the fires in your brain. It's looking deeply at how you experience things and being curious about that. Sure, you can look at the "why" but that gets old, especially once you know the why.

What I see in you is a need to manage other people's feelings, to make sure they don't feel too much or feel in a way that makes you uncomfortable--all coming from a need you may have to also not feel too much in yourself. That's something to be curious about and to wonder if it's working for you the way it did with a child brain. Would your life feel more doable if you let other people have their feelings and you learned to be okay with yours? That's the kind of thing digging deeper can start with, but your therapist doesn't work that way. His way can work for some. It's very practical.

I can clearly feel your pain when your therapist doesn't say or do the exact thing you need in order to feel okay. In all honesty though, that's a hamster wheel approach to life. Let's say he messed up and did virtual on a day that you thought was in person? That would feel awful--all kinds of feelings would flood you. Rejection, abandonment, fears of all kinds...lots of great material to work with if you had the right therapist. But I have a feeling with this therapist it would be weeks of you going over exactly what he did wrong and how it hurt you and was like your parents treatment of you (or fill in the blank). Instead, a relational therapist might lead you to finding ways to survive those feelings and carry on, to not be led by fears and fear of feeling things.


All that aside, you might do really well with EMDR. I've had great success with it, even though I was pretty sure it was going to be useless. My therapist (a different one than I had when I used to post here) is full on relational and I can't stand it. She says I limit what we can get to and that's right. I have specific things I'm there for, and that's all I want to work on. It's been really successful for me.


With EMDR, you could work on any number of triggering events--things with your daughter, your husband, past therapists, your mother (who is sounds like also tries to manage other people's feelings).


Anyway, just wanted to weigh in because I recognize your stuckness and want you to be able to live a great life, not being batted around by what other people say or do. It's very freeing.


btw, Have you watched Couples Therapy on Showtime? The therapist is a rare type--smart, bold and honest.