Well, of course you knew I had to weigh in on this.

It is my belief, at least today, that it is through the transference that we learn the most about ourselves. Therapy is about attachment; and how we can form new pathways of communicating with ourselves; redefine our self image. As social beings, this requires an interaction with another person--the therapist.

I think we (in this thread) are talking about a whole continuum of therapeutic experience--WMD and River are looking at therapy as a place to become more self sufficient and others are looking at therapy as a place to know themselves better. These are all good and worthy goals and require differing methods/techniqes depending on who we are.

Our early childhood experiences are all different. I was left alone a lot and grew up in a boundary-less family, so learning how to let someone in/learning healthy attachment and healthy boundaries is a big challenge for me. If you had a mom who smothered you or an overbearing parental attachment, then maybe you sense attachment with a therapist as threatening; In either case, we need to learn to trust ourselves but the path to trust will be a most individual one.

WMD, come here and let me slap you upside the head.