I think it is. To not be SO self-contained, and to be more comfortable, and even interested in, sharing your internal and emotional world with others. I deal with the same. And when everything is going well (i.e. when I feel like I can trust), then it actually does feel really good to share and be supported. Which leads to your excellent next question...

I worry about this. It is hard for me to find people to connect with on a deep level, and yet that deep emotional connection is what I crave. Maybe that desire was always there, and when it wasn't met, I just learned to move on and not bother. And then it gets all stirred up again (for example, in therapy), and it comes back strongly, and it will be hard to leave that behind, and try to find it with someone else. I think ideally, if you realize that is what you crave, your T will encourage you to seek it out with others in real life, while you're still in therapy, so you have that support along the way. I think I need to work on that more myself -- I spend too much time thinking about the therapy relationship, and not enough energy on developing others.

But you're right, it's hard to imagine finding one in the real world that could replace it in the same way (the intimacy, the trust, etc.), at least at this point in my life. But...therapy relationships have their limits too...there could be something nice about finding a real world person that you really wanted to connect with, where there weren't so many professional boundaries...of course, then there are social boundaries in RL that can get in the way too (e.g. is it fair to your romantic partner to have deep emotional connections with other people?). I don't know. Good question though.