Is there an aspect of re-parenting in all long term T relationships?

I'd never heard of the expression 'reparenting' until I saw it in this thread title. I have been soothing myself by imagining my T brushing my hair and giving me a teddy bear, even tucking me in at night and stroking my hair. However our sessions together are very adult and cerebral and a long way from my imagination. I would like her to to actually brush my hair in session. I'm a very long way from being able to discuss these ridiculous thoughts with her.

There is a kind of retraining of various aspects of person's behavior. I don't know when to call it re-parenting, but obviously there are different therapies out there with their own focus.

No, I definitely wouldn't consider what happens in my therapy to be re-parenting. Quite the opposite in fact. For one thing although I was raised in an alcoholic household (my father), in a lot of ways he was a very good dad as was my mom. So I don't need a substitute or replacement per se, even temporarily.

What I need is to build my emotional INDEPENDENCE from them. I am a people pleaser and over reliant on other people's perspective for my value. So my therapist and I are actually working on me focusing on developing more of my own identity, setting boundaries and the like. I see her as more of a mentor than parent figure (especially because she's only 5 years older than me and we are at very similar stages in life.)

No need to look at your work as reparenting, but you know a critical role of parents is the one you're having your therapist take on right now- helping you to be independent and build your own identity- that's a key developmental stage in adolescence. It doesn't always happen due to the codependence and other issues common with alcoholic parents. It's something good parents model and encourage often indirectly.

I would be offended, I think, if a T suggested coloring or reading to me. She has asked me what "age I feel" at the moment, and I always say the age that I am, I'm me. I don't feel like a little kid, but I know there was a lot of trauma at that time. Reparenting....I'll have to look that up. Because I'm unsure what it is either.

I will say, there have been a couple of recent sessions that involved my T coming to sit by me for the first time. Holding me, rubbing my back, stroking my hair, trying to comfort me when I'd become upset. I will admit that I enjoyed those things....a lot. That is something I did NOT get as a child....and I've longed for it. That wouldn't be her trying to reparent me, would it?

Maybe not in all long-term therapy relationships, but re-parenting seems to be predominant in most of the psychodynamic psychotherapy books I've read.

My philosophy of re-parenting pertains to object relations and sense of self/psychological boundaries. The therapist substitutes for the original object (usually mother) to facilitate integration of object relations which is what leads to intrapsychic structural change which is what leads to overall change.

It's sort of like military boot camp where you're stripped down as an individual and built back up as a team member, but in psychoanalytic therapy, your defenses and distortions are dismantled, and you develop a new sense of self and new way of being in relationships. The frame of the therapy is set up like an attachment relationship--your therapist doesn't need anything from you like a parent, which makes all your child feelings/needs come out. The way I see it, the whole thing is re-parenting. That's how your personality originally developed and it's in a sense being redeveloped via the therapy relationship. Only it's done right this time!