The balance of power in therapy

My therapists left me feeling the immature child to their adult, likely because they pretended to understand my life far better than I did. They supplied the labels and narrative and made the interpretations. I had all the doubts and flaws, they presented nothing but certainty, never once allowing the possibility that they merely were guessing or might be anything but 100 percent correct.

It was only later I realized one used a nutty, widely discredited pop psychology methodology (her method is off-the-charts now) and the other, who called himself psychodynamic, was merely thrashing around in mush.

So yes, I'd say they had all the power. They were king of the hill and queen bees.

I like the analogy. I would say no one controls it. There have been times she veers off and it annoyed me beyond belief but in the end proved helpful. There are times I pick the topics and we go there instead. We always negotiate what works and what doesn't/ I'm not afraid to give any feedback, we discuss intentions, reasoning and where we should head next.

A question that's pretty relevant to my own journey right now.

My T very much wants me to feel like I'm in the driving seat. But I don't. I feel like he is always leading. He wants to try to support me to lead but I can't. I don't feel able to.

I'm glad you guys like the analogy; I have pretty much been imaging myself as that little skipping child when I think of my relationship with T1, but I think it really exposes my love of shopping
how amazing that this issue seems to affect people so differently and to different degrees.

Haha, yes great analogy!
I am definitely in the driving seat, if I want to be. Though, this week, I (unusually ) turned up and said 'I have nothing to say'. I noticed after a while that t was asking quite a lot of questions, about stuff we had talked about a while back and she asked for updates etc. so I guess she was driving for a bit whilst I looked out of the window...it was nice.