I'm curious about how you feel about the comment about working things out directly with your mom. Working through mom stuff is a major component of my therapy, and it doesn't involve my actual mom at all. It reminds me of the other thread about using transference to cast somebody in a role and then playing out whatever is "stuck" in a more healthy way. My mom is alive but unequivocally unavailable and unable to work on our relationship. I've cast my T in the "mother" role, in part to get the care I've been craving and in part to work through the ways my emotional development got stunted and derailed in childhood. (I also basically stopped trying to have a relationship with my mom at about the same time, not by coincidence). So even if my T and I are talking about the therapeutic relationship (which happens often and in a fairly detailed and intense way), what we're actually talking about is my conception of myself, how I see other people, and how other people see me.

I'm glad Dr. T isn't going there if he doesn't know how to do that, but I also think it's interesting that you keep getting pulled back toward wanting to do therapy that way. I've noticed that my core inner work seems to have a life of its own, so much so that I've long since stopped having an agenda for most of my sessions. It's interesting that your "work" seems to keep dragging you back to particular social dynamics or ideas with him (acceptance, intimacy/vulnerability, caring, etc).

I think you can greatly improve your life and relationships without doing the psychodynamic-y stuff, but I can see that it keeps calling to you, no matter how much you and your T try to steer away from it. I hope you don't feel too affected by value judgments from other people that you should do therapy one way or another because there is value in many different approaches. Focus on the relationship or not, but it's your time.

Unrelatedly, $500 to Verizon?! HOW IS THAT EVEN POSSIBLE?!