First of all, I’m sorry to hear of the death of your mother. We only get one, and for better or worse it’s a life changing experience. Everything I know about mothers and children tell me that the mother-daughter relationship is often especially charged with feelings of various sorts. But then, both people are women, and women have about twice the feelings men do (little known true fact).

So, all that’s to say that I would expect that this would be a Big Deal for you, as indeed you report that it is. It’s another Leaving, akin in some ways, to leaving a therapist. Such things tend to trigger in us very basic questions. How else can it be?

It’s an obvious thing to say, but worth saying anyway: the goal of psychotherapy is to change our inner world, not our outer world. Of course, there IS a relationship, yes? Fundamentally, the primary issue is emotional stability, I think – being able to stay on our feet, or get back up, when life throws us a curve ball. True emotional stability is often a life-long project. Our goal should be simply to keep working on it.

So, with something like the loss of your mother – I think you need to talk with someone who can simply listen. Your therapist has another job, although listening is part of it. Have you thought of seeking out some woman you know who is approximately your peer, and asking them about the loss of their own mother? If it hasn’t happened yet to them, surely they are thinking about it. The point is to find a social context in which you can safely and simply talk about what you’re experiencing. We MUST do this, because we are social beings.

Don’t worry about being dependent. You don’t really want that, I’m sure, and it’s probably not really a risk. You DO, however, have some real needs. I need to eat. Does that mean I’m dependent upon food? Well, of course, but that’s not really an appropriate use of the word. Neither is its use in relation to your need to share with another human being the experience you’re having.

Feeling loss, and expressing it, is part of being human. You get to do it. You get to expect that you can find someone who will be interesting in taking the time to talk with you about this. It’s fully legitimate.

A technical tip: make your “talking” reciprocal. Such experiences work best when you and the other person are exchanging meaning. Pay for what you get by giving back. THAT will work just fine.

You’ll have a need to talk about this a number of times, if you experience is like that of other women I’ve known. So, learning how to do it well is important. I hope you’ll give it appropriate attention.

Some people have trouble relating to their therapist as just another human being, albeit one who has unusual training, education (not the same thing), skills, and experience, and who. as a result of this, is offering a professional service.

Some clients seem to want their therapists to be demi-gods, or Experts, or avatars of some sort. We’re not. We’re just people. We have feelings. We make mistakes. And…we can be really, really useful to our clients. I think it fair to say that overwhelmingly we wish to be, and try hard to be.

So, is it more useful to mislead you about our nature, or to reveal it? I think that in revealing his feelings, he was likely trying to do two things: a) validate and “normalize” your own distress, and b) let you know that you were valued by him, in that your termination was distressful to him as well.

I would ask you to dwell a bit on the latter information: his involvement with you, focused appropriately ON you, was at the same time of value to him. THAT’s about YOU. Were I in your place, I’d appreciate knowing that.

I know that I value highly all my clients (with the exception a very very small number who simply make trouble in all directions), because they, as human beings, have inherent value, in my eyes. Having contact with that enriches me. I have a very distinct sense of this, and I do share it at times with my clients – when I am moved to do so and it seems appropriate to the context of our work together.

I think it would be quite unusual for someone not to value BEING valued, and I suspect that in sharing his feelings, your therapist wanted you to know something important about YOU.

I hope you can see his remarks in that light. I do think it is appropriate for therapists to see value in their clients, and express that sense of their value at times. Most of our clients have not had enough of this in their lives, and ALL of us need this appreciation from others from time to time.

An interesting question.

Let me begin by saying I don’t use the concept of “fault” in my thinking. It’s from a former, pre-psychological, time. I think simply of “cause”. There’s a moral connotation to the former which does not automatically attach to the latter, and this is important.

Psychology is not a moral exercise; it’s a scientific exercise. We are striving to understand what’s really happening. Only after that’s accomplished are we in a position to even consider what we may want to do about it, if anything. Psychology doesn’t tell us what to do. It just tells us (when successful!) what’s actually going on.

I certainly don’t think that parents are the only relevant influence upon a child’s sense of feeling understood. On the other hand, that really wasn’t my subject here. What I’m writing about is the critical influence which early childhood primary caregivers – usually parents – have upon our sense of self, not our sense of being understood.

Feeling understood is important in early childhood for a number of reasons – there’s an implied acceptance, respect, and sense of having company in one’s distress or happiness inherent in the fact of feeling understood. It’s also calming, and this is critical, given the young child’s problems with managing – “down-regulating” – its own emotions.

What I’m saying is that early intimacy – emotional intimacy of the right kind – apparently MUST be present, else a child’s relation to her/himself will very likely be impaired, if not seriously damaged. The matter is fairly much settled before the time of social engagement in a child’s life, which is approximate 8 to 11 (it varies widely with kids). By then, a child’s emotional competence is either off to a good start, or not, and parents are the primary influence on this.

In referring to “the time of social engagement” I mean NOT mere the time when a child begins playing with other, but rather the time when a child is attending to other kids, as if they were people like them. Kids don’t start running in packs until this age, for example. By the time they start doing that, their sense of self is already either damaged or reasonably healthy, and that outcome is determined by interaction with primary caregivers, as I say.

Now, given all that, when we start seriously interacting with peers many things can go wrong. For many reasons, we may have real trouble gaining the acceptance which is critical to the next stage of our development, which is centered on successful management of oneself in the world OUTSIDE the family.

Consider the kid who moves into a small town at age 9, or the kid who’s in a wheelchair, or has a different skin color, or a different culture or religion, or a mental or physical handicap. Children at this age are not necessarily tolerant, and this can lead to serious complications for the child who is not able to figure out how to gain acceptance from peers in spite of being obviously different from them.

And, as you suggest, all this can happen quite independent of their relationship with their parents. I completely agree with your suggestion. However, my focus in this piece was on what happens in the birth family BEFORE the time in a child’s life where social acceptance becomes a major issue.

I don’t say much about peer acceptance because I deal in my professional practice mostly with issues relating to psychological trauma and attachment disorder, and in these areas people simply don’t talk about peers much. When they do, the matter is typically fairly easily resolved. That cannot be said about early childhood trauma issues, which can be much more difficult to find and resolve.

Feeling accepted by peers IS important. We DO live in a larger world than that of our birth family. If there are problems in this area, in a person’s life, they certainly need and deserve attention. What is most often needed is skill training, and basic education about what people want from us. This sort of work has a high success rate, in general, and can be quite rewarding, as you can likely imagine.

I hope my comments have been useful to you, and thanks for your good question.