Something powerful landed with me today about the two therapists who’ve shaped the last stage of my life.

My first therapist—the one I had for five or six years—held a very firm, structured, almost fatherly role in my healing. He was stable, logical, grounded. He used REBT and helped me get out of my own head and back into rational thinking. That was exactly what I needed at that stage of my life. I was scattered, struggling, and emotionally overwhelmed; he gave me a sense of structure.

But he also had limits.

When he said that “feelings aren’t that important after a certain point,” something inside me recoiled. It felt harsh. It felt untrue. And, honestly, it felt like it landed right on my inner child’s wound. That part of me needed emotional attunement, not dismissal. I realise now that it wasn’t that I was too emotional — it’s that my inner child needed something he couldn’t offer.

He helped my adult self grow.
He couldn’t reach my younger self.

And that’s okay.
It just meant I outgrew him.

Enter my new therapist — who brings an entirely different energy.

She is warm, soft, relational, emotionally attuned. My system relaxes around her. She starts sessions with small talk, and I’ve realised recently how much this helps me co-regulate. It eases me in. It creates warmth before depth. She models a kind of gentle, slow integration that feels realistic and grounded. Not rushed. Not clinical. Human.

She’s the “mother therapist” in the best possible sense.

Interestingly, where he was too firm, she sometimes struggles with firmness. Where he struggled with emotional closeness, she excels. Their strengths and weaknesses almost mirror each other — and my system brought those qualities out in each of them.

It’s not that either of them is unbalanced.
It’s that the countertransference between us highlighted exactly what I needed to see in myself.

From him, I learned structure.
From her, I am learning softness.
And I’m beginning to combine them.

This is shaping who I want to be:

A man who is warm but firm.
Soft but grounded.
A father who is attuned but clear.
A therapist who can challenge gently and sit with emotion fully.
A human being who can hold boundaries and connection at the same time.

One of the clearest signs of my growth is how aware I’m becoming of my humour defence. I feel the impulse to crack a joke the moment things get intimate. It’s my oldest protector. But I’m catching it earlier and earlier — sometimes before the words even form.

That’s not masking.
That’s maturity.
That’s choosing presence over avoidance.

My therapist once asked what she brings to my process, and I told her:

“She’s teaching me how to mother myself. She took the reins for a while, but now I’m learning to do it on my own.”

And that’s exactly what therapy is supposed to do.

My first therapist strengthened my adult self.
My second therapist is helping repair my younger self.
And between the two, something new is forming:

A man who can parent himself.
A man who can parent his son without repeating what he lived.
A man who is becoming whole.

It’s not lost on me how far I’ve come.
And honestly, I’m proud of the work.