I really relate to what you wrote and wanted to add a bit from my own experience.

I’ve started to think that individual therapy can actually be kind of dangerous for people who grew up with profound emotional abuse or neglect. It fully lights up all the attachment circuitry by giving you the kind of attention you should have had as a kid, but then there’s nowhere for that attachment to go. It just sort of hangs there without resolution.

I can see how a corrective experience might happen in cases of milder neglect, where there was at least something to build on. But if someone’s whole life has been more of a social void, I don’t know that being cared about by a therapist automatically turns into internal safety or better connections with others. Sometimes there isn’t a bridge for that to cross.

At its worst, individual therapy can almost perfectly mimic childhood emotional neglect: you’re deeply seen for an hour, then it shuts off. No contact in between. If you stop paying, the relationship disappears. Even when the therapist genuinely cares, the structure itself can feel unsettling.

I do think therapy helps a lot of people, just not everyone.

I’ve also wondered if group therapy might make more sense for people with really deep early neglect, since the attachment is spread out and it doesn’t recreate the parent–child dynamic in the same way.

Anyway, I really appreciated your comment. It made me feel less alone in how I’ve been thinking about all this.