GeniesLoki

i'd think of therapy as a place where you can bootstrap one (1) normal, empathetic, supportive relationship, which enables you to build the skills to get things like friends (ie. people you have normal, empathetic, supportive relationships with, not just people you hang out with)

I would question that. Therapeutic relationship is very much not a normal relationship. - you only have it as long as you pay for it - support is single-sided and you know little about them - they won't socialise with you outside of the therapeutic context

I think a lot of therapists / styles of therapy do believe that the therapy relationship is supposed to work like this. I couldn't stand that, for all the reasons you list, and it's part of why I stopped therapy and decided to work on it myself and with actual friends.

unclear: "like this"?

Uh, that the therapy relationship is about genuine healthy human connection and the relationship between the therapist and the patient, rather than a professional transaction in which you are paying the therapist to help you sort yourself out.

Why do those have to be mutually exclusive? Does the professional transaction negate the possibility of a genuine connection (albeit one that exists in a bounded space)?

I came here to ask this. Do I not have a warm human connection with my colleagues, housemates, etc because money is involved? Do I not have one with the people I volunteer to help, because they don't help me back?

The limiting factor of the therapeutic relationship is not that "money is involved" but that it's something you're paying for by the hour and goes away when you stop paying for it, which is a much more specific scenario.