I feel like a lot of my therapy experience has been focused on replaying the hard parts of my childhood to help understand the decisions I made then as a largely powerless child and help recognize that those decisions aren't as true as a full grown adult.

This being standard talk therapy and not what grandparent poster was talking about, so the approach he talks about doesn't sound pitiful. Your emotional system (which drives a lot of cognitive behavior) responds to things differently than your logical self.

Also your post seems pretty harsh and judgey for someone that hasn't tried what they've tried, and potentially hasn't had the same life experience.