I was on the fence about Regina’s love for Henry–many of her decisions were, to my mind, responsible and reasonable. What tips the scale for me is looking at the situation from Henry’s point of view–and it was the parallel situation with Belle that led me to to a resolution. To keep hold of Belle, Regina not only locked her up but also had her receiving psychological treatment–by keeping her drugged and trying to convince her she wasn’t sane, Regina kept her under control, and kept her from learning the truth about herself, her beloved, and everyone else in SB.
Regina resorted to a similar tactic to keep Henry under control: she put him into therapy, not to help him cope with the truth that he was learning, but to convince him the lie was the truth. It’s clear from her conversations with Hopper that her reason for placing Henry in therapy was to get Henry to accept the lie, not to make him feel better. She would have gone so far as to allow Henry to be labeled delusional. Worse, she would have rather had Henry think of himself as ill than to allow him to see the truth. If Henry had been a bit less self -confident, a bit more people-pleasing, he would have grown up convinced that two of the three most important adults in his life thought he was delusional.
Henry needed to be in therapy–but therapy grounded in truth.