Parents and (unconditional?) love

So Carrie and I had a little impromptu therapy session tonight and talked briefly about the whole parent thing. Her take is that we either buy into our parents loving us unconditionally, either in agreement or disagreement with whatever the relationship may actually be, or we accept that under some circumstances, even if they are extremely rare, that love and support is contingent upon something. I'm not sure where I fall on that spectrum of thought right now, but what I do know is that I have to figure out a way to make my parents less influential in my life. I always thought that I did a pretty good job of seeing them as fallible humans, outside the Mom and Dad box. I've always acknowledged that they sometimes do and say things that seem 'wrong' to me or for whatever reason they don't provide the reaction that I need at that point in time. And I always thought of myself as forgiving and understanding of that. They aren't perfect, they make mistakes, they hurt my feelings, but these things happen. They're generally good people, well-intentioned people. So if those things are true...how is it that I seem to have internalized the few 'bad' things in our relationship? And how come I can't seem to outgrow so desperately needing their approval, first and foremost, before my own or my colleagues'?