What I found for me and my T was that, originally, I was emotionally ignorant so T didn't have to do much to impress me :-) but as time went by and I became a more rounded person, her character became more rounded to me too, and she became less "perfect".

I know my T explained to me once that she just followed emotion. "blah, blah, blah, it really hurt! (at which point I cry)" and she would work at that point. Exploring the emotion and working on things in the area I felt them and expressed that feeling, made it more likely I would do that better somewhere else. It was like widening the cracks of my shut up self until the shell busted.

I use to imagine it like a walled castle on a plain and I rarely came out of the gates and any interest in getting "in" was treated with shutting the portcullus, pulling up the drawbridge, cueing the alligators in the moat and the watchers with boiling oil on the ramparts, all in the space of a heartbeat. As I came to learn just how well defended I was :-) I was able to take more chances and go longer before slamming everything shut and then I'd do preliminary shutting but forgot the boiling oil and tar :-) and finally, after a mere 30 years, I ride out onto the plain all the time and out of sight of the castle and though I get frightened, I trust I'll be able to deal with it and that others will help more often than hurt.