Oh WOW, I hate when I leave a session replaying something I said over and over and over and over again in my mind. Ack.

I guess first of all, can you tell him how you feel when your session runs over? I don't like when mine runs over either, and I tend to keep an eye on the clock and wrap session up MYSELF when it gets near the end (control issues?? ). We do go over sometimes, but usually when I am in crisis or when we are DEEP into something and can't lighten it up in time to get me out in time. So, it doesn't feel that "random" to me - there is some rhyme and reason to it. I think it is a REALLY good insight that it feels to you like some kind of intermittent reward/punishment system, like the one you grew up with. I hope you can tell him that.

As far as the "you love me" comment....Do you think you read his reaction wrong? I read A LOT of things into my T's reactions that aren't there. Like...maybe he really DID have a stomach ache, you know? Generally, I'm right that *something* is going through T's mind, but I'm usually way off the mark on what that *something* is.

Sometimes when I know what T is going to say, I head him off at the pass and say it for him. So, if you want to bring this up with him, can you say "I know you are going to say 'I'm not so fragile you could knock me over with a feather' blah blah blah, but it seemed like you had some kind of reaction to what I said last week and it's really bugging me". And tell him.

As TORTUROUS as it can be to talk about this stuff, it's usually what moves my relationship with T forward...and when my relationship with T gets stronger and deeper, the rest of my therapy can move forward too.