This is amazing

The intimacy of the therapeutic session -- the isolation from the outer world, the physical solitude and togetherness with this shadowy other person we never really know, the quietness and closeness, the air of sacredness and respect, can feel (when it's working) like the highest form of love, a real merging of souls. I think it's happened to you. (It hasn't happened, quite, with my own T yet. I want it and dread it at the same time, for all the reasons you mentioned.).

MissCharlotte hit it on the head about the nature of the relationship -- it's uncategorizeable. That's such a huge part of why it's so difficult. There really is nothing else like therapists in the rest of our lives.

I keep wishing my T weren't so hot, and that he could be like Pat (played by Julia Sweeney) from that Saturday Night Live skit from the 80s. Pat was a person of indeterminate gender, and all her associates were constantly trying to figure out what it was. "So, Pat, who are you going out with tonight? The girls, or the boys?" Pat would say, "My co-workers." "Pat, what magazine are you reading? Field & Stream, or Cosmopolitan?" Pat said, "People." I wish my T were like that -- or maybe more like some bloodless angel on a firy pedestal, a figure who might still inspire my worshipful adoration, but who would simultaneously keep me safe from the dread hearts-and-flowers mush coursing through my system at the moment. It's the occasional glimpses of his humanness, the fact that he gets embarassed, that he can't hide his judgments and reactions from me, that he's not perfect, that he's just a bit vulnerable, that he messes up and keeps on trying -- that's what gets me so hot and bothered

I agree, the feeling is awful.

Like others here, I'm inspired by you, and by your T. He's the bar I hold mine to. I'm very interested to see how he responds. Pulling for you!