This post shows how vital it is to ask T to clarify things which may harm us.

1) If the T did say what we think T said - and it does harm us - then the T is not the right match for us. It does not make T a bad T - it just means the style or personality is not a proper fit for healing. The client then has the responsibility to search for another T. My T told me he went through 20 Ts before he found his T that fit him.

2) If we tell T what we heard, we will be better able to express our concerns in other social settings. The whole thing is a learning process.

3) T may have not said what we thought T said. I have been very hurt leaving a session and thinking T said something. I spent the whole night crying about it. Then I decided I needed to clarify one way or the other - for my own healing and mental health. The next session, I summoned up my courage and asked T about what I heard. It floored me to see how compasionate T was in validating my emotions - he said he would have been hurt too if he thought that was what he said. But the fact was that what I heard T say was no where close to being what T actually said! But by asking about it, I was able to clear the air. And our trust deepened. T could trust me to ask about something that I may have misunderstood which allowed T to be more at ease with his own communication style. He was not always walking on eggshells around me because he trusted me to tell him if something he said was off. And I trusted my T a lot more. I knew that if I did have questions, he would be honest with me in his answers.

It takes a lot of work to make therapy work.