Thank you everyone for your responses, for your support and your insight.

I began seeing her three times a week because it was difficult for me to go the long span over the weekend from the second session on Wednesday. She thought that seeing her a third time would be more supportive, and it has been. The weekends aren’t terrible like they used to be.

My therapist is a LCSW. I haven’t been diagnosed, but it has been mentioned to my psychiatrist (when I was seeing her). The psychiatrist didn’t think it was necessary to put a label on me, so she said. Both recommended DBT, and I started doing DBT with a psychologist after refusing to do group therapy. I have since stopped seeing that psychologist because we argued more than anything else, and I will begin doing DBT work with my current therapist.

My therapist talks about my feelings as much as I want to. She doesn’t bring it up. The talks, I guess, aren’t satisfactory to me. She has suggested ways to cope, like making friendships. Making friendships has been a personal goal but she’s never indicated it could help me love her less. She just says things like therapy makes relationships intense and I’m not used to feeling unconditional regard etc. She recognizes my struggle and then says the whole bit about “working through our relationship” as being a “major part of our work together” and that it will be “restorative and healing.” When I push her on what it means to work together, she just says to ‘work through,’ and she says it means to continue to see her, despite the pain. That answer is very unsatisfactory.

I am a graduate student. I feel very isolated and most of my friendships at school are superficial. I also recently lost 3 close friendships and separated from my husband in the past year. I don’t know anyone outside of school.

I at times feel that my therapist loves me and she says she feels a fondness and affection for me. I tell myself that it should only matter how I feel and now what she actually feels, but I can’t help but feel the rejection. I want to say that I would feel better at least if I knew how to either reduce my feelings for her or deal better with the limitations of our relationship. It would be nice if my therapist did instruct me on how to get my needs met outside and how to form boundaries and respect others’.