From the beginning, I have felt a kinship with my T's other clients--like we are all part of the same family. It makes me feel close to them because I am close to my T and I assume he is close to those other clients, so therefore the other clients and I must have a bond too. I have always liked seeing them in the waiting room and wondered about them and who they are. I just feel "well disposed" toward them--like, if they are seeing my T, they must be good people! My T has a lot of clients--a full slate--and I think that says a lot about him--that he is a good T and helps people and is therefore sought after. I wouldn't want a T that no one else wanted to go to because that would mean he must not be a good T. I have had a dream about my T's other clients and told my T about it. We were all at a party at T's house, and I was having a great time getting to know them and partying with them. I remember feeling sorry for my T, because he was working in his office (which was at his house in my dream), seeing clients, and not able to join in the party.

One time I did get a bad feeling about T having other clients but it was more a bad feeling about T than about his clients. Before my session, I could hear T and the client inside his office laughing loudly. At the end of a session, T goes to his desk near the door to the waiting room, and the client follows him there on his/her way out, says good-bye, etc. Anyway, I heard a few words here and there and much laughing. I didn't think anything of it until at the end of my session, T went to his desk, opened up an email and invited me to come look at it. It was an email someone had sent him--one of those funny ones with a string of clever photos and captions. He scrolled through them and let me look at and read them, all the while laughing as he viewed them. I realized he was repeating what he had done with his previous client. He was showing me the same email and photos! And he was sitting there yukking it up when he had already seen them. Perhaps he had done this 10 times that day. It made me feel yucky--like he was going through this rote therapy for his clients instead of letting my therapy be unique. How can a person genuinely laugh after seeing the same photos 10 times? So that made me feel he was being very fake because he was laughing and can't have really meant it. He was showing the funny photos to every client that day. Check that off the list. Next. I tried to pretend I found the photos funny and laugh a little, but the whole thing was unfunny to me. I was glad to leave.