Good question Echoes. I should specify more.

To me there is "two" hims. I trust him as a person, for the most part. I trust him like I learned to trust my guy friends. They talk to me, they generally know though not to get too close to me physically or emotionally.

I trust the person he is outside of therapy. For simple things, like I trust that when we are outside of therapy that he will physically harm me. He can help me figure out things as a caseworker. He is more "distant" then "therapist him".

But when I am in therapy with him I do not trust "therapist him". I don't even trust that he will not harm me physically. Because therapy is very "intimate". (I use that in a non sexual way). And I don't like to be vulnerable to any intimacy in conversations with men. Feeling vulnerably emotionally makes me feel vulnerably physically and it sometimes flows over into "person him" when we interact that way.

In general I do not want to feel deeply connected to a man and outside of therapy I don't have to do that. In therapy I do. He becomes a whole other person to me. It is confusing and it switches around a lot. Some parts of me trust, others do not depending on the situation. Sometimes I can separate the two and other times I mesh them together. Sometimes things in my head say "remember that time you were bowling and he got snippy with the clerk because his shoes were ripped and they wouldn't switch them, that's the therapist you're talking to right now. Remember when he cursed at your doctor for not allowing you to see a specialist? And that time he made the comment about pittbulls being bad. You love Pittbulls. A precious dog. That's who you're talking to. That's who you want to share your deepest most inner thoughts? Think again."

I understand now why boundaries are so strict with therapists and their clients. He has been really careful too about being appropriate, but it doesn't matter, because nobody is perfect outside of a therapy room. He lets his guard down and I can find a reason not to trust "therapist him".