Oh, it's too bad you can't ask anymore. That's terrible. A few months ago I had a intense fear that T wanted to terminate me. I called and told her that that is what I suspected she had in mind. She returned my call and told me that that would be a bad idea and would not terminate. Hmmm, now I understand why she thinks I have abandonment issues. I had never put 2 and 2 together until now. We have never discussed that directly.

Anyways, I went in to session with a list of questions. And during each question I looked at her while she answered. It was important to me to see if she was being honest. We went slowly and I was very attentive to her whole body response. She knows I'm sensitive and intuitive and would have detected any sign that could be interpreted as rejection. My poor T - what she has to put up with.

Anyways, these were the questions: "My question is - Is there any circumstance where you will terminate me? What are they? What about when I'm bratty? when I'm unreasonable? when I'm whining? when I'm acting pathetic? when I'm angry? when I've exposes the most nasty and shameful parts of myself? when you finally learn what a bad person I am? when you discover that I'm a liar and a cheat? when you learn that I'm greedy and mean? when you learn that I have done things that are terrible? when you see how low I am? when I pester you all the time by calling you? when I say/do things in session you don't like?"

She answered all those questions with a gentle and sympathetic - No, she would not terminate me if all that happened. Then I upped the ante:

"Yes,you are a professional and you must put up with a lot of stuff, but I want to know how you, as a person feel. Like a clerk at a shop will be polite and attentive to the customer and offer the best service possible. But if it's a difficult customer, the clerk may groan when the customer enters and be relieved when the customer leaves. So, do you dread my session coming up and feel relieved when we're done?"

She answered, "Quite opposite. I look forward to our sessions."

Tigergirl - I'm glad you brought this up. I had forgotten my interchange with my T and this helps me as we're entering rough territory.