As usual, excellent questions. Man, I love this place! Okay! First, NOT THAT IT MATTERS (in my mind, anyway, but that's due to the bizarre parenting where dad was mom and mom was I dunno what) I'm a she, 59, and T's a he, 66. I've been in and out of therapy all my adult life (mostly in), and with this T for 5 years.

I would say the differences between our (Hank & Anne) situations are these:

I wasn't "prompting him for self-disclosure" as much as I was actually asking him to marry me, and he was actually telling me why it was not a good idea. I have a bad habit of asking "bad" people to marry me - so why not do it in a safe place, in therapy? We mimic everything else.

He has previously answered me, when I have made suggestive comments, "I can be your therapist or your boyfriend, but not both, and since I was your therapist first, I can never be your boyfriend." I was like, that is SO NOT what I'm asking. And that sounds like a line a therapist who WANTS to be your boyfriend would use! I said they should do a follow-up study on that.

So this is why I stressed beforehand to him the "suspension of belief" as if in theatre, and that I was not looking for DETAILS - what happened between you and X? And that I felt protective of him, not wanting him to feel he had to give of himself. He really did not say much more than what I wrote, literally maybe a sentence or two more. He did NOT, for example say, "and my anger or depression manifests in my doing xyz."

For him simply to say he has these emotions is a lot to me, because nobody talked to me at home, they didn't tell me anything. I had to guess. "OF COURSE I'M MAD! WHAT DO YOU THINK?!" And that only came long after whatever had happened. Well, I don't know unless you tell me. Somebody said phlegmatic this week. Durn tootin'.

Another difference: I don't really look at him. Not like you do. I would not be able to tell if he were here or on Pluto. We both tell each other if we are feeling teary or choked up or whatever. Something just bothered me about that between you and your T, I don't know why. I mean, I AM looking AT him, but maybe he has a poker face!

I knew about his mother from a magazine article, that was the main reason I chose him, so that was not a new disclosure. With this revelation, yes, I feel I finally know him, but that probably says more about me than him. And I decided to share it with PC because it was his ADMISSION of his anger that finally made me feel unafraid. I asked sky recently, they were so strict, do you ever get the feeling they were faking it? My mother often laughed at me for being so easily fooled. I still am. Oh - but you are not, you are vigilant. I guess I want you to feel you can release that vigilance while you're in therapy, a priori? (is that the right phrase?) but maybe that's part of the work you need to do? Again, just impressions.

Yeah, to say YOUR goal is to ALLOW your T to talk freely back to you, in the service of your therapy - a little too much like you're trying to fix him. We're BOTH trying to fix them, we're both trying to fix mummy. The question is, how aware are THEY, how in control are they, of what is going on? And how are the results? When my fake smile fell, I was stunned. I still am. Still processing that one!

SO GLAD you joined, Anne. Your questions are welcome anytime, honestly no offense taken, I truly appreciate your insights and challenges. Some of my best friends are lawyers! (and a handful of cousins)