You can expect to get out of it what you put into it, friend. If you don't devote yourself to it heart and soul, if you're not utterly serious about it but just dipping your toes in the water, if you don't make a clean breast of your life and feelings to T, well, you're just wasting your time and money.

On the other hand, if you frankly put your concerns and worries on the table between you and T, if you share with him/her honestly and forthrightly what brings you to therapy and what you want from therapy, if you're brave enough to share with T all those hidden fears and desires you've never revealed to anyone else, well then, you can and will restructure your mind and feelings and thereafter live a less painful, more satisfying, happier life.

If you read a lot of the traffic in the psychotherapy forum here you'll see members in many different circumstances with their T's. Some are farther along than others with their work. Some may be stuck on transference or other issues with T.

Well, T is as human as you are, but much, MUCH more highly trained in being a T and doing what T's need to do. It's VERY doubtful that T will have all that many REAL negative characteristics, as opposed to the negative characteristics that you as a patient PROJECT onto T.

So simmer down. Get serious. Spill ALL the beans to T, embarassing or not. Bring him/her dreams if they're that kind of T. Do the homework your T gives you. Journal for your T. But first, last and always: be as utterly serious about your work in therapy as you could possibly ever be about anything. And take care.