Money may change hands, but it certainly isn't a business relationship, for either party.

It's hard to imagine that your therapist feels the same way about you that your dry cleaner or plumber does. Good therapists, and it sounds like you have one, engage in our lives - certainly what we tell them about our lives.

No, it's not a friendship. Frankly, it's unlike any other relationship I have ever had.

It's hard to realize that we are not going to get all that we want with the relationship with our therapists. There is no "Paris in the spring" in the future. Ever. It's so disappointing.

I think it is important to realize instead that the relationship is good enough - good enough to help us do what we want to do. Help ourselves.

It's like swimming in the ocean really. Get too close to the shore and you get battered by the waves. The key is to go deeper, out past the breakers where you can float, but not get swept away.

What helped me to try to focus on my feelings rather than his. It felt good the way I felt about my therapist. It is what it is, no doubt, AND it felt pleasant.

It takes discipline, but allowing this feeling to exist, just as it was, was very very healing. It emanated from me, and in no small way, was a miracle. I still had the capacity to love. I had forgotten that I could do that.

I really do think if you can stick with it, these feelings of disappointment resolve into something that is good.