A few months after my I started therapy w/ my T we were talking about our relationship and boundaries. She asked if I ever had thoughts such as wanting to go to dinner with her or something -- she was preemptively trying to legitimate these feelings should I have them. At the time, not knowing her very well and having been in therapy for long enough to really understand that appropriate boundaries are good for the relationship, I replied honestly that I didn't.

However, recently (about a year and a half later), I actually have been having thoughts like I wish that I could do things with her. I think that this is sparked by several things. First, loneliness - I recently finished my dissertation and having totally taken myself out of the social scene and having been in a frenetic pace to finish ever since I moved to a new town, I haven't really created a social network. As of a couple of weeks ago, I'm off the hook and really want to do social things but don't have a lot of friends here. I also am single. Second, over the past 21 months, I've gotten to know my T a little by virtue of comments she's made in session and she just seems like a really cool person. We enjoy lots of the same activities, have many similar views, and just get along. I really respect the person who she is. If I'd met her outside of the therapy context, I think that we'd be friends. But I know that therapists can't be friends--messes up the therapeutic relationship--and besides she's so busy with work that even if we were friends, I'd see her much less I'm sure than the twice/week that we currently have (plus emails and texts).

I got up the courage yesterday to share with her that I'd had some of these thoughts and her response was a little unexpected, not bad unexpected, but just unexpected. She said that there have been times when she and her husband have gone out of town for the weekend and needed a dogsitter and I crossed her mind (she knows that I love dogs, but can't have one right now given the fact that I travel a few times a year for a several weeks at a time). But, then she knew for the good of our therapeutic relationship this wasn't a good idea. I was both happy that she would trust me with her "baby" and she also had thoughts about us interacting outside of her office and bummed about the whole constraints/boundaries of a therapeutic relationship.

Just wanted to share... Sometimes the boundaries thing in therapy relationships is just so frustrating, particularly when you grow close to your therapist and discover that you really like him/her.