In the beginning, we worked on a lot of cognitive behavioral stuff: when I feel X, do Y. He was extremely practical and I felt noticeably better within matter of weeks.

Now, sometimes I walk in with concrete things I need to work on: coping strategies for Mother's Day, inability to work on a certain case because it's hitting too close to home, etc. Sometimes, I just need to talk about my feeeeelings about how my friends are acting, and he usually guides us from that to why I feel that way and healthier ways of thinking about things. Although sometimes he reminds me that some relationships do not survive therapy, or if they do, it's in a different form than before.

We have been slowly, [dear god, oh so slowly] getting to the place of discussing things that I thought I would never talk about and had pretty much convinced myself I didn't NEED to talk about. So, interspersed in with the other, practical discussion, my T has been slowly laying the ground work for convincing me that it is safe to discuss the really shameful stuff with him.

I don't really know how to describe the process. He has, with two exceptions, I think, allowed me to set the agenda for our meetings. Somehow, we are getting to what needs to be discussed and I know I am better.