no i don't think that's it at all. i think it's for our safety and their sanity. we can't be thinking about them or we won't progress when we're supposed to focus on ourselves and we wouldn't share what we share with our t's if they knew us in real life, like you say, your friends don't know those things about you, do they? and i would say 99% of patients would have difficulty separating the t from the friend. how could the T ever get a break from being a T if his clients were also his friends?