There was a time in the first year or so of therapy that my T admitted he wasn't sure how best to proceed because if he seemed to push me at all, I dissociated; if he didn't intervene, I dissociated. I didn't leave him much margin for error.

At first I felt hopeless hearing this. I certainly didn't know what to do, and I felt incapable of doing anything different even if I'd had an idea.

But as we kept talking about it, I came to see that I had to make a conscious decision to make a space for the unknown. I had to trust that my T would be able to contain any feeling that might result from our interaction. And that I wasn't there to be acted upon--that the process would only work if I were willing to be a participant in creating it.

It was scary. But it was also how we both learned where my boundaries were, what I could handle, what was helpful to me.

But I had confidence in my T. I don't think I could have done this without it. I'm not sure whether your long-standing doubts about your T can be worked through enough to take such a risk. That would be a hard place to be.