Both my T and pdoc have been very gentle and understanding about it. They've never given me ultimatums, or scolded, or said I had to stop. We talk about why I need to SI and what might be better ways to cope with my feelings. We talk about recognizing the feelings before I SI, and about recognizing the urges without actually doing anything or doing something incompatible (like, if I want to SI, I can't do that when my hands are occupied by brushing the dogs).

My T is excellent about just not reacting at all. She thanks me for trusting her with the information and then we talk about it. But, I think she's very careful to not react because when I was a kid and my parents found out, they reacted so explosively that I felt like I couldn't tell anyone for fear of such a reaction again. When I first thought about telling T, I told her about my parent's reactions first and how much that killed my trust and hurt me (and that was 20+ years ago).

My pdoc tends towards more gentle concern and maybe even a little pity? Not sure, really. I haven't known him as long, so he's a little harder for me to read.