I don't think a relationship needs to be fully reciprocal to be intimate. For instance, young children share their thoughts, feelings, and emotions with their parents but parents typically don't share in a reciprocal way. But is the relationship emotionally intimate? Absolutely. I think the T relationship is emotionally intimate in a similar way. After working with a client long-term, Ts get to know our thoughts, feelings, histories, dreams, and desires-- and they feel invested in our success, they empathize with our struggles, and they can anticipate our thoughts, feelings, and actions. The caring goes both ways, even if the personal sharing does not. And even if Ts do not share personal details about their marriages, daily struggles, or fears, they do share with us in other ways. We get to know their mannerisms, their quirks, their likes and dislikes; we can tell when they're in a good mood or when they're having an "off" day; we get to know about their guilty pleasure of carrot cake or that they scrunch their nose every time they make an off-the-cuff comment about their own mother. You develop inside jokes. You develop friendly banter. For me, the relationship with my T has never felt at all sexual, but it has definitely felt intimate and "maternal." I would say there is even a (platonic) physical intimacy there in the sense that we hug, she will touch my shoulder consolingly if I'm upset, when I wear something new that she thinks is cute (boots, a dress with a unique fabric, etc) she will instinctively reach out and touch the material, if I wear a new ring she touch my hand to get a better look at it, or if I'm showing her pictures she will lean towards me so that she can see them. There's an intimacy there in that we've established an unspoken rule that casual touch (on the hand, shoulder, etc) is "okay"; we're comfortable with one another and we both know that it doesn't mean anything more than that. However, like the personal sharing, it's non-reciprocal to the extent that she will touch the ring on MY hand, but there isn't the same invitation for me to touch the ring on HER hand. The kind of intimacy that I share with my T is also a part of the therapeautic process in that it allows me to feel more comfortable with her, so that I'm able to open up to her to a greater degree and, in so doing, make more progress in therapy.

T has also said on a few occasions that our relationship is intimate. She knows that I understand how she is using he word, so she has never felt the need to clarify that it is "not a friendship" or "not sexual." She uses the word in the way I describe above, and it feels validating for me that she does use the word intimate since that is how I experience it as well.