For me its not a necessity that my therapist to think of me and so on during the time we are not together. I think thats because I know that therapists are supposed to leave work at the office that way they have a life of their own outside of their clients and are less likely to burn out. Its kind of like having a friend that is constantly in crisis. Or when my real time group is running. I need that time away from that friends and the groups problems otherwise I would be a total wreck worrying and taking care of them instead of me.

On the other end as a client it does feel nice when my therapist does let me know she has been thinking of me for example one day when she was driving in to the therapy agency she knew she was seeing me that day and was thinking about a poem of mine and just this past week when calling me to scedule my appointment she said on the machine she had said the words " I've been thinking about you".

For me its not a necessity to hear those words but it does make me smile, cause it shows therapy wise she cares about me and what I am doing to fix my problems.

How did I learn self care outside the therapy room - well a therapist told me that therapy is a person talking and brainstorming and learning new tools in the therapy room but it is also using those things done in therapy sessions outside therapy too. A person sees there therapist for one hour a week out of 168 hours a week.

By my paying $100.00 a week and then not applying what I am learning in therapy to make my life outside of therapy to make it better. I am basically only using about $0.60 cents a week of that $100.00 a week that I am paying for therapy ($100.00 per week divide by 168 hours that there are in a week) by not using the self help tools and taking care of mysef ouside of therapy I was basically waving goodbye to $99.40 of my hard earned money each week.

throwing away $99.40 cents a week definately put it in perspective for me.

If my therapist suggested taking a warm bath before bed to help relax I did it, if my therapist wanted me to write in my journal I did it.. If my therapist wanted me to find one positive thing to do for myself that week outside of the therapy room I did it. If my therapist asked me to during the week we were not together brainstorm some solutions for a problem that I was having just like we did during my therapy sessions I did it.

I was no longer going to throw away $99.40 just because she was not in my outside of therapy life.

I now knew If I wanted to get better I was the one that had to do the work both in therapy and outside of therapy or I am the one that loses out of both sanity and money.

And now my therapy money is being used above and beyond.

A person can learn self love and self care just by taking the things they are learning in the therapy room and applying it to their owside of the therapy room life.

Anytime your therapist suggest something to talk about or do carry that over to your outside of the therapy room.

Journaling, relaxation techniques, looking at problems step by step and looking for solutions and so on can be done at home as well as in the therapy room.