Lying (in the "reclining" sense) on the couch is something I have been wondering about, what it would be like. I have read others' experiences of it, but as always we can't know what something is like for us before we try it. I just wanted to post some of my own first impressions, in case anybody should find it interesting.

For last Tuesday's session, my T and I had agreed that I would try lying down on the couch in his office, instead of sitting in a chair. The couch is at the other end of the office. He'd told me that he would bring his chair over from the usual area, and place it slightly behind my head. I had imagined that he would sit facing away from me, and also that he would be completely behind me. I was rather apprehensive, but I very much wanted to try this: T had mentioned the possibility a couple of times, but I was the one who asked him if I could try it now.

So on Tuesday morning I got there, and T and I shook hands, and I lay down without any further preamble. T's chair was in fact placed so it faced me, and I found that I could also see him if I turned my head. I felt rather anxious to begin with. It took me a few minutes to get my breathing in order. And just as I started to feel okay, somebody rang T's doorbell - the next client had misunderstood her appointment time, and T had to go and talk to her. That only took about 30 seconds, but it made me very disconcerted, and when T returned I was sitting up - I did not want to be lying down in case somebody was about to barge into the room! (I knew that was extremely unlikely to happen, but it's a deep fear I have.) Anyway, T asked if I wanted to return to the usual seated arrangement, but I told him no, I did want to try this properly. So we had our session, and I thought it went all right, though the interruption at the beginning did make me feel uncomfortable for quite a while after. I never cry - in therapy or out of it - but this time I had a few tears running down the sides of my face when I was talking. That has only happened twice before, I think, in my year with this T.

T asked at the end of the session whether I wanted to go back to sitting up, but I replied that I wanted to lie down again, next time. So on Thursday I did, and that was one of the most productive sessions I've had, I think. I started by stating that I don't really trust him completely. We talked about that for a while, and segued into some very difficult topics indeed from there (not that the trust issue is not difficult - it is!) It was terribly painful, but, as I say, productive. I felt much less constricted by my own self-censoring - it was not gone completely by any means, but it was unusually easy for me to talk. I don't know if that was because I was lying down, but I will definitely keep trying this for a while.

I had thought that I'd feel more disconnected from T when I couldn't see him, but I did not, in fact, feel that. Being able to see him (with a slight bit of effort) helps. His chair was also slightly closer to the couch than it has been to the chair I've been sitting in. I also thought I would feel horribly vulnerable knowing that he could see me, but as a matter of fact I forgot to wonder about whether he was looking at me as I got involved in what we were talking about.

I imagine that I might want to go back to sitting up, at some point, but for now, reclining seems to work well.