My opinion, as a non-professional mind you, is that something is askew with that therapist. I would say the majority of T's would view this person as having really bad boundaries. For one, what about client confidentiality? Here's a hypothetical I thought of, a high profile client goes to his party while manically depressed and infected with erotic transference, one of the other party goers happens to know someone close to her and drops the ball that the high profile client is in therapy, a rumor goes around town, the client loses her credibility/job and then has to move because no one else in town will touch her. The scorned client decides to make a complaint with the APA, and or sue. She decides the therapist seduced her into attending the party, and hence it is his fault. At best don't you think the hypothetical T in this situation would look totally incompetent? One of the fundamentals of therapy is supposed to be keeping the relationship professional which means not blurring lines of friendship and client/patient. That doesn't mean T's don't make small talk, that just means that T's don't see you outside of the therapy room itself except in a highly unusual circumstance such as a visit to the hospital to see you after you lose a leg. Throwing a holiday party, unless you mean like a small party during a group counseling session conducted at his house, seems way over the top. He might be an ok T who just maybe is lonely or something, and he does nothing else weird, this is just his thing. So, I'm not saying the T is definitely a bad guy, but I do think having a holiday party at his house is not good therapy.