I mentioned I was going to do this but didn't do it until the other day. I have a class project due tomorrow which is to be a mock therapy session with another classmate for a certain therapeutic style. Mine was existential therapy. Well my partner withdrew from class and it's an odd number of students so I have to do it alone though someone will help me do the role play. So I brought it up to my pdoc and he mentioned we should just tape a session and I could use that. So I made the appointment, and went the session yesterday. I didn't realy want to use a real session and he agreed. At first he asked if I wanted him to play the patient, but since he has the therapy training I said he should still play the T (plus I could've done the reverse with someone else). He even went through scenarios with me to come up with the right "issue" to discuss.

My husband thought it was really weird that he would do this with me, and maybe it is, but I thought it was nice. It was a session technically, so it wasn't inappropriate. Even with my transefence issues I didn't think too much of it since I thought we'd just be taping my own session.

I didn't even think of utilizing him for this project until he brought it up himself after I talked about how my partner dropped out. Since we did it like I would have done the project with any other student, it affected my transference but I think in a more healthy way, sort of. I felt like he was doing me a special favor and felt like he genuinely likes me. But not in any romantic way, which is an issue I always have with guys- or guys that I think are "above me". I think intelligent, attractive men are always criticizing me, that I don't have anything of value other than sex to offer them. Sadly, I've just never known how to relate to men unless they are men I don't really like, if that makes any sense at all.

So in this way, working with him is, especialy like our session yesterday, was like social skills training or something. I don't know if you'd all see it that way, but in a way it was helpful in more than academic ways. But it made me feel more confident and less shy with men than I have in a while. This is probably silly, but I just wanted to share, and see if anyone can relate?