Can someone help me? I’m going through a bad patch and don’t know which way to turn tonight.

I’ve been seeing my therapist for about two years and generally feel good about the work we do and the progress – though not always strictly linear – I’ve made with him. I have real respect and affection for him, our warm, engaging dynamic inspires me, and I’m able to talk through difficult things with him.

I’ve been feeling the past few weeks as though something’s changed in him. He seems more distant, a bit less present or less warm (not really sure which), maybe more professional or clinical, if that makes sense. It’s subtle, but it feels very real to me.

There have been other times when I’ve felt a subtle withdrawal. It usually isn’t there the next week, so I chalk it up to his having been tired or preoccupied or our just not clicking that day. When it’s lasted more than a week, I’ve brought it up and he’s responded with some surprise that he hadn’t felt it and hadn’t intended it, and that’s reassured me that the good working rapport was still intact.

But my bringing it up today didn’t go as well as that. It didn’t go badly, just seemed cooler than before. I can’t even really put my finger on the problem. I can go into details about our conversation if anyone thinks that might be helpful. Generalizing, though, I felt that there’s a distance there that wasn’t there before. I’m finding it surprisingly painful, and I’m deeply depressive since the session.

It might be a chicken and egg thing: I’ve been sliding into a depression for some weeks (I fall into one every few months), so maybe I’m perceiving every tic of his brow as a sign of irritation, repulsion and doom because I'm in the pit where I feel irritating, repulsive and doomed. But I’m feeling like what I’ve perceived to be the change in our dynamic is actually what’s making me feel depressed this time. I don’t feel I’ve progressed enough to be able to tolerate a withdrawal of his warmth. Was I just imagining the past dynamic? I feel surreal and scared.

Has anyone had a similar experience? Any advice about how to open up and improve this discussion with him? Any advice about how to get through the pain and depression? It’s another full week until my next session. Might as well be a year.