So I've been seeing a new T for about 6 weeks now. I like her quite a bit, even though we had a rupture last session. In fact I'm really curious to see how she handles the rupture. But I'm worried that she is intimidated by me. I know that sounds like a terrible thing to say, and might come across as self absorbed, so I want to say that I have been told by friends that I can be a bit intimidating at times (even my finance says that he found me intimidating when he first met me). This is actually not something that I like, and its not something I do intentionally, in fact I think it just happens because I have a really high verbal IQ and can be quite analytic, but I really don't mean to be a jerk. Most of the time I'm just doing me, and don't even realize.

So anyways when I first started with this new T I gave her the first few intro pages to some research that I had been working on because I wanted her to understand how I think about things. The paper was also inspired by my experiences with PTSD and my Learning Disability. And writing it has been one of the most healing things I have done for myself, so I wanted to share it. But now I'm worried that sharing the paper might have made her intimidated. She always seems to be second guessing the things she just said, and says "I don't know a lot of the time." And I just get the impression that she is bit resident in general. I'm not sure if she is confident in her role yet. She's only been licensed for 4 years, and is late her 20's like me. So I get the feeling that she's still coming into her own. Mostly I'm worried that she's having some kind of strange countertransference thing where I seem more like a peer in class with her than one of her clients.

I would really be inclined to just let this dynamic go, but I think its making me a bit uneasy for some reason. But I'm worried about talking her about it. I'm not really sure how you approach the subject "so...do you find me a bit intimidating"...because that just sounds terrible. Is there a way to ask about this???