I just got back from an interesting session with the cover shrink for mine who is on a long vacation. He was addressing me half as a patient and half as a future therapist so it was sort of like colleagues in a way so he was talking about things that came up for therapists since I had started specifically with wondering about challenges.

He said that therapists don't really learn who they are as therapists until they have a patient rock their boat. He described some so-called difficult patients and where lines were drawn for him and where he was ready to but let it go because he recognized the patient's needs as greater than his own.

So I thought of people here who often seem to really worry about how they have acted or what they have said in therapy. Or fears of such things. Or worries about being dropped.

To hear a seasoned therapist talk about the benefits he gets from being challenged and also describing some behavior that really is a bit beyond what I had realized some people do was interesting. And I thought it may be reassuring to some.