By the way, this is not my own therapist, and he is temperamentally and even theoretically distinct from my own therapist. But they are very close personally and in the same long standing reading group. I have known him for decades because my former therapist used him as a cover too. They are all psychoanalytic but vary in their affiliations, styles, and credentials.

I am lucky I guess to know all of them and have a chance to work with them to one extent or another. I'm also lucky in the sense that a lot of the deeper work has already been done so I'm able to use therapy slightly differently (not always though) to explore which I feel psychoanalysis really is good for allowing.

Since I have chosen it as a field of interest, some of these healing people in my life have shifted slightly toward mentoring though not in a way that is problematic. I do learn a lot from how they work and what they say about how they work. And occasionally something will come along that seems to be something someone has really developed over time and experience that is worth considering.