If you do talk to your T about the relationship with him or her, how often does the subject come up, and how much do you discuss it? I know that not everybody is interested in discussing this with their T, and I know that for many people, the notion of having any kind of relationship with their T is foreign or even abhorrent. I have no problems with that - I don't think it makes the therapy any less effective for the people involved. But for some of us, it is a real thing, and I wonder how much time and effort other people spend on it in session. I'm not only thinking of transference here, although that's part of it I guess, but things like telling your T how it makes you feel when they say or do this, that or the other.

The thing is that for me, talking about a relationship with the other person in that relationship is strange and foreign and new. I don't know how much is too much, or how much is enough, when it comes to this kind of discussion. I am scared of making my T frustrated or tired of me, by focusing on it too much, and I am afraid of saying the wrong thing so I come across as criticising T. (I can criticise him if necessary, but I don't want to seem to do it when I don't mean to.) And I don't think that a professional relationship which takes place in a specific place at specific times, with a person I know very little about, ought to be as important to me as it is!

I know this is not a new topic for these boards, and I have probably weighed in on similar discussions in the past, but things have changed a bit in my own therapeutic relationship, and so I have been thinking about this a lot recently.