How many significant therapists have you had?
<font color="blue">Two. My current T and a counselor a short time before him.</font>

How long did you spend with each?
<font color="blue">Former counselor: saw her every week or two or three for 8 months, then I quit seeing her for 4 months, then I saw her for a couple more sessions, then I just never went back. I was a very unreliable client and often called to cancel. We did not have a set weekly time to meet (I didn't know people did that).
Current therapist: have been seeing him pretty much weekly for 7 months, same time each week. Am firmly attached. He's great and we do deep work together. He is on my journey with me. <font color="red"><3 </font></font>

Care to share why you left? Some already have shared.
<font color="blue">First counselor: As I wrote above, one time I just never went back. We never discussed termination or anything like that. I didn't intend to not go back, but she was not helping me. She was CBT and helped initially with symptoms of chronic depression. But her skill set did not permit her to delve deeper and help discover the root causes of my problems. I was making no progress toward my main goal. She was a nice lady but with little insight, and there was zero attachment.</font>

How much time did you spend in between?
<font color="blue">A few months.</font>

When you left one...did you know there would be another?
<font color="blue">No, she was really my first experience with therapy and I thought all counselors would be like her. So since she wasn't helping me, it didn't occur to me that another therapist might be able to. My current therapist just kind of dropped into my lap. A family member had lunch with a colleague, mentioned my "stuckness" on my problem, and the colleague said, hey, she should go see so and so, he helps people take the first steps to solving X (my problem). I didn't really do anything with his name for a while, but then on a whim called him. The rest is history. I feel so lucky I found him.</font>

Anything else you would care to share here?
<font color="blue">As a young woman, I actually had another therapist (he was a psychiatrist). It was accidental therapy. He was my friend first, and we had a very mutualistic friendship and shared a lot of stuff together. I didn't know he was a pdoc/therapist. Then somehow he got me to come see him professionally ("stop by my office") and I discovered he was a therapist. And we did some therapy. But as soon as we started that, he ceased being my friend. He "went away" and never talked about himself anymore. It was all me. I missed him terribly and after a while became angry in a way I did not understand and felt bad about, so I quit going. I lost a friend first and then a therapist. My current T and I worked on this in therapy. I had not thought of it for decades. My T says it is the reason I want a mutualistic relationship with him in therapy, one with lots of therapist self-disclosure--because I am worried about being abandoned in therapy again, like this pdoc did to me by switching the frame from friend to therapist. The self-disclosure and mutualism in my relationship with current T reassure me I will not be abandoned, that he is still there with me. It was interesting to discover that. Also, my T was really interested in the novel change in frame in that relationship, because people usually don't go from being friends with a person to just being a client/patient.</font>