I love my T because she is the first adult I have ever had a secure attachment with. I missed out on having that as a child, so now I am having as much of that experience as is possible within an adult T/client relationship. This is the first time I've felt that level of trust-- that she will be there when she says she will, that she will follow-up on X when she agrees to, that she will remember what I've shared from week to week, and so forth. While listening to me for 55 minutes a week is her "job," she also provides love and nurturing that one cannot simply buy. Over the course of my 4 1/2 years in therapy with her, we have developed a very real, loving relationship. I'm fully aware that she can never be my mom or my friend, but I really, really appreciate her for being the kind of therapist who goes "above and beyond" for me in the ways that she can. She loves me, and that isn't something I have had a lot of in my life. I hope that I will have more loving, trustworthy people in my life in the future-- but they are not the people whose family I was born into; they are people I have to seek out and develop relationships with on my own.