Part of my mind usually has a good way of twisting things.

And with this issue of my therapist bringing her dog into session...it is like her bringing her personal life into my session (in some ways).

But there are some circumstances that make it hard to discount her "need" to have that dog around. She is a single woman now. She didn't tell me, but I know she was divorced recently (well a 1.5-2.5 years ago, I can't remember now). I know because she used to hyphenate her name. She doesn't anymore. Plus, I was looking for her practice online and did a search for her name and that search brought up a list from a local newspaper that lists "marriage dissolutions" and her name was there. So she is a single woman, and she lives alone and sometimes she works late and the neighborhood after dark may not be the safest. So she needs to protect herself. God forbid she gets hurt because she doesn't have her dog around to protect her. Also, she has other clients besides me who might be served well by having the dog around. It may actually be an asset for them.

But I'm still left with the feeling that the dog is taking her attention from me, not the majority of the time mind you, but about 20-25% of the time.

But here is where my mind twists things..........

Part of me wants to bring up the thought that she has put me in a difficult position, by bringing her personal life in the form of her dog into my therapy. And then say to her, "it seems like you need to make a choice: between removing the dog from my therapy sessions or me not returning for any therapy sessions". Essentially, it asking her to decide between me and her dog.

And that may genuinely put her in a bad position and perhaps even our entire relationship in a bad position, because either way it seems like a "lose-lose" situation. If she chooses the "dog", I leave. If she chooses "me", the dog is gone but she may resent me underneath.

And even if it never explicitly comes down to that...if our therapy relationship is not maintained much longer, I may subconsciously wonder if she indeed did choose the dog over me, by pulling back her desire to actually work with me anymore.

And if she chooses the dog over me, I'll go around thinking: "Wow, I suck. She took the dog over me."

Of course, this goes back to what me and my T have talked about for 3 years: my "black-and-white" or "all-or-nothing" thinking.

But as I write this, I'm just probably overblowing things.