This is a very interesting topic.

I am so dense about my feelings sometimes, that I may not realize if my T has in some way hurt me until well after the fact. I'm trying to get better at that. I remember one time he said something that really was a punch in the gut, although I didn't even recognize it. I went home and cried and cried and cried and wasn't sure what was wrong, but I knew. It was during a self disclosure by my T and he happened to say he was divorced (in the context of saying something else), and that just hit me like a ton of bricks. Because I am going to see him for help in leaving my husband and getting divorced, and for some reason, I had assumed that he, the expert on marriage and relationships and communication, would be happily married. And the divorce process has been so painful for me, that I felt this huge outpouring of empathy for him over his past divorce, that he had to go through that. I just really, really hurt, on his behalf. I didn't want him to have gone through that; I felt almost protective and helpless because that had already happened to him. And I cried and cried at home and just felt kind of clueless about it. I just didn't want him to have had to feel that pain. Then that lead to feelings of profound hopelessness, like if my T, who is so together and does marriage counseling and is a relationship expert, can't make a marriage work, then my own hope--dysfunctional me--for a healthy marriage or longterm relationship is nil. I just felt totally hopeless and went into a depression. And all this without being being too aware of it. About a month or two later, I had this dream about T, and in our interpretation of it together in session, my feelings about his being divorced came up and I let him know how that knowledge made me feel completely hopeless. Wow, did he ever take me in hand and fix that problem! He talked about his marriage and why it failed and the fabulous new, committed relationship he was currently in, and how one's ability to have successful relationships grows with each failure. It was just totally awesome and really healing to have this conversation. It restored my hope. And I got his "listen to me" command, and that intense look me in my eyes, pull his chair up close to me, practically knee to knee move that he is so great at. Anyway, that is the biggest example from my therapy where my T has unintentionally hurt me with something he said.

If something like this ever happens again, I hope I can be more self aware and realize what is happening and address it with T more quickly.