After reading here, I'm realizing my T and I have a pretty loose frame, but it is secure enough for me in all the ways that matter. My T is always running late. I think only once have we started a session on time. Nevertheless, I am always there on time, and I enjoy waiting in the waiting room and reading the interesting books, or snoozing. When we start, I don't even notice how late we are. I leave minding the session time to him. We always finish late too, but since we start late, maybe it is still only 50 minutes. I know sometimes we do go longer than that, but I just don't keep track. I figure it all evens out. It's up to him to worry about the time, not me.

I have canceled twice on him without 24 hours notice and he did not charge me the fee for the missed session, even though it says he will do that in his informed consent form. One time, it was due to bad weather/snow and I just couldn't make it in. The other time was just last week when I had two sessions 2 days in a row (first couples, then individual), and I ended up taking the couples session for myself and so didn't need the second session for the following day (I had let him know in advance I would be coming alone for the couples session). So we canceled that one in person and it was only about 14 hours notice, and he did not bat an eye or ask me for the extra money.

So he breaks the frame, I break the frame. I don't get hurt by this, and he doesn't seem to either. It all seems to work for us.

Also, my T does stuff in session that I know other people here would probably go ballistic over, or at least not really approve of. But he didn't do this stuff when we were first getting to know each other. He waited until we were pretty close and had a strong rapport. He eats in session if it is at meal time. I'm fine with that. He makes us tea. Occasionally, he will feel his cell phone vibrate and glance down to see who it is. During times of a personal crisis for him, he has, in fact, answered his cell phone just to tell the person (usually a family member) he can't talk right now, ask if everything is OK, and he will call them back shortly. I am OK with that. He doesn't do it if I am experiencing something really intense such as crying or EMDR. He has done this just a few times and always apologizes/explains the situation. Also, sometimes at the beginning of sessions, before we really get started, he will do a "business" type call, such as checking with the repair shop to see if his car is ready. Another time he had an emergency situation with his computer and had to get it up and running and needed to talk to tech support on the phone before they closed, and my session was in the last hour before they closed. So he called tech support on his cell phone, and when he was on hold, he did therapy with me, and when he would get a person on the line, he would pause our therapy and talk to the support technician. This lasted about 20 minutes of our session, and only happened that one time. (Anyone going ballistic yet? ) There were a couple of moments when he was talking to the tech that I felt, hey, I just cannot do this and considered asking him to hang up. But he was so dang good at it, that I just went with the flow and tried it. It actually worked great. I found I had to be really honest and efficient in my answers to him during the moments of free time while he was on hold and could talk/listen to me. I had to cut to the chase and just spit it out, no words wasted. His ability to multitask was amazing. He could chat with the tech, and immediately jump back in to our conversation without skipping a beat. It was actually quite awesome and I am glad I had the experience (but wouldn't want this to be a regular occurrence!). I know that latter example sounds really bad, but I actually liked that he felt comfortable enough with me to break the frame to do that, and I felt our being able to work through that together helped build our relationship. (On the other hand, I have a history of putting up with truly awful c**p from my husband in a really tolerant and understanding way, so let's just hope this wasn't some kind of dysfunctional transference.)

Anyway, I think all this stuff, combined with my T's frequent self disclosure (always therapeutic), add up to a really loose frame. But it works fine for us. I'm kind of an informal, easygoing person, and he seems to be too. Go with the flow.