My current therapist understands me pretty well, usually. Sometimes he'll say something that's completely off the mark but I have lost my dread of telling him he's wrong in those cases, and he has no problems with me doing that. Sometimes, on the other hand, he makes a remark that is completely spot on and makes me understand myself better. He never makes pronouncements about me as if they were true, though, rather he asks questions and makes suggestions. I think that he probably understands some aspects of me better than I can do myself, because I am too close to my own issues. When I was deep in depression a couple of years ago, a good friend of mine - the only person other than T who knew I was depressed - said that he saw me as being in the centre of a mirror ball: I saw my own reflection but it was distorted on all sides. (Then, of course, we started discussing how such a reflection would work in reality.) I think there is something in that description though - I might see myself, but the inevitable distortion means that the image I get of myself is not always true.

My T once said that his job is to try to see the world the way I see it. From what I can tell he makes every effort to do so. And after three years, he does understand me better than any other person ever has. Still not as well as I understand myself, though, not as a whole.