I did another consult today and I really liked her, and she seems very perceptive - she noticed that I was holding back at various points and pointed it out to me and asked about what emotions were coming up for me, and she seemed to "get it" about my difficulty sharing emotions, and I felt comfortable enough with her to share with her some of my tricks and ways to get me to open up more...and she was very empathetic...and I felt pretty good about the session...but the only thing is that she doesn't have a lot of experience. She is VERY young, or perhaps just seems younger than she actually is, but still. She is a psychologist and she's been doing "counselling" (including residency) for ten years, but only in private practice for one year.

She does the sort of therapy I'm looking for and she seems to have some good clinical knowledge, but I'm worried about having the same issue I had with current and former T, just with them not having enough experience with clients to really know how to deal with certain things. And current T really thinks that someone older would be better able to help me in terms of experience, but also in terms of being able to help me work through some mother issues. And also I tend to relate to younger Ts as more peers, or as people who I can teach things too as well because they are at the start of their careers, and T thinks that might make it harder for me to open up with them. She probably has a point.

I DID open up with this T a lot in terms of my story, but definitely not in terms of my emotions. And it is possible to feel that early on, like with the consult T who I felt really destabilized after talking to...but I don't know if that was a good thing either! I'm confused. I don't know if a younger T is automatically a bad idea...I did book another session with her, but I made it very clear that this is a continuation of our consultation with no commitment, and she was fine with it. And I guess that's the other thing - I tend to be way more businesslike with younger Ts. I just don't know about this! Ideas?