Wow, this couch thread is fascinating! Pink, your session sounds really intense, and quite a breakthrough. I know you have often written about avoiding the couch, and now you have done it. I think when we avoid something like that, it is, in some ways, really the thing we want to do or are drawn to, but are scared. I'm glad you have done it. It was intense, but you survived. The second time will be a little easier. For me, the big thing I avoided right from the start, in therapy, was bringing my husband with me. That came up in our very first session and I was very avoidant about the whole thing. Would change the subject, say no way, flit away from it (flight of thought), anything. Even if T talked about other couples he had worked with and never tried to link it to the idea of me and my husband seeing him together, I would totally be threatened by this talk and shy from it. Now that I am in couples therapy (well, actually we are done now for a well, maybe graduated?), looking back I see it was inevitable that I bring my husband to see T. I see that I worked toward that for months and didn't even know it. It is strange to look back and find purpose when there apparently was none when it was happening. I think back to ECHOES quote from RWE and yes, how true: "Quote: Always do what you are afraid to do. "

My T is not an analyst so does not have an analyst's couch. But he does borrow techniques from the psychodynamic world. And we certainly work with the unconscious. A lot. I like it. I don't consider what my T does to be either psychoanalysis or general counseling (to return to a question Gracey brought up). I think it is psychotherapy, and he uses whatever techniques I need. He is very eclectic. I do know there is at least one client that lies on one of his couches (he has two). I always just sit on one, but I have had longings to lie there, sometimes, for more of a comfort reason than anything else.

pink, I loved your poem, how not to cry in front of your analyst. I hope you will have a chance to discuss that one with your T as well as many others.

Gracey, your relationship with your T sounds a little like mine. We are very informal/laid back together.

pink, I'm thinking of you being 18 years old on that couch. In therapy, when I have regressed in therapy to an earlier time, in my childhood, T helped me come back to the present (when we were done) by doing this timeline thing. He would count forward from the age I was to my present day age, year by year. And with each number he said outloud, I would be that age, and get imagery and memories of that time in my head, until I was my presentday age. Forty years could just go WHOOOOSH! It's a very powerful experience. He had a name for this technique, but I forget what it is. It is really helpful to bring you back to the present so you can walk out T's door not feeling so disoriented and stuck in the past.

sister, that is a really interesting article on the Analyst's Couch. I think I would be one of the button-picker-offer types if I used that type of a couch.