I work with a psychologist who I'd love to have as a best friend, but we keep a firm line drawn in the sand, and it is really hard to do in 45 minutes, but you can accomplish a lot. I've been with her for close to 10 years and we've been through hell and back as we deal with my recurring bipolar issues, OCD and lots of other miscellaneous stuff. When times are difficult, we opt to meet twice a week, when things are going well, we go back to once a week.

Since we've been together for a while, I know basics about her and her family, but in the end, her job is to help me stay happy, safe and maintain balance in my life. My job is to always be open and honest with her at all times and to maintain the best patient to doctor relationship I can. She'd be an awesome friend, but psychologists like her are so rare to come by...friends are a dime a dozen in my opinion. Which would I rather have in the end is what I always ask myself. A heck of great doc is the answer I always come up with. Not sure if this helps you with your situation, but I know that my psychologist has lots of her own wonderful friends outside of work that she hangs around with, and while I know she gets a kick out of me...she has a life. Therapy always has to be about you and getting help for you, no matter how ugly or painful you might think it will be for your therapist.

Consider the alternative...if you are feeling this horrible and didn't tell your therapist, and then did something awful without telling them. How absolutely miserable would they then feel that you never gave them the chance to help you, and that you hid your true feeling from them? Better that you "protected" them from you? Or, worse that you couldn't be "honest" with them?