Do you mean, if we were in different roles and not in a therapeutic relationsahip? My therapist and I are in a dual relationship (we are colleagues in our psychotherapy training community) and it has influenced therapy - occasionally for the better and other times for the worse. But if we had only been colleagues ... hmm ... I think I would admire him for his knowledge more because I wouldn't know how prone he is to misusing that knowledge in practice when he is triggered. I would like him, but there would probably be little intimacy and no love between us (as opposed to our therapeutic relationship) because I would definitely not have opened up to him so much in a training context. BUT maybe we could have become closer friends if I had joined his small peer group, which I probably would have if he weren't my therapist. A lot of mutual close colleagues are in that group and there are very few other small groups I know of and I don't know others who want to create a new one ... Many claim they do but when it comes down to meeting and doing the work, no one is available anymore. Or they are superficial in their approach and I don't feel like I could grow in those groups. I would really like to be in that close-knit group of intelligent, ethical, insightful friends, but with my therapist in it that would be a very bad idea.