SD, you've spoken before about being playful with people in your life, just not the therapist. I would say my "connection" with the therapist is a playful one. We joke, we laugh, it seems genuine enough (most of the time). Sometimes he's clearly "phoning in," sometimes his responses seem awkward and stilted and like they were ripped out of a counseling textbook, which is how I remember that he is a paid professional and not my friend -- but other times we talk, and I joke about something, and it pulls from him a spontaneous smile or laugh or (mildly paternalistic) look of fondness which, for a moment, rises above the contrived artifice of the relationship. And that, for me, is the "connection."