Well, this was yesterday, but here goes.
We were just back from a break. I felt anxious that an hour wasn't going to be enough because I felt like the last session needed some processing and so much else had happened too.
I started by saying that it felt like we hadn't had time to process last session. T said he got that from my email. We talked a little about how difficult it had been for me to express concerns he felt unable to post some videos of his hobby online because of me. I said I was surprised by how scared I'd been to talk to him about it. He said he felt we had moved very quickly to having a discussion about love, which might have meant we didn't have long to process my feelings about that discussion. I agreed.
T said neither of us were playing safe last session! We did both take risks. And it went really well. It felt important and gave me confidence to express myself honestly.
I read him a passage which had helped me in the break. He asked me who had written it and I told him. He laughed and said that was his former therapist! That was a big surprise.
We went on to what I had been doing on Tuesday. I had pushed myself quite far emotionally. I had met with a new supervisor and quite dispassionately disclosed all my trauma history and transference tendencies. I felt okay at the time but quite vulnerable after.
I talked to someone else about an aspect of my history which is quite well processed for me. She appeared shocked at some of what I said which had irritated me. When I told T this he said "she had an emotional response to what you said, and you didn't. You felt it was your emotional response to have, not hers" And that was exactly right.
He said he felt a bit protective of me around what had happened on Tuesday and that made me feel really warm and I just looked in his eyes and I told him how I felt.
Then I got my phone out to show him some photos. He didn't respond much to them and was quite quiet. I said "what are you not telling me?" He said "erm...have you got a new phone case?" I said yes. He said "I was distracted by it, that's all".
My phone case has quite a distinctive design, but I thought being distracted by it to that degree was weird. I just looked at him.
He said "oh, I suppose I'd better tell you or you'll keep wondering what the matter is." He said he had just bought the same design case for his kindle. He had been worried he had been subconsciously influenced by seeing my phone case and bought it for some unconscious reason relating to me. I told him he hasn't seen it before as I bought it during the break. He said something about there being no coincidences in psychotherapy.
I sat quiet for a bit. He asked what was going on. I said I was trying to find a way to get past feeling frustrated with him about this without telling him I'm frustrated. I said sometimes there just bloody are coincidences.
He said his response hasn't been positive or negative, it had just been his reaction. I said and this is my reaction to your reaction.
I said one of the reasons we have had such an enduring relationship is that in a lot of ways we are quite similar people. And two kinda similar people might well choose two similar cases. That's all it is.
T said perhaps we need to give some attention to the ways in which we're similar, because those are the places we might miss things. I nodded.
T said that in the last session he had the image of us roped together climbing an ice sheet with our ice picks. He said it's unusual to reach the heights we have reached in therapy, and with the height there are dangerous edges that we need to be aware of. I liked his analogy and I told him so.
It was the end of the session. We hugged and I left.