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sister said:
I'm afraid that means I don't need him anymore.

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Therapy is so crazy. We don't want them to know a healthy and positive thing about ourselves because then we're afraid they'll kick us out the door. You are doing good, sister! I hope you will share this very, very positive thing with your T--that you had FUN!!! We worry about sharing negative and painful stuff with our T's--will they be able to hold our pain and hurt and can we trust them to do that? But can you share something positive with your T and trust him to hold that feeling and not abandon you because you're "better"? It's the flip side of the coin.

Once I shared with my T the cover proofs of a book I was an author on that was finally getting published, after way too many years. I was just so thrilled and wanted to share that with him. He was really appreciative and grateful and held the positive feelings just fine, just as he holds the painful stuff I give him. He told me he looked forward to my sharing more triumphs from my life with him. He never said anything like, "aha, you wrote a book, you must leave my office now!"

T has said to me on a number of occasions, and it used to cause me no end of anxiety, that I was better than 90% of the clients who walked through his door. Or later, my husband and I were better than 90% of the couples who walked through his door. I was terrified by those statements, because I thought he was saying to me, "you don't need my help, you shouldn't be here, I should be helping people who really need me." We talked about it a lot, and that is not what he meant at all. He was just trying to reassure me that my problems were solvable and that I was doing really well and making progress. Especially when we first started therapy he told me all he meant by that was that I was a really honest and direct person and that made therapy so much easier, since he didn't have to spend ages showing me how to be direct and honest. One day, after being fairly far along in the divorce, he said to me for the umpteenth time, that my husband and I were better than 90%...., and for the first time ever, instead of feeling stressed by that statement (and being a bit indignant, "it is not true, my husband and I have a miserable relationship!), I felt reassured. It took me ages to be able to feel that. Just hit me over the head next time, T!

I don't know why I wrote all that... I just know that feeling you are having, sister. Been there and done that, and am sure I will again in the future. Can you trust your T to hold your positive feelings?

Happy New Year!