</font><blockquote><div id="quote"><font class="small">Quote:</font>
MzJelloFluff said:
i wonder, if there doesn't seem to be a way to have a hard and fast rule... why don't they just teach that?

</div></font></blockquote><font class="post">Well, maybe they do. It probably depends on what kind of therapist you are studying to be. I think some orientations are more open to touch than others.

I was just thinking of how the dynamics of touch between me and T changed when my husband entered the therapy picture. When T and I have individual therapy, we usually don't touch. He does not shake my hand. At the end of sessions, we sometimes hug, especially if it has been a really hard and emotional session, with a lot of hard work. Or just if it seems I really need it. But when I have done couples therapy with T and my husband, T has never hugged me (maybe husbands might perceive physical contact between their wives and a therapist as a threatening move, you know, like "get your hands offa my woman!"). But yet my T shakes my husband's hand at the end of every session. And since he shakes my H's hand, I guess he feels like he has to shake mine, so he does, but I always get a two-handed shake, whereas H only gets a regular one-handed shake. Fascinating! I always think the two-handed shake is a way of saying, "hey, sunny, you're the original client, you're special to me" or some such garbage. It seems more of an emotional connection to give someone a two-handed shake than a one-handed shake. I'm reaching, aren't I? Oh, Lord, I sure am glad T doesn't know that I think about these things.