Warning: Long. The probably more important part happened near end of session, so feel free to skip to IMPORTANT PART

T yesterday. Went back and sat down. His first question (after how are you) was how my session had gone with MC Monday. I said it was kind of difficult. Like it was a productive session, and I felt OK right after, then got anxious and upset later about some of the stuff that came out in there. Like how there is some element of H having sort of "compassion fatigue" about my anxiety/depression. (T made lots of empathic "Mmm" sounds during my explaining all that--it's one of his things.) I also said how H was describing me, with frequent panic attacks, as how I was 6 years ago. And I'd said in the MC session that it felt like he didn't appreciate any of the progress I've made, how he just sees me in a certain role and that's frustrating.

T shared some thoughts on how H might be feeling regarding my anxiety and why he might not be registering the progress I've made. He was talking about it from a more theoretical standpoint. From the sense of, if someone keeps getting an alert about something, and it keeps turning out OK, they become less attuned to the alert and get less careful and pay less attention to it over time. I said like driving? He said yes, or, say, brain surgery, if it goes well 100 times, might be tempting to relax more the 101st time. But that you couldn't do that because it was till just as risky. He was comparing that to how H might be feeling at my anxiety.

He...said it in a way that made more sense than that. But his point was, the alert might still be important, but H may just be kind of tuning it out. I asked if he meant like the boy who cried wolf. At first he said yes, but then said, actually, that was different, because that boy was just looking for attention when he was first crying wolf, and that's not the case with me. He said that was something I could talk about with H. I said it helped to think of it that way.

He said it also might help to find a way to document my progress. He suggested I get MC's help with that, since T has only been seeing me a few months and can't really attest to how I am now vs. a few years ago. I said I'd asked MC about it at one point, when ex-T seemed to think I hadn't made as much progress as she'd hoped. And MC had agreed with me that I'd made a lot of progress. So he'd likely be willing to back me up on that again.

T suggested a way to document the progress and was trying to remember some acronym. He was like, "I think it's FIT...frequency, time...something. Oh, intensity. So, frequency, intensity, and, uh..." I was like, "Time?" "Yes, time, that's it! Frequency, intensity, time. Wow, I really screwed that one up!" So he meant to think of past frequency, intensity, and time of past panic attacks compared to now and share that with H. I said that sounded good.

Later, I was talking about something (working from home maybe?) and then jumped to something else. And T said, "Your mind moves so fast!" I said, "Yeah, you've noted that before. Sometimes it's a good thing it does, but sometimes not."
Near the end of the session, I started talking about how I'd been frustrated with MC because it seemed again that he was thinking I should make all of the changes, in how I think, in how I act, rather than H making changes.

Then I said it also had felt like my transference for MC was fading lately. And it was weird and kind of sad and painful, almost like a loss. Which wasn't how I'd expected it to feel. T said it made sense that I was reacting that way, because it was a loss in a sense. T said he'd also noticed a change in that, how when I'd first started seeing him 3 months ago, I was almost frantic at the thought that I'd have to stop seeing MC at some point. And I hadn't seemed that way lately. I asked more about what the end of transference was supposed to be like, and he suggested I ask MC, because he was trained psychodynamically and learned more about transference (I think T was more generally trained in clinical psychology, rather than a specific method). I said I'd do that.

I said I wasn't sure why the transference was fading now, if it was my feeling that it was fading that led me to seek out T. Or if starting to see T was part of the reason the transference was fading. T asked why I thought that could be the case. I said MC had said it could be a different dynamic with him now that I'm seeing a male rather than female individual T. T seemed a bit puzzled by that and suggested I try journaling about it to figure it out.

IMPORTANT PART: There was about 2 minutes left when T casually asked me the question I'd been sort of dreading: "Are you wondering if you could be shifting that transference to me?" I was like, "Uh...maybe a little concerned that could happen?" (of course I was understating that fear...) "I mean I'm not feeling overly transference-y right now but it's something I've considered could happen. Like I've felt more connected to you lately and of course that scares me, but so does feeling connected to anyone." I also said he had better boundaries than MC, so I thought that was a good thing for me.

He said something about what healthy attachment can look like, and I said, "it's possible to have healthy attachment to a therapist, right?" And he said "of course." So that made me feel better. But then he was like, "we should continue this conversation next week." Me: "Um, yeah, OK."

Made appointment for next week--I said I wanted Tuesday or Thursday since I'd be out late Tuesday night at a concert. So we scheduled for Tuesday. I paid, he held out his hand to me, and I shook it, as he said, "Good luck out there! And have fun at the concert--wait, I'll see you before that." I said thanks and headed out.

Of course I was freaking out inwardly over his question about transference, and I wished it hadn't come up right at the end, when we couldn't discuss it more. I wish I'd just confirmed that if that did happen, it would be OK. And that we'd work through it. Then again, I guess that's what my question about healthy attachment to a therapist there was sort of about... Still, now I'll probably be stressing about it until next week. Especially since he admitted he's not that trained in transference. But then I'm trying to tell myself that he scheduled me for next week, he shook my hand like usual, he said we could continue the discussion then. And acted totally normally toward me. At least I only have until Tuesday...