I've been seeing my T for several years, multiple times per week. He is consistently caring, open and very much wants to hear about my feelings for him. As a trauma therapist, I think he has a lot of experience with clients like me who struggle with becoming close and dependent. We've worked on ways to make some of the fears decrease - I'm very afraid I'm doing therapy "wrong" and he'll stop working with me.

Knowing where these fears come from doesn't make them go away. But lately there is this other feeling - unnamed but painful. It is a longing of some kind...but for what? Sometimes I wonder if I've been allowing t to take up a lot of brain space so that I wouldn't have to face how empty my life is. I'm busy - work and kids and all that - but no intimate relationship to speak of. If I ask myself if I'm wishing for my T to be my friend or partner, I could say yes but giving him up as a T wouldn't be worth that. I know that I need to fill up my life with "real" relationships - ones that can exist outside the therapy walls.

But if I hold really still and just let the feeling come up, mostly it is a longing to be rescued. I suspect it is an old feeling - wanting someone to notice how sad I was and to make the bad stuff stop - but I'd also like someone in the here and now who offers comfort at 2am. I want to be rescued from all the memories and bad dreams and the horrible loneliness. I want someone to keep me safe, from the world and from myself. I want my T to offer this security. But how can he do that? There are too many boundaries in the way.

So what is it that I want from my T, that he can do, that he isn't already doing? I know that ultimately the person to keep me safe is me. But I've taken care of myself, by myself, my whole life. Isn't there another answer?

And please, God, don't tell me it is match.com.