Dear Blondie --

I hope you have fun in Hawaii.

When you come back, I hope you'll consider that what I'd really like from you (and I bet, a lot of your other clients as well) is to frickin' own your choices? Like seriously, just own it?

Yes, you're going to Hawaii. And, you went to the Bahamas a couple of months ago.

Good for you. You can afford it. There's really no need to get hesitant or weird about it.

I have zero feelings about Hawaii vs. Bahamas vs. Timbuktu.

But, I do have a $hit ton of feelings about your weirdness around telling me where you're going and then telling me you think it's extravagant and you're doing it coz of airline points.

I don't care. I'd personally go absolutely bananas on a beach vacation -- unstructured time at a beach is my idea of a nightmare.

But, I find it super weird -- like super duper weird -- that you seem to display so little agency about your life and choices.

How do you expect your clients to really own their own desires and choices and actions?

All that stuff about "relationship", "attunement" blah blah just doesn't cut it -- not one bit -- if I sense (and good gawd, how I do) conflict and basically non-solidity within you.

I feel like I can only go so far with you before I realize that depth of character of a certain sort is not your strong suit.

Or, maybe my expectations are too high (as I'm repeatedly told).

I feel like I'm reaching a point where I need to decide whether to stay on with you or quit -- I need a therapist who's really completely comfortable in herself and increasingly, I get the sense that you're so freakin' caught up in societal norms (or worse still your interpretation of them) that I can't really trust anything much of what you say.

Or, at least without wondering how hollow your words are.

- AY