This is one of those "therapy is weird" situations...

If you know something is going on in your Ts personal life, do you acknowledge it? Do you ask if they're all right? In considering this question, does it matter if they told you what the thing is vs you found out on your own vs they mention that something is going on but don't provide the specifics?

My circumstance is that my T had to leave suddenly to take care of her mother, who is ill. She's been gone for a month now, and I'm not sure when she's coming back. It's sort of moot anyway since I'm switching my psych care to a different hospital/clinic (long story)... but I assume (and my pdoc has suggested this) that I'll see her for one last termination session once she's back. Obviously we'll have to *somehow* acknowledge the fact that she's been gone for a month... but do I ask her how she's holding up? Do I ask after her mother's health?

My desire to check in with her is, of course, complicated. Part of it is about shared humanity. Part of it is that the therapy relationship can be, in its highly circumscribed way, very intense and intimate... and while we obviously aren't friends or anything, and I don't know her outside of the therapeutic frame, I do care about her. If she is hurting in a way that I can see, I don't want to ignore that--I want to offer her my compassion. Another part of it is that I'm always a little uncomfortable accepting care from other people (T once called me "counter-dependent"), and it'd make things feel ever-so-slightly more "even" if I were to offer some compassion back to her.

Reasons not to do this include things like "therapy is about the client, not the therapist," "the desire to take care of the therapist should be discussed/analyzed but not acted upon." (And also in my particular situation, I'm worried that if I bring up her mother, she might lose her composure completely... which I imagine would make her feel embarrassed/uncomfortable, and would also make it difficult to get through whatever therapy fodder we were trying to address that day. This worry is founded in the fact that she was crying on the phone when she called to tell me she'd be out... and in my job as a clinician I've had moments when I lost my composure while interacting with a patient, and I *hated* that. It made me feel unprofessional and crappy and I dunno weak.)

What say you, wise PC peeps?