</font><blockquote><div id="quote"><font class="small">Quote:</font>
mckell13 said:
Of course this also raises the question: In my mind is the need for a simple, warm conversation EVER a good enough reason for me to seek to connect with anyone?

</div></font></blockquote><font class="post"> Exactly :-) And that's what it's okay to learn from T's!

A lot of therapy work isn't necessarily "deep" it's just difficult for us because it is simple, warm conversation (being vulnerable and telling somone about how we're not perfect and how disappointed we are about that, about our hopes and dreams, etc.).

My stepmother and I didn't "connect". We didn't share. I walked into the kitchen when I was about 20 and asked, "Hey, Mom, what's for dinner?" my T says (I didn't see it!) to start a conversation, it was an opening gambit, about food, love, and "Hello, how are you?" but my stepmother's response was to push me away, "If you were in here helping, you'd know!"

Think of conversations you have had or wish you'd had :-) with significant others? Did we ask our mother's "How are you?" and listen to the response, wanting to hear about their day? Does a warm, energizing glow start in someone's company, because we know they're going to ask us, "How are you?" and listen to the response with their whole being? When was the last truly personal one-on-one conversation you had with someone you work with? I worked 8 years at my last job because that was there and I got that validation and warmth and it greatly helped my therapy (as did the comments by my friends there that they'd seen a positive change in me in that period of time because of therapy). The bosses weren't great, the job got to be boring (when it wasn't frustrating) but I stayed even when I got in an impasse with my boss and my T said I should either quit or I'd get depressed because there was the possibility of simple, warm conversation from my friend: