I think I have always been out of step with what most people think and do, so I would start by saying that why does this mean there is something wrong with you? When I was younger (in my mid 50's now), I cared more about what other people thought of me, and now I think it's just part of my cherished identity that I see things and experience the world differently than most people. That thing itself is what makes me good at doing the work I do.

I think the other context is that most people only attend a limited number of sessions-- my T says about 6. Some of those people ghost, but most actually wrap whatever is going on with them, at least for now, up. So long term clients (anyone who has been to more than a half dozen sessions through people like me who are near a decade or more) are actually pretty rare and are therefore more unique among themselves. So long term clients are completely different than short term clients, and what that online review you read suggests is partly that.

Being open about what's going on with me, trusting T with specifics about what's on my mind, present or past or future, and feeling close to him are three different things for me. They are separate threads tied together but balloon out or wind together over time. Compared to 9 years ago, I am more willing and able to be open about my experiences and feelings, mostly because I trust T to understand them, but I don't always feel close to him. I think that opening up is more just a behavior that I can choose to engage in or not, and have the ability to regulate myself. What's different now than in the past is that I can be more conscious and deliberate about what I say, when in the past I was more blurty and driven by reaction. Trust to me also feels like a choice, in and out of therapy, I sometimes am able to take a deep breath and remind myself that the benefit is likely to outweigh the cost of keeping it inside and avoiding it. Closeness seems more like one of those emotions or feelings about T you mentioned in another recent post, and as time goes on I can often remind myself (Pema Chodron style) that it comes and goes, I try not to do more than just pay attention that it's here and enjoy it while it lasts. I accept that I won't always feel it when I think I "should." To me that's the reality that actually keeps me more steady on my feet.

Speaking of acceptance, this questioning you are doing feels more like an issue of self-acceptance. How's it going with that? We can't all be average. (though I think the son of a Bush president once said it was the goal of no child left behind legislation, for every school to be). So what if your T has to work harder (whatever that means, some people really enjoy tough cases and challenges) than the average client?

I don't know if this is in the neighborhood of what you experienced, but at the end of a session a couple months ago where we were talking about the span of my therapy, T used the word "difficult" and I thought he meant I was a difficult client. When I clarified the next time, what he said (or meant) is that I'd done some difficult work in the past. That is definitely true, as my childhood trauma is by any standards severe and I spent a lot of time in therapy talking about explicit details that I know would be difficult for anyone to hear. Yet I don't get the sense that T thinks that a bad thing, and in his shoes, I would be glad to be able to stand by people as they go through something difficult, or who do therapy in a difficult way.

I think therapy can raise, in all kinds of different ways-- I think often complicated by access to other people's therapeutic experiences like on this board-- how we think about ourselves, the labels we give ourselves, and the many ways we can interpret our self worth and self image as negative when in fact that's not objectively true. For me the challenge has been to see myself as I am, with my strengths as well as weaknesses, but it turns out that some of what I used to see as weaknesses are actually strengths and vice versa. From where I sit, I stand with the "difficult" clients and say I doubt there is anything wrong with you.