I’m with you exactly on that one, it totally depends on how I am feeling/what we are talking about when I talk with T. With certain things, especially when I feel like I did something wrong, it’s a parent/child type talk, because she usually walks me through consequences of my behavior, etc.. I also go into petulant child mode fairly often when I don’t like things she’s saying. You could even say I get whiny. I’ve been called out by a previous T for that behavior before and how it’d not an effective way to communicate my needs. Then there’s the vulnerable child me, and that’s a different form of child, one that doesn’t really like to speak at all and has her own body language, in that I physically make myself smaller and close up. There’s normal adult me, too, who is present when we’re laughing or joking around, or just having a light-heart we’d conversation, talking about my school, her telling me some things about herself, etc..

So I put “like a friend” as my answer, but really “like a parent” works, mostly, I just didn’t put that, because I act nothing like that with my real mother. I guess you could say I speak to her like the caring, well-functioning parent that I have always wished I had...