I tried to be the ideal client for quite a while. I wasn't really even aware I was doing it; it was just how I lived my life. I assumed my T wanted me to show up on time, be polite, thank her for helping me (even if I didn't think she was being particularly helpful), not get upset with her, not ask for anything besides the time I paid for her to sit across from me, etc.

Then I started to wonder who was defining "ideal."

I was acting the way my parents expected me to act by not asking for things or expressing inconvenient feelings or "carrying on." Through trial and error, I figured out that what my T actually wanted was for me to be myself, messy emotions and irrational demands and all. And that's what I wanted too. Trying to be perfect was getting in the way of expressing myself and forging real emotional connections. It was happening in the rest of my life too.

I think it helps to try to balance the urge to "act out" with the ability to recognize where the feeling is coming from and try to talk about it rather than just acting on impulse. Like rather than sending the angry email, I would talk about what I wanted to send it and why without actually doing it.

It helped a lot that my T left her old job and went into private practice specifically because she wanted to do deeper, more complicated work rather than the short-term therapy model her old workplace was starting to emphasize. If she wanted neat and tidy and brief, she would have stayed. Instead she wants detailed and complicated and messy, and that's what I give her sometimes. So her "ideal" client is not at all what I thought it would be. My complicated sides are the things she values most.