I understand the "I feel" place from that tender place inside me that hurts at anything that smells in the neighborhood of rejection or not getting what I want (which are two different things often in application). Sometimes even the smallest of slights feel oozy, like a scab scraped off.

Of course the point of therapy isn't to be able to say what you want and then get it and it doesn't seem like this is the point. I don't *see* the situation as your T kicking or squashing your desires or pointlessly saying no because he can. What you asked for is a pretty unusual session time that I don't believe many therapists would be willing to accommodate. I am also someone who works for myself, and one of the benefits of doing so is saying no when the timing doesn't work for me or my family.

For me that tender place where things hurt even when my head says, oh, come on now, is from a young place where I think development went wrong. Having an infant alerted me to the way our general culture seems to think that "no" is something that has to be taught, as if learning to take no is a lesson that needs to be specifically taught like square roots. For some people, unfortunately some of them parents, think the ideal way to "teach" a baby this is to put something very desirable and appropriate in front of them and then tell them no. Or the people who think that nursing a baby should be limited in some ridiculous way, such as something I heard often, "If they're old enough to ask for it, they shouldn't have it." Great lesson, if you ask for it you should be denied. Although we didn't subscribe to any particular parenting philosophy, we did quite a few things like co-sleeping and a lot of holding and otherwise child-centered living. I don't believe children are "spoiled by attention". For our kid these things created a happy and content child who has less entitlement than almost anyone else I know.

But the people giving me dumb advice to ignore my baby and child in many different ways weren't monsters. Some of them were even parents, ones with healthy and happy children. So I think that at least American culture promotes this sense that the lesson of not getting what you want is important. Then you add on top of that a grab bag of family dysfunction and abuse that often magnifies the deprivation of not getting what you want, and we get big wounds.

I think the "how does it feel" question is just a beginning prompt for exploration. For me the goal was to take risks that might lead to rejection rather than stay safe inside some predetermined place where I didn't need anything to change. It was helpful to explore the ways that my fear of not getting what I want was holding me back, and to learn that I could put myself out there in some way, get rejected, and it didn't hurt so long or so deep.

So I do think there's a part of therapy where focusing on how it feels to not get what you want is the point, the point is that you can not get it and still move forward, and work your way out of the crushed place to keep trying. It seems really symbolic to me, this "rejection." What comes next-- do you find another T who meshes with your schedule better and allows you to get the frequency you need, or do you stay with this one who can't give you what you asked for, but who may be useful beyond that? Seems like the question is really about change, and *how* you want to change. Can't stay still and pretend it's all okay. Healthy kvetching about how this sucks is part of the process, but where does it go from there? It's one cliff or the other.