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almeda24fan said:
Maybe he knows that you have trouble talking about what you 'need' from people and so he has incorporated that little phrase into your treatment?

</div></font></blockquote><font class="post">I think that is probably true, almedafan. It also is a phrase that reminds me I need to be the leader in therapy.

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how fun and sooo aromatic to peel and eat an orange in session!

</div></font></blockquote><font class="post">ECHOES, T had to leave the room in the middle of my session and when he came back, commented, "it smells like oranges in here." So yeah, very aromatic.... (When I read what you wrote, I keep seeing "romantic" instead of "aromatic," lol. Yep, that's us, sharing a hot and heavy orange peeling session.)

tulips, thanks for your thoughtful post. It was very helpful. The first time I saw my T, he told me he does not do longterm therapy, and he considered that to be anything over 3 years. So I knew from the very beginning I could not see him longer than 3 years (I am almost up to a year and a half). But in the past few months, he has mentioned to me several times, that he sees some clients off and on for many years. He may not see them for months or even years, and then they are back to see him again, and they pick right back up where they left off (relationshipwise) and work on the new issue that they need help with. So this is a lot different from what he told me at the beginning. I wondered if maybe his mentioning this was a way of planting seeds that we need not make a firm break when the time comes, but leave our relationship open. This was indeed very comforting to me. My T has used that same term you did about the subsequent visits--"tune-up." And yes, I agree, I never think of therapy as a "treatment." And yes, maybe I need to banish the word "terminate" from my thoughts. It is quite harsh and threatening--think Arnold Schwarzenegger's blood quest in The Terminator.

Today is a very important divorce meeting for me. T will be there. As he told me Monday, "there will be conflict." I realized when he said that, that to me, a successful meeting/interaction is one in which there is no conflict instead of one where the outcomes are good. I'm not sure what to do with that realization. It doesn't make me want to avoid conflict any less. Maybe it's a start....