The power in this inspires me; you dug down deep and found agency within yourself ( locus of control?).

The unrequited everythings: unrequited secret-telling, unrequited high gamble on the other person, unrequited longing. It is a very humbling experience.

In reading the theories, like Jessica Benjamin, I totally get for the best of them, therapy is a sacred play-space where both client and therapist understand that this is all "as if". A laboratory, a sandbox, a play in a theater: we act as if we love each other, we act as if T is the dad and client is a child again.

A problem occurs when the T is playing the "as if" game and the client is all in for real, having not gotten the emotional memo.

That is me right now. My T says lovely things to me, so tender . I think he means them inside the hour and inside the office.

He simply understands the rules of the game, which I do not. I take his words away and live with them in my mind without the "as if", without the" he said that as a playful way of getting me to wonder - hmmm what would it be like to be loved in this way". It is really difficult to be the client, too difficult for me with already confusion about the basic nature of attachment created through csa.

This is where therapy gets dicey. I have a good social skills facade, but underneath I am anguished and maxed out by my T telling me our connection is exquisite or he will be right by my side through thick and thin or such things, and not meaning them yet meaning them, enjoying paradox, playing with this, and ultimately shutting off the game after 45 minutes like Lucy taking the football away from Charlie Brown, day after day , session after session.