I haven’t given my T even one gift in the entire time I’ve been working with her for a lot of reasons - it’s too anxiety provoking for me, it's a service I already pay for, there’s always the chance a gift will not be accepted, I don’t care to get into a possible discussion with my T about the meaning behind the gift or why it’s important to me to feel the need to give a gift, etc.

Instead, I handle this by making or buying a small gift for myself that reminds me of our work together or how far I’ve come since I started therapy. This solves all of the problems for me and it’s not something I even need to discuss with my T. I feel like it also keeps my therapy neat and clean...uncluttered, so to speak. I understand, though, that my way isn’t going to appeal to everyone and that’s okay!