I so completely understand this. With me, it's been such a desperate need that I have always voiced it quite early on with my ts, I think before I invested too much in them.. My T from a few years ago said she didnt offer physical contact as part of how she works, but that we could talk about my feelings about it and find other ways of connecting. I was absolutely devastated and thought I would never get over it but to be honest she was such a lovely t in many ways. I didn't get all my needs met with her and we didn't go into certain things, but I got a lot out of my work with her.

I approached the issue with current T because I had had a dream about her where she hugged me. I brought it up with the intention of saying look, this is how I feel but I'm not expecting it for real. I hadn't been seen her for long and really didn't think she offered physical contact. Anyway I was really surprised and delighted when she did offer me a hug. But I understand better now how she works and her views on what therapy is.

So obviously it could go either way and I understand what an incredibly difficult thing it is to talk about. I wonder if mentioning a dream or even just trying to bring into the conversation in a less scary way might gauge how your t feels about contact? Could you ask about it in terms of grounding like whether she would hold your hand in that situation? But I completely understand the risk around this and how awful it would feel to be refused. But bear in mind that with a really good and safe t they can help you process your feelings about physical contact even if they don't necessarily offer it themselves. You absolutely won't ruin anything by asking, they would have undoubtedly heard it before. Its okay to need it.