With my current T, on my first email to enquire about availability I asked the question ‘do you have experience of working through parental transference with clients and if so how would you approach that?’

I also asked ‘would you be comfortable working with someone who exhibits a disorganized attachment style and what experience do you have with treating attachment issues?’

I knew that these two questions were key to me having any chance of recovery, and he said it was actually really helpful for these issues to be acknowledged so early on. He didn’t explain his approach to the issues as he said it would be dependent on each client, but he did make it clear he was comfortable with working with them.

However there is so much tied up in transference that I overlooked with introduction questions. I really wished I had asked whether he was open to using touch in sessions. He is not open to it at all, and had I known this I may have not agreed to see him. It’s become a really massive issue for us which he is just not willing to negotiate on and is causing constant ruptured at the moment. I’m at the point where I have to consider ending sessions because it is becoming so painful, but my attachment to him won’t let me. At the beginning I knew it was probably something that would come up, but I didn’t realise just how devastatingly painful it would be.

So my advice is to ask about transference and attachment in the initial email but then follow up with more questions about things that have the potential to become a sticking point later down the line when you meet them for the first session.