Bether, beautiful post..and Sunrise, well said as well. The relationship is so unique and I to believe that what goes on between us and our T's absolutely affects both. I totally related to the T letting their walls go down a bit on their part by doing some self-disclosing.
In school, they warn you about being very careful about self-disclosing, but in my own experience, it was not until my T started to let me see her and share more from her personal experiences that I was able to fully open up and trust her, and therefore let my own walls down.

I think that 6 mo is a fair amount of time to let it breathe, but if you need to, can you use email or call? Even though I am still in therapy, my T has already told me after when we are done, I can email or call her occasionally to let her know how I am doing. This tells me that she cares and also tells me that it is also hard on the T's part in saying goodbye as well.