[alincdytyourmeds]

Last year I was new to therapy and didn't even think about it. But now a whole year later I am wondering should I? How do you handle the holidays with your therapist?

[BeyondtheRainbow]

I usually don't because it is pretty mushy what they are allowed to accept. Last year I put a bunch of really beautiful broken seashells in a little vial and attached a note that said "thank you for helping me find beauty in brokenness". I then shoved it at him as I walked out the door, calling behind me "you'll need to shake it a little, you'll see". I think it meant something to him b/c he has kept it on a shelf by his desk ever since.

My pdoc has various little things people have given her over the years, especially during her cancer treatment. Several peanuts psychiatry things and a lot of those angels of ____ figurines. she practically has a full collection of those. I need to do the seashell thing for her too (I bought a jar and never did it b/c I got sick) but it's harder because it has to be a different time of year as she is Jewish so the throwing the Christmas gift as I leave at her thing is out. But maybe as a thank you when we get through whatever treatment we wind up doing in a month.

At least where I go though it is unusual to give anything to therapists beyond maybe a card, to the best of my knowledge. They used to do this thing where you could fill out a card for your therapist to be distributed at their Christmas party but they stopped that. My guess is that some therapists were getting fewer cards because of what they specialize in.

I want to do something for my therapist this year but I may wait until March and give him a thanks for 10 years of being patient present. That's probably more meaningful anyway.

[BeyondtheRainbow]

I will also add that when I was working as an OT we were always a little wary of anything like homemade cookies if he didn't have excellent reason to think that the things were made in a clean, safe environment. A lot of the time they weren't and if we were even suspicious they weren't they were slowly shuffled to the trash. We were always appreciative of the motive and the work that went into them, but well, I've been in a lot of patients' homes over many years and a large portion of them are places you do not want to eat and you can't always tell from looking at them. (Side story: Once I was off sick and someone filled in for me who didn't have a lick of sense. This was home health. The home was filthy and the kitchen just as bad as the rest. It was 2 hoarders with very little motivation to keep the kitchen or anything else sanitary. The patient loved to cook and my substitute wrote a goal for him to prepare me a meal. Fortunately there was a weird dr thing and I stopped seeing him before that happened because he wanted to make something with fish and it was like food poisoning on a plate waiting to happen. I really felt like the author of that goal should come down for cooking day..... ).

Anyway, it's nice of you to think of your therapist and I know they'd appreciate knowing that.

[bbTofu]

I study social work and we have lots of courses on psychodynamic therapy and it's funny cuz I know it'll arise a therapeutic transferential question so I'd avoid this.

Funny because I think there are some other things I avoid because I study this and kinda block myself because "I know what direction she'll take it to.." - This attitude is actually wrong, and I think I should talk about this to her lol.

@alincdytyourmeds, thanks for the thread as it helped me with this "insight" haha

[gayleggg]

I don't get mine anything. I somehow think it would be inappropriate for me to, but I'm not sure why.

[jacky8807]

Originally Posted by BeyondtheRainbow

I will also add that when I was working as an OT we were always a little wary of anything like homemade cookies if he didn't have excellent reason to think that the things were made in a clean, safe environment. A lot of the time they weren't and if we were even suspicious they weren't they were slowly shuffled to the trash. We were always appreciative of the motive and the work that went into them, but well, I've been in a lot of patients' homes over many years and a large portion of them are places you do not want to eat and you can't always tell from looking at them. (Side story: Once I was off sick and someone filled in for me who didn't have a lick of sense. This was home health. The home was filthy and the kitchen just as bad as the rest. It was 2 hoarders with very little motivation to keep the kitchen or anything else sanitary. The patient loved to cook and my substitute wrote a goal for him to prepare me a meal. Fortunately there was a weird dr thing and I stopped seeing him before that happened because he wanted to make something with fish and it was like food poisoning on a plate waiting to happen. I really felt like the author of that goal should come down for cooking day..... ).

Anyway, it's nice of you to think of your therapist and I know they'd appreciate knowing that.

This is hilarious
I am a nurse and I can't tell you how many foodstuffs we threw away. We also ate alot too,depending on the family

As for the op, I'm not the type to get a therapist a present but I don't think there is anything wrong with it

[scatterbrained04]

I never have for my t when I had one or for my pdoc either. Just seems weird to me?

I would have to also agree not to bother with homemade food. I work in a doctor's office, and while we appreciate the gesture, most of it goes straight to the garbage. We have no idea how clean a patient is. If you want to do food, always stick to something store bought and unopened.

I bought my T something last year. This year I won't be because I am not in therapy anymore.

[Blue_Bird]

They're not allowed to accept gifts at the clinic I go to

[Unrigged64072835]

I haven't bought for my t due to money reasons, but I bet if I bought him a new tie he'd be happy.

[WibblyWobbly]

I hadn't thought about it but my pdoc works in a clinic and I've thought that it would be nice to bring in a tin of cookies or chocolates. I know the girls there pretty well because I did 40 hours of TMS and we watched TV together and talked about boys and whatnot. I would be comfortable doing it since it's to be shared by all of them. I'm not sure I could give a gift directly to my pdoc or t even though I feel very grateful for their help.

My mom is a hospice nurse and she gets mostly cards but sometimes edible gifts or little angel figurines.

I gave my psychiatrist one of my paintings, it's on his wall and it makes me feel good. But, we had discussed this painting and my art several times and he has suggested he was interested in it. He offered to buy it but I have insisted it was on 'loan'. I'm thinking now maybe I shouldn't have done this after reading everything about transferrence. It just seemed no problem to me at the time.

[alincdytyourmeds]

Thanks guys I didn't think so, but thought I'd ask.