Do you thank your T?

I thank my T quite often, but not necessarily at the end of every session. I always thank my T for any support she gives me outside of our regularly scheduled sessions. She's the first T I've had that offered support outside of sessions, and for me, that has been something very important. I understand that she doesn't have to do this, so I want to let her know it's appreciated. I also thank my T if she's said something that has resonated with me or that I find particularly helpful. I think that's the dog trainer in me - immediate reinforcement of a wanted behavior makes it more likely to be repeated (so if I thank her right away for something she did that I liked, there's a better chance of something like that occurring again). Sometimes, when I'm having a really rough day or rough session, I'll thank my T just for being there and supporting me, because that's not something I feel like I've had in my life, and it feels important to me.

I understand that she's doing her job, and I'm paying her for it, but I still appreciate the effort that she puts in to doing her job well. I've had other T's that I didn't thank - I didn't feel they were particularly helpful and didn't warrant my appreciation.

Short answer is yes. Not every session, but yes.

T1 just wrote back thanking ME for my thank you email. That feels good.

Lest I come off completely void of feeling or positive reinforcement for therapists, I feel compelled to admit that once or twice, when she has been particularly non-objectionable, I have stated to her I found the appointment less sucky than usual.

Usually , I say thanks Deb, before I walk out...

Always.

.

I do, yes, but I think out of polite habit.

The one time I intensely thanked her, I was so embarrassed about showing gratitude, I was practically running out the door. I don't know why I was embarrassed, either, all I said was, "thank you so much for everything and for listening. I really appreciate you today."

I'll say thank you when I feel like saying it, which is not always. It's usually because I felt it was a particularly good session and I appreciated the effort he put into it, or something he said or did. I guess I say thank you when I feel grateful, and that's certainly not always the case ...

I always thank my T at the end of the session as I hand the cash over.

Stopdog - you are a treasure. Love your posts. Wish I could be a fly on the wall in your therapy room. If what you say about how you are in therapy is true, I wonder how long it takes your therapist to recover from her sessions with you!

Yes, I thank my T most times when I leave her office and genuinely mean it. I also thank her via email occasionally and have painted two pictures for her, which is another way of showing my thanks and how grateful I am to her. I am intensely grateful to her, and I want her to see it. Sometimes I feel like I don't tell her just how much she means to me.
She thanks me also, for sharing things with her and for emailing her.

My partner has pondered this too.
The therapist does not often have a client right after me-hmmm. Perhaps she has a stiff belt and a lie down.

I actually get what stopdog is saying here. I often thank my therapist after a session, but I always think do I really mean it or am I just trying to please her. Deep down inside I think it's just her job and I pay her.

Why thank her when I put so much meaning to it but maybe she doesn't really care? Ahh the trust issues I go through...

I've been pondering this. I can't think of anything in my past that would cause this type of transference. I was neglected, not belittled. It may be something I'd decided in my head - it was safer to avoid this "weakness". T1 told me many times I have a fear of intimacy & that he and I needed to have intimacy. I made faces at him every time he said it. Gross.

Somehow I have my wires crossed and have merged gratitude and desperation. Oooh, maybe because my mom is a clingy anxious borderline. I have strong urges to NOT be like her. AT all. EVER.

Stopdog...what kind of southern belle are you? No thanking...sheesh.
Yes, I always say thanks. I know, I just ruined your image of us yank's...the frozen chosen actually thank regularly.

Hooray! I'm so pleased.

..or... after she sees you, she sees her own therapist, toward whom she probably expresses a lot of gratitude

Yes, often. We like to tell her and show her how grateful we are to her.

Yes - you and I are in opposite world. A gracious yankee? Oh my, my, my, where are my smellin' salts? I have the vapors.

My sibling, on the other hand, does his dead level best, to be the epitome of the southern gentleman. Kind of useless, but very, very polite. And he does know which fork to use for every occasion.
Mama always did like him best.(she never thought I was grateful enough for anything).

CM - fun to play with you.

Me too! My therapist frequently talked about it - and it sounded so gross and mushy.. turned my stomach. She didn't start doing that though until she felt she'd established enough of a bond that I wouldn't just bolt - so I stayed - but with my heels dug in and absolutely refusing to see it as anything other than ridiculous. A little like Stopdog . So I tolerated it, begrudgingly. Then.. without my realizing it... attachment sneaked in on me. And as soon as she saw it, she called me on it. I don't remember exactly what I said, may have been me responding to an announcement that she would be out of town the next week, and I probably expressed some kind of mild disappointment that I wouldn't see her.. and she says (quite gleefully) "Crescent.. sounds like attachment to me!" As soon as she said it, I realized it really did sound like attachment. I still squirmed, but when I saw it wasn't going to kill me, I eventually relaxed into it.. and the magic began

Your mom was (I presume) an untreated borderline?? wow. that might explain everything. If you grew up with a mother who was desperate for intimacy that she was never able to truly get, then that would surely make you just as desperate to never need intimacy. Plus.. you likely never saw it modeled in a healthy way, so your understanding of what it is might look more like a ball and chain than anything else. But trust me, healthy intimacy is incredibly healing. It's what life's all about. It is liberating, because when it's healthy, it liberates each member of the bond to be their best selves. It provides for mutual support, and mutual affirmation. Of course, what I'm describing is intimacy IRL, not the kind of intimacy you have with your therapist. But intimacy with your therapist is the stepping stone. It often includes at least a period of dependency, which is a critical part of developing trust, and ultimately leads to a bonded independence. But for those of us with screwed up ideas about intimacy, developing it with our therapist is where we get the modeling for healthy intimacy that we can then transfer into real life relationships. I'm just sayin'...

Likewise, Stopdog.

I really do appreciate your humor . I'm not kidding!

Thank you for this! It's so similar to my situation, and you explained it so well. Who knew that intimacy could be so good???? I'm on this journey with my T now, and--if we both survive it--it's providing the healing and sustenance I need to allow myself to accept. What a journey!

I always thank T on the way out when I'm saying goodbye.. on the occasions I've forgot (and even some when I haven't) I'll send her an email later and thank her for the session, usually with a few thoughts that I had afterward... I've also thanked her for her patience a number of times! She's thanked me for trusting her, and for having courage and determination to stick with it (last session, awkward times! ) (Oh, and she also thanks me when I hand over her fee! )

I think it's only polite to thank someone for their time and effort... but I don't just thank my T out of politeness, I always mean it. She's done a lot for me.

Do you think you need to assert your own needs a little more TigerGirl?


I don't routinely thank my therapist. I probably should thank him more. Here's a post I wrote a long time ago about a time I thanked him when I felt awkward about doing it.

"The whole time I had my last session on my mind. Finally I said I also wanted to talk about last session a little. I struggled to say it, but I told him I appreciate that he's really nice to me a lot of the time, even though I was talking about times when I didn't think he was being nice at the last session. He said thanks for saying that. I started on to another topic but he came back to this. The really nice thing he said was he's had to work on being more nurturing and not pushing sometimes. He said some more about it but I don't remember the exact words. Touched on his FOO. It felt so good that he cared what I thought."