Most unconventional, out of the box thing in the t/patient relationship

My T is mostly "inside the box" so to speak, but she has shared a great deal of information with me about herself and her own circumstances. Probably the most "out of the box" thing she has done is when she was still going through chemo, she took off her wig and let me see her head when she was bald. She's told me since that she did not show her head to too many people outside of friends and family.

My T is always very "inside the box" also. The one thing he does that I know some think is a bit outside the box is that he is the therapist for my husband and my son also. We've even had one session with all 5 of us in the room. I, personally, don't find that really outside the box at all; he is well-trained in family therapy, but I just know many here have T's that absolutely won't see family members or some of you who wouldn't want your T to see family members.

Otherwise, he's pretty conventional with me. I like it that way though. Now, he would like me to join his evening yoga/cbt/mindfulness group that he runs with his girlfriend who is a yoga instructor, but that's just not my thing.

My T is pretty much an "Inside the box" T. She doesn't share very much info, we don't go for walks, etc. We just sit in her office a couple feet away from each other and I talk and she listens. The end.

Mine is also very "in the box". I don't know how I would react if he did something unconventional. It would be like when you're a kid and you see your teacher in the store outside school. Just odd feeling.

I think the most he's done is once he took a phone call in the middle of a session and it was about a package he was expecting from someone. He asked them to deliver it to his home and then gave the address in front of me. I was sort of amazed, because he must have felt I was a safe enough patient that he could announce his home address and not think I would turn into a stalker or anything.

Well... I did google map the address, but I've never wanted to go driving by it or anything.

Great post!
My voice movement therapy t would hold me in her lap when I cried. As a movement therapist, she can do this, it's kind of an expressive arts therapy thing. We also wrote songs for each other, and she brought chocolate and fruit for our last session. She gave me a ring that was hers as a present too!
The t before her was extremely unconventional, but this was more on the lines of unethical as in harmful. She had me as her apprentice in a training program and a client at the same time, I went to parties and on a retreat where she shared way too much about her life including crying. So yeah, not good for me.
I do miss getting held by VMT though, a lot!

me too i wouldn't want it any other way. once she sat next to me on the couch to look at pictures and i was a little like "AHH TOO CLOSE, T!"

my EMDR-T is more "out of the box." the last session i saw her before a long break she had me sit on the floor against the door, and she sat on the floor on the opposite side of the room. she was trying to see if i felt safer talking about something if we were farther apart.

I'm not sure if having T in a foreign language (English) counts as unconventional - it's definitely not something T is used to doing, but he agreed to doing it when I asked, since it's his native language. We switch back and forth between languages to some extent during T sessions, because there are some concepts that are easier to express in Swedish, but we mostly speak English.

Compared to many of your posts, my T is not so out of the box.
We went on a couple of walks together.
She watched me put on lipstick because I asked her to help me.
We made my birthday card together.
She held my hand once while we walked to the parking lot.
I sang my favorite songs to her once.
I fingerpainted during my session.

She picked me up when my car broke down about 3 miles from her house; I had already started walking because I did not want to miss my session!

i have a new one i did exposure work with my t today, and on the way back from it, she said we were going to stop and get froyo! and we did

My T works for my college...so I don't think she can do anything "out of the box" with me otherwise she'd probably get reprimanded. I'm not sure she would anyway. The most unusual thing so far was she brought her therapy dog in for me last week () and we sat on the floor while petting him and talking... she offered to ask around to see if anyone she knows wants their dogs walked on occasion so I could have some interaction with animals as they are soooo important to my mental well-being, but I told her no cause I thought that would be strange (though I didn't tell her the last part). I feel cared for by her though, in some way, I guess. I like it.

I hate the box! Grrrr!

PS:

I think Stopdog has reversed the box.
She puts T in a box and T tries to get out.

I guess our sessions are out of the box. I see T twice a week. In NYC. We go for walks around the city for both of them. He usually stopped at Starbucks and get something to eat, or somewhere else. Then I have him go by the water, because I love the water and sometimes they have like flee markets, or art events going on which is fun to walk through. We always end up walk through film shoots, or anything that happens to be going on that week. He knows some reallllly cool parts of the city and we both like architecture so its fun to get to see the older stuff that he shows me. He sometimes stops and does any errands he has too. Like his vet is on the corner so we stop and pick up his cat food. He has bad allergies, we've stopped and picked up his allergy meds. Sometimes I'll bring my dog and we'll play with him in the park. I think it's pretty unconventional. He did say once he wants to someday use what he learned from our therapy and incorporate walking therapy into his practice.

Rain or shine? Just curious.

Depends...I love the rain. He doesn't like it as much as me. If he has his hoodie with him too, I might get him out if its light rain. We did walk in the snow last year.

I hate the office now. I'm spoiled.

Snow is the best! I would walk out in the snow... Rain?...no thank you.

That sounds lovely! But when do you find time to talk?

From start to finish. We're NY'ers we can multi task.

We go by the water and sit because its quiet and its got the view of the skyline and you can hear the waves. Its relaxing if im having a manic day. That's my favorite spot. Otherwise I've talked about the most difficult things just walking around NYC. The best part thing everyone is so busy no one notices were in the middle of a session. The best happened when we were in the middle of a reallllly serious topic and we walked into Starbucks and the place was slammed. BUT he just kept talking it out and processing what had happened, as we were waiting on line, and no one had a clue.

Nothing really out of the box. We e-mail and she's pretty open about life minutiae, so we talk about that. i usually have 2 or 3 random questions during the week and one or two in session. She's always tickled by how silly they can be. One was, "do you ever wear gold jewelry?" LOL

The only thing i've asked for her to do was to write a note in the back of my journal.. what I would need to remember when I wake up in the morning and am locked into my anxiety or depression... And she did that so I felt that was sweet.

But what about the traffic noise? I imagine it must be awful!

Oh it is!!! Well as far as car...they don't have much access to the downtown area, where we are. The only noise is the above ground trains going by. ANNOYING. And the occasional construction site. There is a huge height difference between us. He's like 6"5" and I'm 5'2" so when the trains come by he always has to come down to my level so I hear him.

There are plenty distractions to our type of therapy. Not everybody would like it. It's not "safe" like the room is. Anything can happen. He often gets asked to help with things. People stop to tell him how they like his shirts all the time. My 50 minutes can turn into anything. But I wouldn't trade it in for the world. I feel special because it's OUR thing, and he's always ready to go for our walk.

I would not mind walking, but I would deeply resent the therapist doing his chores on my time and money.

One of the most healing moments of my therapy, came when he took me to do one of those errands.

I am glad it works for you.

My T is fairly conventional in that we don't do things together. Our sessions are held in her office, and we talk. Once, when my anxiety was particularly bad, she offered to walk around the building with me, but I declined. I knew that the instant we left her office, I'd put up my masks and everything would be "fine."

I'm comfortable with our relationship, though. I think my T is awesome. I need consistency, and my T is excellent about that.

There are times when I wish she'd go places with me, or do different things, but then I realize that would feel too "friend-like" and I need her as a T, not my friend.