Difficult session today

After the discussion about my email, I almost didn't want to bring up "love", but I forced myself to. I said I knew the way she meant she loved me--therapy love. She liked that terminology! She said it's not how she loves her kids or how I love mine. So we agreed on that, and then I said I was afraid of it. The love. I don't trust it. She said becy I never felt it in the past.

When she held my hand, she wanted me to feel it with my eyes closed. I spoke honestly about how good it felt. I said like Mommy and baby. I wasn't ashamed.

I also said I'm afraid of her going away next week. What will I do if you... Don't come back? She said I would grieve but I would go on.

I feel kind of depressed. She's going to a workshop, not vacation, but I worry about the airplane. Somehow I didn't feel as connected today though we talked about therapy love. She said the email exchange didn't change her feelings for me but I think otherwise when people criticize me. It's hard to accept love. I feel better writing all this. I did not email my T yet. I wish she weren't going away but I won't even miss a session. The unsettled feeling is sticking around. I want it to go away!

I think the connection probably comes and goes, and is not there with the same intensity always. I would also have been affected by the email exchange you had with your T, my T also tends to reflect back to me her feelings from something I said, and I think it has affected how connected I have felt to my T. Maybe it reflects how emotionally involved your T is? I mean that in a positive way - I have been thinking lately that if a T feels care or therapy love this involves a level of emotional involvement?

The unsettled feeling is your connection.

I posted in your email thread before I read this. It sounds like what you and your therapist have together works for you, in the long term. That's what counts, isn't it?

Therapy and life are multilayered.