[stopdog]

What is the therapist's primary role for you?

Hard to pick just one, I went back and forth between several! But I settled on "Accepting warm person" because that's what she is, and because of that has been helping me learn all along how to accept myself.

[Ellahmae]

Re-parenting. Starting at the root, helping me re-learn and grow and then her primary role will change.

I put sounding board but it's a toss up between that and an accepting person. I guess he can only be a sounding board because he is an accepting person.
For me, it helps me to make sense of my thoughts and feelings when I can verbalise them to somebody who endeavours to understand them.

[Waterbear]

Mother substitute and that encompasses all of the other things for me. I have never hidden what I believe and have always believed is my only route through this from myself, my Ts or on here. My problem is explaining to other people in 'the outside' that this is my primary purpose for my T. That will be hard to do.

[junkDNA]

i dunno man

[ejayy78]

That was hard to pick. Personally I have just thought of my t's primary role was to be my t. To do her job. I never thought about specifics. But I picked the witness option since she has been the first to hear a lot about my life.

[MobiusPsyche]

I checked "mother substitute" because it seemed the closest of the options available. Unconditional love and help experiencing true acceptance from another human being. (No touching/hugging/holding, though, for those who might be reading this and wish their T was like mine.)

The primary reason I see him is for assistance in handling a specific thing.

She's been the 'good enough mother' for me for awhile now too.

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[Cinnamon_Stick]

With my old T that I just ended with it was a mother substitute. With my new T, so far its assistance with specific things.

[gayleggg]

As a sounding board.

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[UglyDucky]

I voted "other." T is not a substitute for mother or father, but is a new attachment figure for me to internalize.

[AllHeart]

My t's primary role for me often varies from week to week so I chose other. So what I ultimately need her primary role to be is to 'be there for me as I need her to be there for me'.

[baseline]

he makes me feel safe. my safety net

[skeksi]

I said accepting warm person because by accepting me and all the things I often see as problems, T has helped me to be more accepting and tolerant of myself--which makes handling life a lot easier.

[velcro003]

I put other because I really don't know what role it is my T plays for me. This is a good question SD! Initially she spent most of her time convincing me I was depressed and that this isn't actually me just being lazy and crappy...and dealing with alcohol issues (that is ongoing i guess). Now we are facing stuff that I have avoided for a long time...but I don't really know what her "role" is.

I voted other as I am still confused as to why I go as I originally went to prove to someone else that there was nothing wrong with me, then was diagnosed Bipolar and worked throuh that.

[ThisWayOut]

I dunno, the closest was "witness to grief or story", but that's not totally it. Kinda soundings and witness and accepting person rolled into one...

[luvnola]

The way I see it, she is many of those. Her primary role as a t is to do her job, which encompasses witness, sounding board, teacher, guide and so forth, and she moves in and out of each of these as I need, sometimes all within a single session.

[ruh roh]

I don't know.

[Argonautomobile]

This is a tough one. Designated Adult, maybe?

[retro_chic]

I put "accepting warm person" because she is. Sometimes I think of her as "mother figure" but I know that is not what she is. I sometimes wish she could teach me about life and tell me what to do but that is not her job either. My T tries to create a safe environment for me to figure these things out myself with her guidance. She doesn't give me advice but she does share some of her insights with me which I find helpful.

[SheHulk07]

It's a toss up for me between accepting warm person and sounding board. I feel like I do a lot of venting in sessions, but that's because T is the only person I trust to not be judgmental about the things I'm venting about.

[Luce]

I have hired a new T for a very specific purpose - to be a witness to what I need to say aloud to another human being. For this particular stuff I need to say there is no other person in my life who I could currently tell these things to.

My ex T is my safe haven. She is my sure shelter, my unconditional positive regard, my 'kind of' mother substitute, my teacher, my all-accepting warm person. I would have said these things aloud to her, but we are not currently in the same city.