How often do you think about your therapist?

I'm brand new here! So this might be a repeat thread.

How often do you guys think about your therapist and/or therapy in general?

This is my first therapist I've seen on a weekly basis, been seeing her for almost a year. My only other positive therapy experience was 10 years ago meeting every 2-3 weeks and I don't remember thinking about him nearly as much. I have a lot of reflective space in my life these days, between exercise, dishes, long commutes etc. I think about my therapist/therapy every day. We have random and some significant things in common which have "tickled" me to hear (lol best description!) Even when I ask if she's had experience with "x" and she hasn't, I love the feeling of being different and describing something (relatively) new to her. Then I replay the session in my mind all the way home and a couple days after. I think of highlights through the week she might find interesting. I also wonder what she does in her spare time and if I'll ever run into her in public. By the time I see her again I feel kinda shy because I never want her to get the impression I think about her this much! I get that we need to be feeling positive transference but how much is too much? Its not getting in the way of being productive with depth work in sessions, its just the time in between sessions that bug me!

several times a day i suppose

I think about my T pretty much everyday. I can relate to alot of what you said. I usually think about T when Im depressed or when I miss her which is pretty much everyday.

Several times a day. Practically constantly at present because my PTSD has been triggered and I'm counting the hours till I see him.

I spend way too much time thinking about therapy and the therapist. I'm sure it comes from an old need to feel taken care of so it is hard for me not to mull it over constantly. I'm working on having an actual life too. Work and hobbies are pretty solid but I need to work on socializing more.

I think about therapy, my therapist and our relationship many, many times a day every day and it's driving me crazy! I would be rich if I got paid for all of this time!

It's frustrating to me because I feel like I don't have many reasons to be in therapy these days other than to work on this therapeutic relationship which I think is crazy reason to keep going. I'm not happy about all this and am contemplating taking a break from therapy and finding a new therapist if I need to attend therapy again.

Welcome to the boards. It's a really nice community to be a part of!

Several times a day, some days more than others. I found this quite disturbing for a good while but these days I feel it's lost from the obsessive edge a good deal and I am not really bothered by it unless it distract me from something I need/want to do.

I think my thinking about my therapy has become a negative cycle and I will have to see another therapist to give up thinking of my t. I notice when I am not busy or bored I think about my t more. I definitely think about her at least every hour. I think she knows I think ability her and I have told her I always reflect on our sessions during the week.

Outside when I'm here on PC? Not terribly often. But I'm not in therapy anymore. When I was in therapy, probably a few times a day.

Not an awful lot , sometimes when responding to polls and sharing my experiences on here I'll think about it. Perhaps earlier in therapy I thought about him and therapy more but it's faded as things became internalised.

For those that feel that thinking about the therapist/therapy is excessive... I often think that the context in which the thinking and fantasizing occurs is also important. For example, most of my thoughts about T these days are about processing further what we talked about in session, or what other things I would want to share with him, wondering what his thoughts might be etc. I don't consider this negative at all. But in the past, there were periods when I would fantasize excessively about all sorts of other stuff than therapy... having another kind of relationship (e.g. friendship, work colleagues, romantic), what it would be like. I also had intense urges to tell/send him things that had little to do with my therapy goals (and I did act these out sometimes). That sort of imagination was the disturbing one for me as it felt obsessive and utterly unrealistic and kinda useless. I mean, of course I don't consider all the transference reactions useless and unhealthy and I learn from it tons, but the feeling is usually not a relaxing one.

I don't consider thinking about him/us as therapist-patient disturbing and negative at all, I feel it's healthy part of the process. I guess it's not a linear process though.

Several times a day, every day. Thinking about her is both painful and reassuring.
And then I come here on PC and think about therapy even more !

Multiple times a day. I think about both the topics of sessions past and future. I also think about my T - wonder what she's doing, think about things she has said, anticipate seeing her. I don't worry much about it, I figure it's part of the process.

I used to think about my t nearly non-stop for a while there. It was consuming me. Now the thoughts are much more brief and not as often throughout the day unless there is something going on around her. I can't not think about her. Even when I go a few hours without having a thought pop into my head about her, I think, "yeah! I just went a few hours without thinking about t!"

Not very often. I do if I've experiene a win and think how proud she might be.

It varies for me, but several times a day usually. I've noticed that I spend a lot more time practicing how I'm going to describe things or articulate things in my next session when there's important work being done. If I'm not thinking much about therapy then it's kind of "down time" and not a lot is being processed. So, I consider all that mulling over the next session to be mostly a good thing, an indicator of progress underway.

Also, I read the book "The Gift of Therapy" (maybe it was recommended by someone here?) and the author argues that whatever happens in a person's relationships will wind up happening in the therapeutic relationship too, so it's not bad to focus on the therapy relationship, it can be very useful. If I realize I have really strong emotions about some aspect of my relationship with my T, then I know it's not really about my T, it's tapping into something a lot deeper. So that can be a great hint that there's something that needs to come to the surface.

When I make a big decision or face a dilemma I'd think "hm maybe I should ask t about it"

I actually have read most of that book. Maybe time to reread it. Thanks!

Almost constantly right now, because I'm triggered by a memory I can't get a grip on. That, and I'm a bit angry that T hasn't picked up on my frustration w/how slowly therapy seems to go at times.

A bazillion times a day. Well, maybe a bit less than I used to. But I often think of T1. Especially when stressed.

The time I spend thinking about my therapist varies day to day, week to week. I don't think it's consistent, but, rather, depends on what I am dealing with or going through at any given time.

When I'm at work, I often do not think about my T. Sometimes I do if I've reached out for support and have not heard back from her as of yet. The day after sessions, I think about her more and notice that I struggle with staying focused and present in my life. Usually, however, that's because I am dealing with the aftermath of our session or I'm processing something that I need to work through. In the evenings, I do think about my therapist more. I have a very hard time at night and that's probably the reason why. I normally don't think the time I spend thinking of her is problematic, but I have my moments. And, I most definitely have an attachment and some transference - but, I think it is mostly positive at this point in time.

I don't think about my dietitian or other provider as much. Again, I have my moments. And, one of the biggest things is that I do have a dissociative disorder and my smaller parts definitely have issues with attachment. But, I believe it's all part of the process right now. If it begins to negatively impact my life, then I will look at it and make adjustments, if need be. But, for now, I am still largely functional. And, I'm trying to learn from the times where I think about them a lot more.

Currently I think about t a lot for two reasons - a) because I have a high need for support at the moment and b) we haven't discussed the boundaries of our contact (email and skype, fee not settled yet). So yeah - high anxiety around it all... I need her support, she has agreed to give it, but we don't know what that support looks like yet.
Also we are processing stuff by sending it to her - our work alone is uncovering it and exploring it, then the other part of the work is pulling it into a narrative to send to her. Annnnd this work needs to be done. It is dominating our agenda so that other critical matters such as work and study have been discarded.
So yeah atm our work and T is pretty much our everything there is.

I think about my T about every 3 therapists

I suppose you could say I think of my T regularly. But, not about her, specifically. As I work through my own issues and contemplate my emotions, it's helpful to know I'll be seeing T in a few days. She's kinda like my sounding board and I want to process as much as possible outside of session. You might say that I have imaginary conversations with her in regards to particular topics. I can imagine how she might respond and it helps me see some things more clearly.

And I want to be able to choose what it the most important topic to explore while in session because I only have 50 minutes. So, yes, I think of T probably multiple times a day in context of my fluid emotions.