[RaineD]

This is to help me prepare for my last session with my therapist. What do you love about your T?

Mine has the perfect boundaries. He knows exactly where to draw the line and how much flexibility to allow.

I've come to love the way he gets mad at me. I love how he presses his lips into a line and glances to the side when he's annoyed.

I love how he was willing to see me on weekends so we can have in-person sessions after I moved away for a job.

I love that he's honest with me.

I love that he presses me and won't let up the pressure. Therapy sessions often feel like him holding a knife to my throat.

And despite the fact that I almost always refused to learn anything he tried to teach me, and despite the fact that I was always combative and always questioned his theoretical orientation and argued with him about theory--despite all of these things--he never terminated me. He threatened to, but he never did.

At the end of the day, when I needed him, he was always there.

I love how he's just very slightly narcissistic. But also incredibly sweet and kind.

And he gives the best hugs. (So do I so we have the best hugs.)

[stopdog]

They mostly stayed back and didn't touch me

[RaineD]

Originally Posted by stopdog

They mostly stayed back and didn't touch me

Lol, what if they tried to hug you?

I love her because, from what I know about her, she is complex and interesting. She’s a little older than I, but we’re in the same community and have experienced similar hardships, though I don’t know the details of hers. We celebrated the same community triumphs over the years and mourned the same losses. She’s a resilient and loving woman outside of the office, I’m sure. In the office, I struggle with the clumsiness of the therapy relationship, but she is generous with her time and encouragement. And she tries her best to be kind and thoughtful with her words. She doesn’t always say what I wish she would, but she’s imperfect, and I feel closer to her when I see her being human. She really was very helpful to me while my mother in law was ill. I hope all goes well with your final meeting. I think taking this route of gratitude will be very helpful while dealing with the challenge of an abrupt end. Hugs to you.

[coolibrarian]

I love her compassion and her intelligence.

[RaineD]

Ah, mine is complex and interesting too.
He's a lot older than me, and we have very different family backgrounds.
I also feel closer to him when he's being human and imperfect.
I find his imperfections endearing.

[starfishing]

He's not an idiot, first and foremost. He's knowledgeable and skilled.

He's careful and precise in understanding what I mean, and in noticing the nuance in my specific word choices.

He's humble. He doesn't assume his interpretations are always correct, and is always explicitly open to the possibility that he's caused or contributed to it when I'm frustrated in therapy or we have a misunderstanding.

He has good boundaries, but not rigid ones--he starts and ends on time but extends or shifts the time slightly when needed, and he self-discloses in small ways when relevant and useful.

He knows when to push or prod, and when to ease up. He's transparent and empathetic about how difficult and painful therapy can be.

Good luck at your session, RaineD

[RaineD]

Mine is not humble, haha.
But he is very, very intelligent (although he doesn't know the proper usage of good and well--i just can't get over that one, haha).
He's compassionate and empathetic, but he can also be impatient. It all works very nicely for me. He's really the perfect therapist for me.
I'm probably never going to find another therapist like him.

[InnerPeace111]

I love how she has no agenda for me or my life. It’s all up to me and she supports me no matter what I want to work toward and how I want to do it.

“The beauty you see in me is a reflection of you.”
Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad Rūmī, (1207-1273 AD)

This quote can be applied to realizing that whenever you look at someone who seems to be doing anything you wish you could do, or has anything that you wish you had, the reality is you could not be seeing whatever it is in another person if it didn’t already reside within you!

[runlola72]

I love him because he's consistent and honest. He screws up sometimes but admits it and apologizes. He lets me email him and though I'm not sure if that's ultimately good or bad, I appreciate that. He hasn't pushed me on the abuse stuff.

[Miss P]

The fact that she never talks down at me, and she always has ability to 'hear' what I am not saying.

[starfishing]

Originally Posted by RaineD

Mine is not humble, haha.
But he is very, very intelligent (although he doesn't know the proper usage of good and well--i just can't get over that one, haha).
He's compassionate and empathetic, but he can also be impatient. It all works very nicely for me. He's really the perfect therapist for me.
I'm probably never going to find another therapist like him.

Sounds like that works well for you! I need someone who's both intelligent and humble, who has insight but knows how to stay in their lane, but everyone's priorities are different and there are some parts of my personal history that make that humility especially important to me.

It makes sense that you're grieving right now and that the loss is really difficult, and I'm sure it will feel complicated to find someone else who's a good fit. But sometimes I think knowing what you need, and knowing that having a good fit in a therapist is possible, is more than half the battle.

I love mostly everything except that we live in different countries.
I love how smart, compassionate, and loving she is. I love her honesty.
I love that she can be grumpy or in a bad mood with me or have a fight with me. That we have fun when we go out to lunch. She has several artistic talents I admire.

i love everything she gave up just to take care of me ♥

[ChickenNoodleSoup]

His honesty sure is a plus. I also value that I can rely on the fact that he will react in a way that is good for me, no matter what we talk about. But what I like most is how he is kind of clumsy with wording and sometimes seems to not have experienced the outside world in the last 20 years (based on sentences like "I discovered the internet a couple of years ago!"). It might annoy some people, but I think it makes him cute.

[Echos Myron redux]

As a therapist:
- His investment in my wellbeing.
- His willingness to be vulnerable.
- His understanding of my needs.
- His non-defensiveness/willingness to reflect on his actions

More generally:
- His wisdom
- His mischievous streak
- The way he always has a little image or metaphor
- His creativity
- Our connection, mutual respect and love.

[SalingerEsme]

My therapist has inspiring atmosphere and presence , without being a charismatic leader type. He is quick and clever with humor, but he never makes mistakes about when to be funny.v serious. He is so perceptive as a listener, and also easy to hear for real when he talks. He has my full attention in a way other people don't.

His "bad" qualities are also good ones for me to learn to tolerate better. I've figured out that I need to be more resilient in the areas in which he clashes with my sensibility or world view. He can get a little overcommitted to debate just for the intellectual exercise , and go too far with comments. He has hurt my feelings a few times by pushing the envelope caught up in abstract ideas and wanting to win the point . He is also way way more structured than a lot of T's here on PC or others in real life, and he worships the frame. He is never late, never early, sessions never run over, I have literally never once spoken to him on the phone, not even for the first appointment. He is very much authoratative, if not authoritarian in a nice way. He isn't that collaborative T co creating the rules, that's s for sure. He is a good listener and very empathetic within the session though. I'm more of a spirit of the law than a letter of the law type, and he is the opposite while still being compassionate. I kind of still giggle over one of his few disclosures, that in his opinion kids who try to take a cookie have to go to time out. I asked him well, does he get to take the cookie to time out? Normally very soft spoken, he practically yelled THERE ARE NO COOKIES IN TIME OUT. I still kind of laugh to myself about it. Dude , it is just a theoretical cookie, calm down .

In my last T, I liked his professionalism and communication style. Very similar to my view of good professional interaction and I was able to pick up a few things from him easily. I also liked his intelligence and the many things he was interested in and used as resources to understand people - we had very similar interests. And that he was very interactive and engaging, but did not get entangled/lost in the communications with me and did not engage in anything just to respond/react. He also never once tried to exercise hierarchy and authority between us - I guess it's not his style in general but recognized very rightly from start that it would never work with me (he told me so), even though he does more authoritarian forms of therapy such as CBT. He also had what seemed like good equanimity, his communication and behavior was very even and consistent, which might just be part of professionalism, but I think for him it's also part of his personality and what he strives for. Very drama-free - huge difference to my first T who was extremely reactive, often jumping to (wrong) assumptions and conclusions, and visibly passive aggressive/defensive when he did not like something.

I can't say that those positive qualities in my last T made it much more therapeutic for me, but I think that's a more complex issue. I still think that my last T is someone I would recognize in any setting and probably would be drawn to him as a person. Oh, and quite an eye candy, too

In my first T (whom I generally disliked more than anything else) I appreciated his guts to put a great deal of information about him all over the internet, even if his drive to do so probably wasn't the healthiest. Having that info helped me a lot to more accurately assess him as a therapist and person. I also appreciate that he is interested in and willing to work with people from all socioeconomic classes, cultures, all kinds of issues - again, perhaps not too wise as I doubt one can realistically/effectively fit with such a wide range, but he does not seem to discriminate a priori (like my other T, who clearly seeks to work primarily with high-achieving professionals). I imagine that probably his highly emotional/sentimental nature can also be a plus with certain clients who tend to have similar personality/reactions even though it was a mismatch with me.

[Anne2.0]

For me it is not so much the therapist as the space he helps create for me, or the space we build together. Maybe this is what is meant by those who speak about "holding the frame," although that and most of the other googly-gook of therapy speak don't really resonate with me.

But I go in there, and it's like I drop right into a place where I can be myself, focus on myself, be honest with myself. No fooling around, but times when I just want to small talk for awhile exist. It's all about me but he is the most self-revealing therapist I have had, and he's become more like that over time.

But I feel safe, protected even, in the precious time where nobody demands anything of me for an hour. When I can rage for a righteous world I know will ever exist, where I can complain about the stress of work within the horribleness of social institutions, and he never gets tired of hearing about it. Where I can question what he means by the things he says that are annoying or ambiguous. And where I can ask myself what it is that I really want, and think about how to get it. Where I can be frustrated that after all these years, I can still be triggered by upsetting things and more generally influenced from the remnants of the traumas I've experienced. Where I can talk about my struggles with parenting without being worried about the judgment that often comes from other people.

I do like him as a person, for his smarts and how well-read he is (much more than me), for his kindness and his focus on helping me. Even with a lot of self disclosure I have never sensed he is interested in promoting himself as insightful or clever or caring, even though he is. I feel like he is a no-stone-left-unturned professional, in the sense that he would do anything to help me.

He's not a bullsh*tter, and neither am I. It's 50 minutes in a no-bullsh*t zone. That, I think, is what I need most of all in order to heal.

[RaineD]

My therapist never tries to promote himself as anything particularly special or God-like. But he has a lot of confidence in the type of therapy he does. He's one of those partisan therapists, who's always like "my theoretical orientation is right, and everything else is wrong and stupid."
He doesn't co-create rules either, but his boundaries are flexible. He accepts my love and adoration with grace, but he's never tried to take advantage of my feelings. By taking advantage, I only mean taking psychic advantage--with some people, you can tell that they're so hungry for praise and adulation that they actively try to suck more of it out of you. My therapist doesn't do that. He's never given me that vibe. I know he appreciates my love and the things I try to do for him.

And, most importantly, he has never shamed me for my feelings even though my feelings can be big and out of control and insane.

[ruh roh]

She sticks with me through it all.

[ScarletPimpernel]

I love almost everything about my T. I love her looks, how smart she is, her honesty, her attentiveness, her support, encouragement, and reassurance, the fact she told me she would never leave me, how much she has helped me, the amount of time she gives me outside of session, the transitional objects she's given me, our hugs, etc.

The only things I don't like is that she won't touch me or sit next to me when I cry, that she doesn't and will never love me, and we can never be friends.

[sctak]

I like that she doesn't give up even when I do.