So for the past month i've been searching all over for the right christmas gift for my T. I'm not sure why, but its such a big deal for me. I feel guilty how much I think about it. Do you all buy your T gifts?

[ECHOES]

This will be my first year with T.. I don't know if she celebrates Christmas, but I started knitting a scarf today with the thought of giving it to her.

[sunrise]

I've been with my T since last Fall, and I did not get him anything for Christmas last year. I think I had read somewhere you weren't supposed to get your therapist a gift, so I didn't really consider it. Plus, it would have been too much stress to think of what to get! Plus, he doesn't celebrate Christmas. Way too many reasons for me to just not deal with the issue. I don't think I'll do anything this year either. I think if I was going to get him something, for any occasion, it might be just a card, with a meaningful note I would write inside, about how much he has helped me or how much my life has changed because of what I had learned in therapy. Or if I was out walking somewhere and found an interesting rock or piece of driftwood or something, I might bring it to him. He has a lot of cool, "found" objects like that in his office.

Good luck on finding something.

[tsha]

No, I don't give gifts to my T. I have total trust in her and she has been there for me, but I just don't feel it is appropriate.

I don't think giving an expensive gift would be right, but I don't see what harm something small would do. Last Xmas I got a nice card and put a small shell angel inside it. It was a Xmas one to hang on the tree. she liked it........I think!

i give my t "stuff" throughout the year-- poetry, music, letters-- although they are not gifts, they are parts of me and i consider them very intimate and special.

because of this i don't feel like i could single out a particular gift for a certain holiday. plus i would get way too stressed out. for example, my 1st thought would be to get him a book, but since he's very well-read i'd probably end up getting him a book he already has. and he doesn't have his own office in the place we have therapy so it's not like i could see what types of things he keeps in there and then get him something to put on a shelf. too stressful.

i hope that you can settle on the pefect gift for your t. just to clarify, i don't think there's anything wrong with getting a holiday gift for a t-- i think it can be quite nice. i just didn't want it to seem as though i was shooting down your idea.

last year i made my T a gift. Took me a long while. This year I am buying something. I'd feel so bad not giving her a gift. But also the holiday gives me a good excuse to buy her a gift and say i care. the only thing that makes me feel bad is that i used to give gifts to my mom when i was a kid b/c i thought/knew she was mad at me. I thought the gifts would make her love me again. Sometimes I wonder if I am doing this to get love from my T. Its hard to sort though the "why" that I do it.

[gardenergirl]

I never gave my T any cards or gifts during the time we had therapy together. However, just this week I terminated after so long--4 years, I think? I gave him a gift then, something I had planned for awhile. It was nominal in monetary value, but much more than that in personal significance. I painted a flowerpot and added a rosemary plant with a card that had the quote from Hamlet, "There's rosemary, that's for remembrance." He seemed to like it, and he understood the significance. It was a good moment.

gg

I give my T little gifts whenever I feel the time is right. I've bought her little candy at easter, wrote her a poem and gave her a glass cross necklace on our "year anniversary", my little alters have made her things, and brought her candy they know she likes.
Last Christmas, I wasn't around. I had flown back to Chicago to spend time with the 'family' so I didn't see her really. This year, I don't know. Now I'm gonna stress out thinking about it!

[bipolar_bear]

I give my T a Christmas gift each year. Nothing expensive. This year I am making something for her.

BB

[Perna]

Esther, think about "her" and what you think she likes or what you know about her or about any "objects" you all have worked with or talked about. I knew my T liked the color blue and music and a few other things.

I found a metal "wand" and one end was shaped like a star and there was a ribbon on the other end which was curled, like a paper clip. But one could bang the star end on a hard surface and it would vibrate like a chime/tuning fork. The whole effect was "magical" which made me think of therapy :-)

Another year we had worked with clay once and I had trouble with the whole thing and later I found soap you could model :-) http://naturalplay.com/store/soap.html which I gave her.

[jacq10]

I've given my T flowers....

I want to get my t a book. I mentioned this one to him and he sounded surprised enough for me to know he hasn't read it:

http://www.amazon.com/Mind-Brain-Neu.../dp/0060988479

It is quite lovely. Goes from different theories of the mind-body problem (a little simplistic to be sure, but palateable) to animal findings of neuroplasticity. To human findings of neuroplasticity (treatments for stroke victims). To teaching mindfulness meditation to alter the OCD neural circuit. To mindfulness meditation being the power to 'direct mental force' to how the 'directing of mental force' collapses the wave function.

Lol. Fairly entertaining and fairly engaging and well written. Good for prompting ideas though a little superficial (and problematic in ways I really don't think the author sees) at times.

Terrific explanation of quantum inderterminacies for the rest of us too.

I think t will like it...

[allthegirls6]

we give T a gift every year, we keep it inexpensive. Just a bag of little things. We get gifts back. Its nice. We also get gifts when she comes back from holiday and that really makes us feel like we matter.

[OliviaC]

The only gift I have ever given my Pdoc is a CD of music that I burned myself. She accepted it graciously.

I do not plan to give anything to my psychologist for Christmas. She is not Christian and I don't know if she even celebrates Christmas.

[DePressMe]

I have given my T a gift in the past--a piece of glass. She has given me little things like a special rock. This year I'll get her something small. It will not be a big deal because every now and then I give her a little something...I will probably not call it a Xmas present because I don't celebrate Xmas much.

[Gravity]

This is great....Freudian Slippers!

http://www.uncommongoods.com/item/it...d&itemId=12062

[sunrise]

bump!