Seeing your therapist's house

Update #2: This time Liz was in a different house! I knew that she and her husband live two hours apart, but I didn't know exactly where he lived until today. I told her how much I dislike having to do video sessions instead of in person and how it feels weird to suddenly be in her house (and, to a lesser extent, to have her in mine). She said she could understand how our relationship feels less contained this way and that could be unnerving. I told her that it bothers me that the whole world changed basically overnight, and it feels that much worse to have her change too. She compared it to the times I have seen her in the grocery store, when the context felt all wrong, even though I know it's still her. She said she could go to her office (which I absolutely do not want her to do), but she doesn't want to have to use a public restroom. I also told her that I felt like I am intruding into a place (her house) where I am not wanted. She was clear here that she doesn't feel that way about me at all, but it was a productive route into deeper work since I have this feeling not infrequently.

i felt similarly when my T had suddenly switched from working out of a rented office room to doing sessions from his home. i said exactly the same thing you said at that first session in his home, that i felt too tainted to be allowed into his personal private space and that i would contaminate it. it took many sessions for me to become comfortable with the new space, but talking about it did help. also, since it was his place, it helped that he allowed his dog to sit along side with us, which i always found comforting. i started to bring a treat each week for his dog as part of a regular ritual that i looked forward to and which eventually helped to forge some sense of safety.

T1 was definitely doing our session today from his kitchen or dining room area. I kept getting distracted by a picture he has huge up of him and his girlfriend. Towards the end he kept having to tell his dog to be quiet and had to put me on hold twice to fix his contacts.

My therapist uses his home office. I think I would have a harder time with it if it was any other room. His kids are adults and don't live at home, so I'd guess it's just him and his wife? I think I find that a lot easier than if I knew there were kids around.
It was a pretty typical home office, nothing really notable about it.
It was nice to meet his cat (one of his cats? I'm sure he's told me if he has more than one, I just don't remember). She's exactly the kind of cat I'd expect him to have. And this is going to sound silly, but I liked seeing him interact with her, and that he was clearly a cat person. Like sometimes you see someone pet or interact with a cat and it is very clear that they are not used to cats or they think the cat is a dog, but he was good with her.
He also got to meet my cat, who is a rambunctious menace and thinks that interfering with my laptop is great fun. I've taken to giving him half an hour of intense playtime right before my session so that he'll be too worn out to cause trouble.

I’m not sure what room of his house my T is in. All I can see is that he’s in a beige corner. No art or anything. It is somewhat unnerving, as he said his wife is also working from home.

My therapist office in his house. He uses the living room to conduct sessions. The only other room I have seen is the washroom. I have no idea if he is married but I saw several pairs of shoes on a rack down the hallway from the bathroom. One day I arrived 15 min early and a guy answered the door. He introduced himself as T's roommate. I never see or hear him when T is in session. I assume he's in the basement or on the second level.

Not sure I will tell EMDR this or not. One of the things that Inam steuggling with is that when I started seeing T in her home office things really changed. I felt more comfortable with her and I think the transferance really kicked into high gear...it was always there but it went off the charts to be in her home. Then when she sold her home and went back to the rented space I had a lot of fears of her leaving and no longer working. 😭

So now being in Emdr Ts home is really different but I can't explain it. I have fears that she will realize how much she loves being home with her son and will decide to continue having such restricted availability or stop working all together.

It weird seeing ts house in a different. The first session she said I will use my office so you can feel at home but then she switched to her kitchen and it has me disorientated. I can see a big cactus in the background and it looks like it’s growing out of ts head.

If the backdrop is generic, how do you guys know what room they're in? Do they tell you? Mine has a generic background as well, but I don't know where it is in the house. I don't ask either because, as weird as I'm sure it sounds, that seems too personal to ask and I'm not sure I'd want to know anyway.

As far as other people being around, I'm glad I don't have that problem. He's older — maybe early-to-mid sixties — with an adult daughter who lives on Cape Cod with her family. He's also divorced and while he talks about his ex-wife, it always sounds like the stories are from some time in the past. He has a current girlfriend who he calls his "lady friend," which is both hilarious and a little odd; I don't get the impression they live together though.

The time a couple weeks ago that T did the session from his home, he said he was in his home office. And LOL to "lady friend."

I am wondering what exactly makes it strange to see the therapist’s house. I would like to understand better.
What is it that is strange? It is just a house and a therapist is just a person.
Could someone help me understand? Thank you so much.

It can open up people's experiences of intimacy, change, (un)belonging, family, boundaries, familiarity, and so on. These are big and difficult experiences for many clients and I can empathise with how it is strange and complex for some people to work in this new way.

Agreed. It also shifts the "frame" of therapy, where you always meet in the same place. Though I suppose meeting over video chat or phone does that anyway. And it also blurs professional/personal life more, which can be a bit jarring, especially if a T has fairly strict boundaries on sharing stuff about their personal life. And if someone has paternal/maternal and/or erotic transference for their T, I imagine seeing their home, especially if there's any signs of their family there, could possibly intensify that. With the exception of one session, my T has still been conducting video sessions from his regular office, which has helped. (He's a solo practitioner, so doesn't come into contact with anyone.)


He also says it's easier to focus at his office than at home. That at home, there's the thought in the back of his mind of "will a family member come up the stairs?" (he has a wife and a son, who's maybe 12?) And I understand that, because I've been distracted by hearing my daughter screaming from a couple floors away (townhouse) while in session. Because Dr. T told me that, if he starts doing all his sessions from home, then it will likely be in the back of *my* mind that he's less focused and more distractible, so I might be looking for signs of that (I'm hypervigilant anyway).