Weird offer from therapist

I do cold water swimming. I love it. It helps me trust and know my body, I enjoy the contact with nature, the peace and solitude help me counter my aggravations. My therapist also cold water swims, something which she told me after I had spoken about my sea adventures.

She has asked me if I want to go swimming with her. It wouldn't be social contact, my session would take place in the sea. Like pirates. This would mean changing together on the beach before and after the swim. She checked if I would be ok with that.

I said I wasn't sure about swimming with her and that it would be an exceedingly strange thing to do, not least because I always swim alone.

This is weird, isn't it? I am weird and she is weird so my weird-o-meter doesn't always display an accurate reading, but this seems weird. I can't imagine a therapy session with her whilst she wears a swim suit, much less imagine her seeing me pulling on my soggy bra and sandy knickers!

I don't believe she has any sexual interest in me or intended any sexual connotation, but it seems intimate to me. Part of me would love to share the beautiful cold sea experience with her, part of me feels special that she asked. A bigger part of me thinks she's a lunatic.

Would you entertain the idea? Have you ever been offered and accepted something strange from your therapist?

Well, Info once offered to take me to the mall for a makeover, which I think pretty much everybody here thought was weird. I said no because I was so uncomfortable with the idea. No regrets.

I swim too and I absolutely would hate a therapy session interrupting that, which is sacred time to me. How would that work anyway? You’re going to talk while bobbing up and down in the North Sea?

I try not to remember this but I did once run into my then therapist while she was naked in a gym locker room. She waved at me. It was something.

I am also weird, but have never had a therapist weird in the same way that I am.

My very first T recommended I go to a particular yoga class in our small town, and said, “that would mean there would be a chance of running into me there.” She seemed ok with it, but I wasn’t, so I never went to that class.

Wrote a post about it at the time if that is of interest: Would you go to a yoga class that your T regularly attends?

I think it might be ok from a practical point of view. I would be ok about bobbing and talking and I imagine some of the time would just be sharing the experience. Hmm, this might be sentimentalisation on my behalf. We are both used to the cold so would probably be in the water for half an hour.

I didn't know you swam! Or I had forgotten. No make over (understandably so), but would you swim with Info?

Interesting to read how many people said no. Thank you for the link.

Nope. Sacred time. I could imagine going for a walk with her, but that’s it.

I have joked about having a session with L in her pool (not that I've seen it, but she's said before that she has one), but I wouldn't want to actually do so either, also because of the sacredness of the 'me' time. I don't think it's necessarily weird or anything. I would love to do a session while hiking out in the desert with her, though. I think that would be lovely and I even know exactly where I would want to go.

Yes, I consider my swims as special times too which, as I say, are always solitary experiences. I think I am wondering (romanticising?) what it would be like to share that specialness with her. There is something appealing about the idea for me. And it seems too much and too intense.

It is odd, in that I don't see swimming as a social activity in the same way that golf or tennis or other sports are. And I would be wary of a T wanting to dissect the experience with me, as in "What sensations are you feeling in your body right this second?" and that would annoy me. It takes me away from the experience!

Maybe your T wouldn't do this, in which case I might consider the idea.

I'm female, if it matters, and if no changing area were available I would absolutely have my suit on under my clothes and I would put my clothes on over my wet suit afterwards and drive home that way. (Or drive to the nearest gas station and change there.) But that's just me.... I'm American, too, and we're more prudish than other parts of the world... which is also weird, given other aspects of our culture, but there it stands.

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We have had a couple of sessions whilst walking, but this feels different. I think it's the swimsuit and changing thing. I don't like exposed bodies, mine or other people's, and it seems particularly ill fitting for therapy sessions about trauma.

Can you describe what you would like about hiking with L?

Actually, I would like that kind of somatic element to be in the session. I have grown to really value somatic therapy sessions (which I do with a different therapist) and I think this might be a fruitful area with the swimming therapist.

Yes, I have been thinking whether I could organise the changing arrangements so that we don't change together. I will think more about that, thank you.

It's not something I would do, personally. But I'm not a particularly strong swimmer. I might take a walk with T or sit outside with T (did that once when former T forgot her keys and we had to wait for her associate to get there). But I think it would disrupt the eye contact and some of that other important stuff. It is an interesting idea though.

I used to swim with a good friend, or rather hang out in my apartment pool with her. Even though i usually swim by myself, i was in my element and it was fine having her there. I joined her once in her club pool for a water aerobics class, and i also felt in my element there.

That feeling of "being in my element" was kinda new to me in this situation, and was only brought out by there being another point of reference (her). I was like, "i DO this, i SWIM. I am WITH the water."

So i might do it to see what new feelings i might experience, what new parts it might draw out of me.

OTOH, i have a hard time attending classical music concerts in person. With a friend is even worse. With a guest violinist bobbing and weaving front and center i want my money back! I have to close my eyes to be able to hear the music.

Eta - there is a block between me and the friend. So take that.

I would feel cautious and I'd also want to know their supervisor was in the loop and that they are both aware of the potential pitfalls of moving away from the boundaries of traditional therapy. I would also want to be having a discussion about what could be stirred or go wrong with the therapist too, and have a plan for if things felt weird or unsteady. I don't think it is inherently a bad idea but needs a lot of careful thought all round, and it needs to feel right for you.

I am uncomfortable at the thought of holding a therapy session outside the office, regardless of where. My concern would be that my T and I would become more like friends than therapist-client. If that happened, I would feel very odd about sharing deeper and more genuine subjects with her...I would feel like the relationship was equal, rather than professional.

It's kind of weird, but I'm not good at telling apart the harmless sort of weird from creepy or irresponsible or otherwise harmful.

I'd be tempted I think - in all the activites that I normally do alone, that's mainly because I don't know how not to be alone, and someone else being there is likely to distract and pull me out of the experience. On the other hand, there are those moments of breathtaking beauty when I wish I could share it with someone. On the third hand, again, I don't really know how to. And so on for as many hands I can conjure. But I also wouldn't do it without lots of talking through it in advance, so that I can make up my mind about how I feel, and make reasonably sure it's not something I'll end up regretting.

The thing is, I'd like my therapy relationship to be that intimate, but I'd have a very hard time believing that it actually is. And I don't mean the changing together sort of intimate, although that's also at least a little weird, but the sharing profound emotional experiences sort of intimate.

ETA: very different sort of experience, but in self-defense classes I often wished xT could be there. I think kicking and tugging out our differences in such an intense, physical way would have made for safer sessions. But then she's xT for a reason.

I would totally do some kind of physical conflict class with Info. Although I would be afraid of breaking her.

Corbie - your "4 hands" is exactly how i feel, thanks.

What is your final decision, com?

I don’t think I’d really want to do anything outside with my T - my solitary hobbies are mundane, compared to cold water swimming, but they’re still more or less ‘just’ for me. I don’t feel like I’d know how to share that time with others. I think if the idea/suggestion of doing something with a certain person produces a viscerally uncomfortable feeling in you, that’s a good indicator that it may be crossing a line.