I had a fairly major crisis with my T the week before I went on vacation at the beginning of the month. In the session before I left I admitted to him how much I needed him and how scared I was that I was too much for him and he would quit. He told me he wouldn't.

Since I've been back we've been talking about how I feel about him and how I doubt that I can trust him and how he feels about me. That has been a painful and fruitful topic. Over my week away I became convinced that my T would decide I was too much for him when I returned. Even though I realized the feelings weren't based in anything he had said or done they were still overwhelming and I was so anxious I wasn't able to talk at all. At some point he asked me if I was afraid he was going to quit and I choked out a yes. He said that his financial planner had told him he had to work 12 more years before retirement and he wasn't planning on stopping working with me. I was so hurt that his initial comment had to do with his retirement that I could barely feel the reassurance. I told him how hurt I was later in the session, by email, and into the next session.

Next I asked him how he expressed his care for me because I often don't feel that he likes and cares for me and I struggle with believing it. He spent some time telling me that he expressed his care by his listening to his clients, the quality of his attention, his empathy. I got upset because I felt like he wasn't talking about me it was some generalized information about how he did therapy with all clients. Finally on the third session he told me he cared for and about me in words. He followed it up quickly by asking me if the words made me feel it. I said not at that moment and he said that was because the words were meaningless without the actions.

I told him I felt like the words were meaningless because I had worked so hard to get them to say them. He rarely expresses care or like or emotions verbally. He is always there ready to engage with me in whatever I bring to the conversation. He hasn't gotten angry at me or shown frustration. He has gone out of his way many times over the last 4 years to respond to my emails and calls and allowed contact during his vacations even having a phone session with me while he was away one particularly difficult summer. It occurred to me that he wasn't able to give me the verbal reassurance that I wanted because of some feature of his own personality or of his therapist persona. I actually felt relieved kind of comparing it to the idea that if I wanted to do EMDR I wouldn't spend session after session asking him to attend training to do EMDR instead I would find an EMDR therapist. Same as the fact that I would like a T that allows emergency phone calls on evenings or weekends but I value my T more so I haven't looked for one.

So last night my T starts to explain to me that he expresses his caring by listening and he understood that was difficult for me because when I shut down and don't talk it doesn't feel the same. He does care and he is listening but it is different. He also said that he felt like that way of caring was within the therapeutic relationship and talking about care and listening was less effective than listening and caring. He also said that he wouldn't feel comfortable expressing his caring in a different way that felt outside of the therapeutic relationship. It actually sounded a lot like my boundary idea but instead of relief at the time all I said was that I understood what he was saying but it didn't feel like enough.

I spent the second half of the session feeling sad about it. I told him I didn't think there was anything else to talk about. That it wasn't fair to keep trying to get him to express his caring differently. I thought but didn't say that it isn't fair to me to never get to feel that he cares or to feel safe in the relationship. I told him I recognized that I might hit the same wall with any therapist but I didn't know that. I didn't know if there was something missing in me so I couldn't feel safe or if I would experience things differently with another therapist. I feel like I've decided to end therapy and I'm sad but I'm not panic striken. I agreed that I wasn't going to end suddenly and I was willing to meet to continue talking about it but we weren't clear on how many meetings or what we would talk about.

I feel sad and numb. I'm not planning to start seeing consult T because even though she is very different and more verbal I think I doubt what she says for different reasons (she doesn't know me well enough to say she likes me or feels a connection). I don't want to get attached like this with another therapist and then hit the same wall in a year. So maybe I'm thinking of stopping because I'm afraid I'm too damaged and I'm never going to work through this.

I would appreciate any thoughts from people who've felt like this. Did you quit? Did your feelings change? Did you stay? Was it the right decision? It feels odd to me because at first I thought he didn't care and know I believe he cares he just doesn't express it in a way I can take in when I'm feeling vulnerable. I can believe he cares when I'm calm and rational like know but that doesn't last.