Hi Caeti...there really is no timetable for therapy. I am just approaching my second year with my T and I feel we still have a long way to go. When I get stressed about it my T reminds me that this is a process and it is not always linear... it can go back a step or in circles or sideways for awhile. And he reminds me that I can only go as fast as I can go. It sort of takes the pressure off. But I understand you feeling like he's going to be annoyed with you if you stay around too long. That is something that is probably coming from your past. You mention that he got irritated with you once before...in whay way? Did he actually tell you he was irritated or did you assume he was? My T also reminds me not to decide how HE is feeling without asking him first LOL.

The fact that you approach him smiling while feeling sad and anxious is something you learned to do as a child when you were afraid to show your true feelings and were not able to get your needs met... actually you probably felt that you were not entitled to HAVE any needs. I would start with your T by telling him that you do this. That you smile while inside you are depressed. That would be helpful for him to know. It is not your job to appear happy for the sake of your T. He should accept however you are feeling at the moment.

Good luck and let us know how things are going.

TN

Wow Caeti, I do the same thing with my T and never really thought about it. TN thanks for that advice. The next time I see my T with the sometimes false happy face- I will explain that to him. He sees through it anyway, so I guess it is more of me recognizing what I am doing. Good insight TN.

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Maybe I read too much into it but my new T would NOT have acted that way! She would have just asked questions to try and determine how differently I felt in therapy vs. out of therapy with her. With her, it's never about my feelings for her - with him, it seemed to always be about the feelings between us!

Free-on-Thursdays, I think I need to add something here. I, we (my T and I) do or try to do some work on my feelings (transference) for him. This is what my therapy is about now. It is mainly about how I feel and what I think while with him, without him, about him etc. Since he is "the transference object" now that should allow him to get better understanding of me, my feelings and eventually to proceed to "corrective emotional experience" (??). There are still things that I didn't tell him about myself, but I think we need to do the feelings work first to build more trust. However it is mainly about the feelings and thoughts that are coming up in relation to him.
I think your new T may also be fishing out for your feelings now. Maybe your previous T realized that he could not do more for you (because of his own limitations?) and that's why it ended? I hope the connection to your new T will come, it surely will.

Caeti, as for the end of therapy I don't even want to think about it right now (it is 9 months now).
I also covered this topic with my T just to make sure he will not push me out of therapy when he thinks I'm done. I'm also afraid that he may be fed up and annoyed with me, and it must be such a pain to drag things out of me (instead of me speaking freely and allowing him to get all the infor he needs), to see me bowling or staring at him like a fool.
Anyway, he reassured me that it will be my decision to end therapy and there is not timeframe to it. For the moment and don't see myself ending it and I don't want to even think how much time will have to pass for me to be ready to leave.
My T once asked me (after we reached the transference stage) what do I want to achieve in the next 3 months? The 3 months timeframe freaked me out a bit, so he clarified that it doesn't mean we end in 3 months, it could even last 3 years. I replied: "Nothing, I just want to stay here".