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• I feel it is time for my therapist to let me in on the tricks of the trade. I rehearse what I am going to say over and over again. I will go into the next session and ask her to explain what she is doing and what is going on. I’ll tell her how it is for me and make clear my confusions and disappointments. I will point out the bits I’m not happy with and ask for what I want. Therapy is all consuming in terms of time and emotions so it is crucial that it is really working for you. I would like my therapist to be different with me, to be more assertive and to challenge me. I would like her to give me more insights and be brutally honest. I want her to explain her techniques and game plan.
  
  However, face to face the reality is different. In this respect I find the therapeutic relationship is just like any other relationship. I can’t go in there and plainly ask for what I want. Even though I am paying and she is providing a service. How will my words be received? Do my requests imply a criticism, that up until now I am not happy with what she has given me? Will this hurt her feelings? Make her defensive? I have to acknowledge that I want my therapist to like me. I want our relationship to continue amicably and positively. It is an incredible skill to be able to ask for what you want, and to do it in a way that will not be damaging. And it takes some guts.
  
  When the moment arrives I am nervous about rocking the boat. I find myself gingerly broaching the subject of our relationship. I have to choose my words very carefully. I have to be mindful of my tone of voice. To say things in a respectful and sensitive way, although I fear my words are not as easy to understand as I’d like. To be clear and straightforward may aid communication, but it does not protect feelings or make for a harmonious relationship.
  
  Perhaps all of this should have been obvious. However, the therapist’s room has given me a space where I can be frank and unguarded about what I think and feel about my relationships with others. All relationships, it would seem, except the one that I am having with my therapist. I guess this is where I have to practise relationships for outside the room.
  
  Having walked on eggshells, it all goes rather well. She is receptive to my tentative requests. I say that I am confused about where we are going. We just seem to be meandering around without any kind of focus or plan. I don’t feel any defensiveness or bad feeling from her. She very clearly sets out what she can do for me. She explains that this is a space for me to discuss whatever I want to. I can structure it in the way that I want. It may just be a place to take stock of what is happening during the week, recognition that life happens so fast that sometimes it is impossible to assimilate what has happened before the next moving object hits you. Yes, she can take a more active role. She can make more observations; ask more probing questions if that is what I want.
  
  However, she stops short of giving me opinions or advice, despite me trying to provoke her over and over. ‘What do you think about…? Do you think I’m being…?’ She never falls for it. I do find this frustrating. She is the expert. She has listened to my droning on and on about my life for months. She has the inside track on how I think and feel. Please, I would like your opinion. I am asking for it. I trust you to give me the benefit of all your experience and training delivered in an ‘in my best interests’ kind of way. I can take it. But no, the boundaries are very clearly drawn.
  
  And, as for the tricks of the trade… I don’t seem to be able to get my therapist to explain what she is doing. How do you classify and understand the relationship? It’s not a friendship; it’s work – for her and for me. This relationship we are having is unlike any other that I have, and yet it is a manifestation of all the others. The way that I interact with her is the key to how I interact generally. As a couple of intelligent consenting adults I would like her to share with me how she works. Instead I have to accept a level of professional mystique. I’m too sophisticated just to revel in the wonder of it all. It leaves me frustrated and distracted, wondering where she pulled the rabbit from, instead of concentrating on assimilating what I have learnt. I want to be trusted to understand her methods so that I can pull off the magic myself when I’m left alone, holding the hat.

• Some details have been changed to protect identities.