The “Are you still there?” session.

It’s kind of nice when you get one of these and I have had one over the last two weeks. A 30 year old woman who I had not seen for three years. Prior to that I had seen her quite intensively for about two years. The time had come for her to deal with some childhood trauma which resulted in quite dysfunctional relationships with men. I would not call it a sex addiction but she did have some quite promiscuous periods. She did very well, got her life back on track and established quite a good relationship with an OK guy.



Then she stops coming and I hear nothing for three years. A few weeks back I get a phone call and she comes and sees me twice. She comes in and we greet, I catch up on all the developments with family, boy friend, work, social life and so forth. She talks about things that are troubling her and I keep waiting for the ’thing’ to come out and it never does. Nothing serious is being presented which leaves me asking myself why is she here?

She is getting on quite well with her partner but I can tell from how she is talking it is getting to the point where she wants a marriage type thing or that may be that. They are not arguing or anything and have talked about this type of thing but it is not moving that way and she is getting to the point where something may have to happen.



She is just checking out to see if I am still there, in case things turn bad and the relationships ends. Is he still there and is he still the same? - is what I think is behind this revisit. As a therapist it feels kind of nice when that happens.

Graffiti