Two people can experience the same event and have completely different reactions.  Even weeks after a simple enough event, some people can still be traumatized by what others would have integrated and moved on from.  I recently discovered the term Highly Sensitive People (HSP’s) in Zoe Kessler’s blog ADHD from A-Zoe who put me onto Elaine Aron’s book: Highly Sensitive People.

Two things have happened to me recently.  In the first I ran into the back of another car at traffic lights and ended up with a headache and a sore arm.  The other occupants got a jolt but were unharmed.  The worst part was that the other car contained a child just out of hospital.  I was far more upset by my inattentiveness than the actual event.  In terms of car accidents it was a minor bingle, but I still feel sick thinking about how that scenario could have been much worse. 

Over the past few months your therapist has put on weight.  All around her middle.  In the back of your mind you are thinking, “For goodness sake, go on a diet, and get some exercise.”  At the rear end of the back of your mind an idea is forming that is so reprehensible it gets snapped shut before its presence is fully comprehended.  For some even when your therapist is nine months pregnant it is possible not to acknowledge what is blindingly obvious.  Your therapist is about to have a baby very soon and it’s not you.

My therapist had children before I started seeing her so it has not been an issue for me.  What was an issue was when she got a pair of dogs and I thought they were getting more attention than I was.  And I was right; they are a pair of pampered pooches.  Thank goodness she was never pregnant when I was a client.  I would not have handled it well.

What happens to your therapy when your therapist gets ill or depressed?

You’ve been seeing him/her for a long time and gradually it dawns on you that although your therapist is doing an excellent job there is something you intuit telepathically that things are not as they seem.  There is something intrinsically ironic about the depressed therapist.  Someone who dishes out wise therapeutic advice as a profession can sometimes fail to see what is happening to them.  Such is depression.  It sneaks up on one with much stealth.  Sometimes it takes another to point out what cannot be so blindingly obvious to the sufferer.