Tracy, the time I wrote about was about 11 months ago, and my history was that in the past when I've attempted therapy, I'm always told that I need to speak to my mother about things from my childhood, and whenever I've tried my mother's response has always been, that I don't have an ED, I'm just fat, lazy, and very mentally ill to the point that it causes me to fabricate stories about my childhood that aren't true, and she would discuss what I said with friends and relatives too, who would then accuse me of lying and saying things just to upset my mother ....and I was in so much turmoil at that point, I had to consider whether, in light of the support she always managed to rally, whether what she said was true, and whether I really was very mentally ill. I rarely feel nervous talking to my therapist about anything thesedays - had an icky one last week as it was about my relationship with her and my feelings about termination, and that was a bit difficult to begin with... but I have a more authentic (on my part) relationship with her than with anyone else in my life. It's taken a lot of work - we've had full on arguments - BIG time! One time we fell out and I spent my 2 week vacation feeling upset and trying to make sense of it, and she recently told me that she had been so upset by it that whilst I was on vacation she took it to supervision to try to get her head around it too ...but it's those moments that I feel have made a large contribution to the quality of the relationship we have now....I have always forced myself to be completely open and honest with her, because if I hold back then I'm not getting the full potential benefit of the therapy...and I encourage her to be honest with me too, sometimes she pulls a face and says "I don't know how to word this to you, maybe I shouldn't say it, as I don't want to upset you"...and I always say "you can't do that, you have to tell me, just say it, I will cope with it"...and it's refreshing to share such honesty. I suspect that not all therapist-client relationships are as good as what we have...but I think that is so important in ED work