Dr. Eric Bender

It's like, oh, this person's thinking about me in an extra special way.

I must be their favorite patient.

Then there might be a pressure on that patient to be like, I need to be extra good.

Like, what if he stops bringing me coffee?

Like, if I don't bring it one day, then somebody will be like, am I bad?

Like, there's all kinds of things that can get read into this.

I think that's the art of medicine when it comes to psychiatry.

If you're doing therapy is how do you do that?

And what I will say to patients is when they'll say, you know, I wish I could be

a neighbor, I wish I could be your friend.

I'll ask them, what would that do?

What would that be like if we were friends?

And if you imagine that world, what do you imagine?

Because I want to know what it is they're getting out of that.

So I'll explore it.

I'll also say, yeah, that there are boundaries here for a reason, because I need to be someone that is different from everybody else in your life.

It's also just a unique relationship to be in therapy with someone.

And our relating this way, our relating the way we do, the therapy happens here and all the feelings you have, you take outside.

So more therapy happens out there.

And our time is just this hour, two hours, three hours, four hours a week.