Therapists and Friendship

So I'm reading this blog post about friendship and professional boundaries in the therapist/client relationship and basically the question is would I want to be friends with my therapist after the therapy has ended.  In the myriad books about therapy that I've read I've seen this question raised many times both among therapists and patients.  Seems that while there are rules which appear to be 'not until two years after the therapy has ended' there is much debate over the question.  Whatever and not for me to decide since I'm not a therapist and I would not be the one breaching any ethical boundaries.

However I gave it some thought and here's what I think;  I like my therapist.  I like her a lot.  She's smart and she's funny and I can tell her patients matter to her and I can tell that her job matters to her and I have never once felt like she wasn't completely focused and in that room with me. I like my therapist as my therapist.  I like that she is my therapist.  I like that I have a therapist that I can count on to be there every week, week in and week out.  I like that I have a person that I can go to every week, week in and week out and talk about what's on my mind.

I'm totally good with the fact that she's my therapist.  Could we be friends in a different time and place?  I have no idea but we're not in a different time and place and I feel very fortunate to have found somebody that it seems I can count on to do her job.  She is just what I need in a therapist and if we became friends I'd lose that.  I have lots of friends and frankly there aren't a lot of them that I can talk to without them getting their own s**t in the way (and vice versa no doubt)  so why would I trade my therapist in for a friend and take on her s**t?

No thanks.  I like her right where she is.


As an aside I have also heard it said numerous times that people get a bit freaked out when they hear of (or see) their therapist at a party or some other public place and the therapist has somehow decided to be themselves, let their hair down, act like a regular person, and I don't get it.  Do people think their therapists aren't real people?  I'd crack up if I saw my therapist in say the grocery store and overheard her telling someone about a party she went to and had one too many and started telling off-color jokes.

I don't know... something about me wanting my therapist to be a real person I guess.  Who can say?