About four months ago I started therapy with Kip, a guy whose age is within about two years of my own. I find that as we progress, I've internalized his hopes for me, and turned them into my hopes for myself. It's more like "coffee time with Kip," since it's all about putting life into perspective. I won't cross the boundary by asking him too much about his personal life, but it's pretty easy to guess, based on his reactions to the words I've said. It's as though he's an alternate me, whose life worked out. Mine could still slide downhill due to circumstances outside of my control at this point, whereas his is very much under his own control. I see how he is living and tell myself, that's what I want, and I'll do whatever I have to do to in order to get there. It's not that I want to be him, so much as I want to be as positive as he wants me to be. It's all a little hard to explain.
When it comes to social anxiety, Kip sort of expected me to get past certain barriers on my own, and eventually I found I would challenge myself without even thinking about it.
What I basically want to say is that it can be very helpful to have a therapist with whom you can identify, to a certain extent. Someone you can relate to and admire. I found I made my own advice, rather than needing it from him, because I wanted him to know that I held the same points of view about my life as he did. The same hopes and "can do" attitude. That's one of the reasons I'm staying the course with therapy, and will probably still be in treatment long after the storms in my personal life are over.