As ever, I really appreciate the practical wisdom of your articles Amanda. I can just imagine this piece being useful to early career practitioners and so have shared it. When you offered the distinction between pre-therapy and therapy, I thought about the phenomenon of pre-transference - that the client is starting to have ideas about us, and we are starting to have ideas about our clients, even before we’ve met and started work together. Perhaps some of the dynamics you’ve described here in those initial exchanges might be considered examples of pre-transference.