Do you actually trust your therapist?

[Sandstone]

I trust her professional skills. So I'll be as open as she asks me to be, unless I can clearly see a risk to myself that she has missed.

 

[Rumors]

I trust my therapist with my life however sharing with her has nothing to do with trust for me at this point. Shame keeps me from sharing not because I think she will kick me to the curb but bc of the self loathing I can feel about the subject.
Trust is such a personal journey. I have trusted people that have proven themselves to be untrustworthy time and time again. I think we all long for closeness and connection and sometimes we are most attracted to the dysfunction that is most familiar and that can draw us to unsafe people and scenarios. In any case, there are lots of facets to the trust thing. I hope you find your comfort zone.

 

[Stephernovas]

I'm on the other side of the spectrum. I need to trust my therapist or I will not tell him anyt...

That’s what I mean. I refuse to speak. If I tell her something before any type of trust has formed, it’s all shit I can deny or that is “surface”

 

[ShadowWolf]

I trust my therapist for the most part. I won't say completely because every time I think that, there's something else that comes up that's difficult.

But with that said, it's still hard to talk about things sometimes, so I'm always still pushing myself a little outside my comfort zone. Sometimes I just have to make myself blurt things out or I write them down first.

 

[grit]

I am always a bit perplexed with trusting or loving the therapist issue. Maybe I need to learn few things and that is why I clicked here but I just do not think one needs to trust a therapist in order to have a good therapeutic alliance. Yes I see some people do but it is not a requirement for healing universally. or my feeling is such that if I was finding trusting hard, then that is what i need to learn and just focus on it by bringing up with the therapist...by bringing up, it almost takes the big secret around it. I do not trust you therapist but probably it is not about you as much as I just do not trust...Ok what do you think of that? (My core issues is not trusting but I like to understand).

I see therapist as the double slit theory sort of. I need to be heard, witnessed, helped along by observation of a trained professional but since the relationship is so lopsided, I am not too concerned about their personal opinion of me cause they are not also in my life. Every feeling i have toward them is a signal of my own emotion outside of therapy and something for me to work through. If I see myself focused on the therapist about one emotion, it is clear, something is tapped here for my attention. So I do not feel I am angry at the therapist, I would feel wow! I feel anger toward the therapist, what did he do exactly? Nope, it is my baggage and I need to find the real target.

I did have one therapist I dumped because according to her: I should not bring up therapy process discussions because that was resistance...I disagreed and that halted all conversation cause I could not discuss about the process with her. It was my therapy that i was paying so I was like I decide what to talk about. Good bye! No regrets.

My new therapist, I would not say I trust him as my husband but I definitely respect him as my husband and I am open to hear his take on my story...I think if there was a danger, he would take care of himself first - self preservation is natural that way...so I see him as good at his job and an observant of my life to make a meaning and narrative out of my trauma so I can heal.

This is a long winded way of saying I trust my therapist as being good at his job unless they show me otherwise...but any more trust than that i save it for reciprocal relationships outside of therapy.

 

[piratelady]

I do trust mine. I saw him for, I think over a year, before and never fully trusted him. I do now. It took me quite a while to get to that point though. As I became more and more vulnerable with him, and he reacted well, I became more trusting. It wasn't until I realized that I do trust him that I was willing to start trauma work.

Shame keeps me from sharing not because I think she will kick me to the curb but bc of the self loathing I can feel about the subject.

There are some things I know I should disclose to my therapist that I can't yet. I think it's because of the shame associated with it. I'm not entirely sure how to get past that. It's a tough one.

 

[Rumors]

@piratelady
Shame is such a hard monster to kill. I have to kill my negative self talk to combat the shame. Once I get that under control I can often make more logical decisions.

 

[Kopykat]

@Stephernovas

Let me preface this w everyone is different. That said, I’ve been in therapy w the same therapist over 5 years. I think it took me about 3 to start minorly trusting her. And it’s not her it’s me. I trust her more now but it can wane at a moments notice if I don’t feel safe or something. Actually recently I just started opening up about something I never thought I would talk about w her or anyone really. It’s a process. It took a lot of work on both our sides and there were a lot of ups and downs.

 

[hithere]

NO I DO NOT.

 

[MrMoonlight]

Yes I trust my therapist. I've only been seeing her for seven months. My ability to trust her proved to me that I have that ability. She is very experienced and has never lead me astray. I need to trust her because we do EMDR therapy together. She knows how hard she can push because of her ability to sense my distress through words or body language. I trust she will push hard enough that I progress in my healing but not so hard that I break. She communicates and works closely with my psychiatrist so I can also trust the medication side too.

 

[whiteraven]

do most people here trust their therapist to have those open and honest conversations with them

This is a hard one for me. I mostly don't trust anyone these days, especially anyone in the medical or mental health fields. I've been hurt repeatedly so much so that the trauma of that has almost completely suppressed other trauma in my life.

That said, this therapist has been the best I've ever had and *when* I feel a measure of trust, it's with him. I'm really struggling right now with not feeling like anything matters, so I find it impossible to talk to him, but I'm not sure it's a trust issue. When I am less despairing, I can tell him anything.

 

[Ronin]

I trust him to stick to his word. And to try communicate (and communicate obstacles) with me.

I don't trust him with personal things. Experience gap. Just a good yardstick of where the boat is leaking and that I need to find the tools to not sink it more, still.