I like the fact that I know nothing about him

[barefoot]

It’s really interesting to see the different experiences and preferences here.

I’ve only ever seen one therapist so I don’t have anything first hand to compare my experience to. I think my T sharing some personal info has helped her to seem more human and helped me to trust her more, open up and build a connection that helps me to do the work. That feels like a positive function and so feels like it would be my preference. But I do sometimes wonder what it would be like to work with someone who isn’t as relational and who doesn’t share anything at all. My instinct tells me that wouldn’t be good and as useful for me....but who knows?!

Balance is important. Most of the snippets I learn about her are in chit chat at the end when we’ve wrapped the session up. We don’t spend my paid for session time talking about her and her life. She also doesn’t share any shit she has going on in her life and I’m grateful for that....I don’t ever want the focus to be on her and her problems.

I am curious to know what’s happened in her life and what got her into her work...I have a hunch about that but wouldn’t dream of asking her. And, to be honest, even though I’m curious about that, I’m not sure I would actually really want to know.

There’s also a big difference, I think, between a therapist sharing a few personal details eg their dog’s name, that they’ve just moved house, that they enjoy hiking etc to build connection and strengthen the therapeutic alliance and the therapist and client being best friends. Sharing a few personal bits of info doesn’t mean you’re suddenly friends or that professional boundaries have been crossed.

In the end, it’s horses for courses.

 

[EveHarrington]

,I liked the fact that I could care for him and try to protect him and that we were close.

That’s definitely a blurring if boundaries. Instead of focusing on your own stuff, you’re now concerned about his life and how he’s doing. I know you say to each their own, but maybe you should go read all the posts about how this doesn’t work, or I can point you in the direction of the forum full of messed up people whose healing is going backwards because they do have this intimacy with their therapist. (Kidding, I don’t think we’re allowed to give links to other forums lol). But yeah, it’s a therapists duty to hold the line on boundaries given that we are a population that on whole doesn’t know where proper boundaries lie, and we especially don’t know where therapeutic boundaries lie given that 99.9% of us aren’t trained therapists. I’m not sure why you post about being happy that you don’t know anything about your new therapist, and then backtrack. I think you’re perceiving my post as critical and you don’t want to feel that uncomfortable criticism.

 

[Emotional girl]

At @EveHarrington like I said we all see our treatment in different ways and there isn't one size that fits all.
I personally don't think any boundaries were broken at all and it was a learning experience.It was learning about human interactions and challenging certain concepts.
I think you protect yourself by having no attachment at all and by keeping things 100 % professional but for me at that particular time I needed a connection and maybe now further down the line I don't need that connection .I am not backtracking I am just at a different stage of life.
I didn't see at as criticism at all because I can see other people's views and respect them.

@barefoot. i agree with you there is a big difference between knowing snippets about them and their whole life story.
It all depends on the context of the conversation.I think about 80 % he told me certain situations in order to show me he was a human being and that he found situations difficult to deal just like all humans do.

Also I do not feel that my old T has messed with my head at all.It was my childhood that messed up my head,that made me crave love and attention.
He was 100 % professional to me he never over stepped any boundaries at all,he knew my feelings towards him and not once did he take advantage of that.
So maybe with this new T it is not a matter whether or not I know anything about him,maybe it is the fact that I have not got any transference and attachment towards him.
I have talked about my old T with my new one and he has helped me see why I felt that way about my old T and the fact that I needed to care about him and protect him and why I needed safety and protection back from him.

 

[Cypress]

The hyper vigilant part of me needs to know a little about my T in order to trust. If I knew absolutely nothing about my therapist I would probably go down a path of trying to determine if he/she were a possible threat. Knowing that my T has a dog or family or likes hiking makes me feel like they are a normal person who is part of normal society and therefore not likely to be a threat. If I knew nothing at all except a name, my paranoid imagination might decide that my T had a sadistic plan.

I'm curious about wanting to protect your T, in what way did you want to protect him? Protect his feelings or his physical safety?

 

[Emotional girl]

@Cypress Thank you very much for your reply.I know exactly where you are coming from about it helping you to trust your therapist by knowing small details about them and having that human interaction.
My protection towards him is that I wanted to look after him and protect him from being hurt by others.

 

[Orange Phone]

I've had two amazing Ts. One 30 years ago in college and my current one. My first probably was my father figure I did not have. I knew a bit about him in that he worked at the college, his wife was the dean, who I knew. I even, 2 years in, babysat his daughter for one night. But he was never not professional. He was the first safe port in a storm. I did not even know I had PTSD at the time.
My 2nd is different. Tried and true trauma therapist. Great boundaries but human. I know a few "facts" about her. But I never delve deeply. I know something happened to her as she once loaned me a book "When bad things happen to good people." And there was an inscription from who gave it to her. So I know something happened. And I appreciate her trust in me.
I think not knowing helps me to not compare my self to her. I don't know, and we all have "stuff" in our lives.
Emotional Girl: I get the protection thing a bit. I am protective of my therapist. But not in a mutual fashion caring. I have a friend who is great who has PTSD also. We chat but I've never told her my therapist's name as I know she would snoop and I don't want that. My other friends I can say her name and know none of them would do that. But my other friend very much might.

My trauma comes out for my therapist like no other. It is like my "inner child" is safe there so things go boom. Like one of my "triggers" are jeans. I did not realize it, just all my adult like never wore them. Other people could no problem. Never a problem. Then one day my therapist wore them. I started shaking almost like I was having a seizure. Neither I nor the therapist expected it.

I did once have that type who showed nothing or reacted and you got really 0 out of them. That was terrible 30 years ago.

 

[Emotional girl]

@Orange Phone Thank you so much for sharing your story with me and being understanding as well.
I think we all deal with our traumas in different ways.
We all have different relationships with our therapists and I suppose the most important thing is that we all grow and learn in therapy.

 

[ShadowWolf]

I don't think the attachment one has (or doesn't have) towards their therapist has to do with how much personal details they share.

I don't know anything about my therapist. He never shares personal details. (The only things I know are from his website, which is that he's married and has three kids.) I'm glad he doesn't talk about himself! But I don't find his approach cold at all!

I still have a strong attachment to him. Because that's how I am. In order to really open up and get through therapy, I have to have that attachment. It doesn't say anything about him or his boundaries. It's all about my issues. But I am glad his approach allows for understanding why I am that way, and it does not bother him.

 

[somerandomguy]

I have picked up various things about my therapist even though she is really not really forthcoming about anything personal. She does use herself and her partner as examples about relationships, which I find helpful. She switched one day to saying "fiance" instead of "partner." Even though I was crying really hard at the time, I said "congratulations" and she was super embarrassed by the accidental disclosure. It was fine.

I have found her Facebook page, her Instagram page, and her blog. I idly perused each of those sites and haven't been interested enough to try to find them again.

Yet I am extremely attached to my T in a way I'm not with anyone else. We have a completely professional relationship, yet it's not like it would be with a lawyer or accountant.

Less than a month until she leaves. I have a new T, but it looks like we'll just be doing EMDR. Too soon to tell about attachment with that one.

 

[NightSky]

I’ve had long stretches of therapy with both types. My current T shares quite a lot. But it has always been helpful and made me feel more connected and understood. I feel safer in the relationship knowing her the way I do. And i feel more hope for my future knowing she’s been where i am in some ways. I don’t ever feel she’s unprofessional. Boundaries I guess are specific to each T and client pair, with the exception of very obvious breaches.

 

[grit]

IMHO, any over thinking the relationship with the therapist is a sign of anxiety and a sign of trauma related or other mental health issues (speaking even my own experiences in the past and current).

Let us say you meet a great person and you connect deeply and you become a great friend. Do you think about that person constantly or want to know more, or feel this or that or just take the connection and whenever you see every day or once every 10yrs, the feeling is the same. it is like a great sibling. that is healthy. When the therapist become a person you enjoy, care and could live without, then therapy is over! and in all fairness, your trauma is gone or remission or you worked through or you have no longer living in crisis of the trauma!

When we are so pre-occupied with the therapist, the pre-occupation is a sign of trauma or other mental health issues.

Now wtih that being said, I think I was struck on this quote:

With my old therapist I knew quite a lot about his life from the name of his dog to the problems he had at work.I think one of the reasons I became so attached to him and developed transference is because I wanted to look after him and love him.

For you as a client to want to look after and love him in TRANSFERENCE says to me: you were a child who had grown faster than she or he could and had to take care of an adult (maybe a depressed mother or absent mother). a child should not be taking care of adult. That is trauma! so if you felt that and worse acted on it, then it means the therapy could not work because you were repeating the same thing that stunted you as a child in more adult manifested way and doing it to the therapist. a good therapist would have cut that in the bud and let you be taken care of so you could re-experience what it should feel to be a child living in a real world of being loved and cared and eventually you would have gained that experience internally.

I am sorry if this misses the mark or makes no sense but knowing the therapy is your way to re-creating certainty in a childhood that lacked such a thing.

Think for a second why would you pay a person to care and love them? that should come naturally. but since this therapy, you need to learn that not give it to please him or her.

 

[blackemerald1]

I need to know that my T has some runs on the board in terms of life experience. For me that's important along with their experience in the profession. I am then able to interested in their views on things that I am having difficulty.

I could not disclose information about myself and my life to someone I didn't have some confidence in. I can only acquire that confidence by knowing some things about them. Even then I temper what I reveal. But my psydoc and T know this about me too.

They also know that the little I do know about them is purely for me to judge their capabilities and not to become their buddy or be involved in their lives. They know I am just like that and not very trusting. So they have to work harder I suppose. I do not take people on face value and they learned that quickly.

I've not had a transference problem ever. I guess I am super lucky.