Is your therapist your friend?

[Emotional girl]

No I wouldn't say he is my friend.What I have been through with my T over the last year has been one of the most deepest and intimate relationships I have ever had in my life but I know he is not my friend.He is my supporter and a person who wants to help me through my difficulties.
I have needed him to test boundaries in a safe place and I have needed him in able to trust,to get angry,to show my vulnerabilities ,to be heard and finally to open up about what really happened in my life.

 

[Justmehere]

No. She is quite friendly, but also challenges me and pushes me to grow in a way that my friends don't.

 

[Swift]

No, and it freaks me out when they try too hard to act like it.
They're a professional with skills that I pay them to use. I'm that professional in other situations. I don't see them as my employee, I see them more as a consultant. They don't work for me, I don't decide their directions or their goals, they are accountable to the standards and ethics of their practice and profession rather than my judgement, and that's the way I like it.
More like an ally, than a friend.
One thing I actually value is a bit of professional detachment. I need to be able to tell them whatever and trust that they'll be ok later on, that my problems won't upset them or weigh on their minds, the way it would if one of my friends told me the same problems. I need them to not worry about offending me or pissing me off. I need them to push me or tell me things my friends wouldn't. And I need to be able to tell them things I can't tell my friends.
I think it's different for everyone though. Some of my mates think the best thing about their therapist is that their therapist to like them (my mates) and think they're a good person.
I actually quit therapy with someone like that, because they seemed to like me too much.
There's no wrong or right amount of that, and positivity and validation and "friendship" can be really empowering to some people.
It doesn't feel that way to me, it skeezes me out a bit.
I also think that the relationship is pretty one-sided; they know loads more about me than I know about them, which is appropriate. To me friendships are equal footing, though, as well as spontaneous and circumstantial.
I don't generally Google people or get referrals looking for friends, and I don't choose my friends based on their qualifications, experience, or how much I think they can help me.
I've also never formed something I could describe as a deep bond with one. Sure, I'm grateful for them and their skills, but I'm also bloody grateful I don't have to worry about what I say and analyse the emotional impacts on them before I say it.

 

[Friday]

friends are your support system and your therapist is supporting you then is your therapist your friend?

That’s called the reverse logic fallacy. Because it doesn’t work.
If A, then B ≠ If B, then A
If A, then B ≠ If not B, then not A

If friends (A) are your support (B)... Does not equal ... if support (B), then friend (A).

For example, substitute “friend” with “mother”. Yikes. Now suddenly everyone who supports you is your mom??? Nope. Or try replacing “support” with husband. (If my husband is my friend, then my friends are all my husbands??? Yikes.

Here’s my favorite example, though :sneaky: It’s what I use when I need to remind myself of the logic. It uses the second version of it (if A then B ≠ If not B, then not A)

Sick people take pills. Therefore, if I don’t take pills? I won’t get sick! :D .... :facepalm:

Reverse logic is one of the thing s that FEELS right, a lot of the time, because you’re forgetting a step. Someone can be both a friend AND a support. Those are 2 different things. They aren’t joined together. Someone can be a support without being a friend, and someone can be a friend without being a support. But because we join the 2 concepts into 1 concept ... we forget to turn left at Albuquerque ;) There are 2 components there, even if you find them in the same person.

 

[blackemerald1]

No..I would not tell my friends what I tell in therapy. No Way!:eek:

 

[Chris-duck]

My best friend is a trauma therapist (completely unrelated to my trauma and past and future therapy), so me and her have pretty strict therapy vs friendship boundaries and they differ greatly (are pretty opposite) to the boundaries I'd usually have in therapy. She worries a lot that her friends see her as a therapist (and therefore hide things people would normally share in a friendship to avoid being "analysed") So im going to second the friendly but not friends idea cos I think that if we considered our therapists our friends boundaries would get pretty hazy, both for the therapist role and the friendship role.