Your Age Verse Your Therapists Age

[hodge]

I have always sought out an older woman therapist. I think it's because I need a good replacement for my mother, in a way. I've had good luck finding them, but the problem is, I get older, they get older and eventually want to retire. So my previous two before this one I didn't have for more than a few years before they retired. Each one made sure to refer me to someone else, which was good, but it wasn't fun getting new therapists and having to go through everything again. I've had multiple traumas, so it's really a pain. I could handle a younger therapist, as long as she was a woman.

 

[Bees Are Awesome]

How do y'all know your therapist's age? I have no idea how I would ever find that out. lol

I'm in my mid-thirties and I think my therapist is in her mid-forties. Works for me.

 

[falling_wave]

@Unraveling1 I think you can ballpark it by when they graduated or how long they've been in practice with how old they look.

 

[mrsps]

How do y'all know your therapist's age

I was wondering this as well. I haven't known the ages of my previous T's I could guess as they were all older but it is only the T I have at the moment that told me on the first session her age as she is less than a year away from retirement and wanted me to know that she didn't plan on retiring for a few years to put me at ease!

 

[ihateusernames]

One outright told me her age. One is an assumption based on life events she talked about and her children and grandchildren's ages. The one I haven't actually seen yet is a guess based on her picture and graduation years.

 

[Eva A.]

I worked with a 23 year old therapist for a few months until last summer, but that eventually sort of "crash landed" as he neither had the professional experience necessary to deal with developmental trauma nor the life experience to relate to someone in her early 50s ... the therapist I am working with now is in my age range and I find that works a whole lot better ... I used to prefer to work with therapists quite a bit older than me, but that doesn´t really work anymore now, that I am past 50 ... ;-)

 

[Bees Are Awesome]

@falling_wave @ihateusernames Thanks for clearing that up for me. Makes total sense. All I could think of was therapists and clients discussing birth dates or ages for some reason. I'm a little slow. ;)

@mrsps Sorry to hijack your post. Thanks for posting such an interesting topic.

 

[theshadowoftheliving]

My therapist and I are the same age. I really struggle with this, as we would be peers if we happened to meet outside the therapy setting (here's to hoping we never do ....). its not a problem of judgment, persay, but my ability to trust that she has the experience to guide me.

 

[Deleted member 29920]

@Unraveling1, I googled my T last year and found her university thesis from 2010 so assume that's when she graduated and maybe spent 5 years at uni after leaving school so I estimated in 2014 she was around 27, plus she looked quite young, no wrinkles!

 

[deer_in_headlights]

Hi Mrsps,

I've worked very, very well with Ts younger, same age and older; both sexes. I've never felt judged, I've only been accepted and beautifully counselled. I've treasured and loved them all.

Each age, focus, male or female - they all have healing gifts for you.
It can be very therapeutic working with someone you would normally avoid out of fear, not relating to others of that age-group or gender, etc.. One of the best trauma Ts I have is an absolutely huge military officer. My first response when I saw him was to want to run for the hills in terror!
He has given me my life back.:joyful:

 

[qwyoey]

My T is opposite in sex, and 20+ years older than me. I'm 30, and they are 50s. It's not very parental because my own parents are considerable older though- in their 70s. I have many friends in their 50s as well so I don't associate the group with that. I'd have been okay with any gender. What I wanted was someone with many many years of trauma experience, and was very lucky to find one with everything I was looking for and to have clicked with them.

 

[Northgirl]

I am in my early 20's and my T is roughly 10 years older than me. It feels like a really good age spread because it's not too much older than me to understand the place I'm at but far enough along to have some experience.