Yes, this is a good and thought provoking thread. For me, what I learned with my last less-than-good T was that the "blank slate" approach does not endgender trust for me.

I'm not saying that I need a huge amount of information about a Ts private life, but with someone as (you knew this was coming) cold and distant as my T, there was just no way to be able to really open up. I suppose I knew that early on, and I suppose that the therapy was useful in some respects (dealing with very concrete issues of money, work, housing, and such) but that I do need to have some sense of shared values, outlooks, something in order to open up. At least I need to know that I'm sitting across from someone who is...well, human. And my T, who took a very conservative "analytic stance" was a COMPLETE blank slate. I knew his name and literally nothing more and once when he actually said something about when he grew up (I was not sure this had actually happened, I thought he came off an assembly line) he said, "this goes against all my training to reveal anything about myself."

Having said all of that, I notice my trust was at an even lower ebb after sesssions when I tried to go into some deeper stuff. I knew that I was backing away. I think SOME inkling that I'm dealing with a person, and not an analytic wall, helped. For example, I had lunch with a friend today, not somebody that I'm SUPER close to, and she started to share a little about experiences from a long time ago...very intense childhood stuff. All of a sudden, I'm having an amazing, completely therapeutic talk at this little fast food place and dealing with all of the stuff I should have been talking about in...THERAPY! And it struck me, I do need someone who can help me get the ball rolling...ask a few questions, stay with a meandering topic, slow down a little..all of which my T was unable to do. I know I bring lots of issues to the table (more than National Geographic, as one poster said), but I think that the T does create (or not!) an atmosphere of trust. It takes two......