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My T is 20 years younger than me. I’m in my 50s, and he’s only had his PhD for 3 years. He’s worked in a hospital setting prior to that, and is quite intelligent. However, it is difficult sometimes. I started seeing therapists as a child, before he was born, and I’m dealing with things he’s not had to deal with, i.e., an elderly parent, husband with serious health issues, and long term therapy gone wrong. His solutions to my problems are very simplistic, and his approach is this solution oriented method, which really isn’t working well for me. He doesn’t seem to understand that I have feelings attached to these problems. For example, I know how to make to-do lists to get things done related to my mom’s dementia, but that doesn’t alleviate the anxiety and guilt that go along with making those decisions. I have multiple problems, much to do with past therapy, and he wants to hear nothing of the past because that isn’t how this solution approach works. Sometimes I just need to talk to work this stuff out, and he’ll make the comment that we can sit here and talk about this stuff, but I need to just be assertive, get things done, etc. If it doesn’t have to do with the “here and now,” or getting things done, he really doesn’t want to explore it. He can be very understanding at times, but that can change when he wants to get back into the structure of his method. I need to talk to him about my past therapy issues, but of course that is in the past. It affects my ability to talk to him now, but being as young as he is, I don’t know if he can understand. Anyway, I’m glad I saw this post, and realize it’s not just “me” who feels better with older therapists.
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