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This has been a thread for me throughout therapy but not something I realistically considered talking about with my therapist until today. This might be kinda subtle so bear with me...
I'm a twenty-something rural southerner who now lives in a progressive southern city. I grew up in a conservative evangelical home and am a generation away from white trash growing tobacco in ditches. My family says things like "warsh" and "wuter." Family loyalty, interdependence and rootedness have always been ingrained in me.
My therapist is fifty-something, (obviously) highly-educated, upper middle class, urban, Jewish, and a yankee. He is a sweetly old-fashioned liberal of the Vietnam generation. He believes in talking about things and I sure as hell don't.
I really like him, and have no problems with any of these things. Sometimes, it makes me feel a little bit insecure...I am not sure whether he quite knows what to do with me (maybe he isn't even aware of this stuff in the same way I am...I'm queer and liberal and feminist and all kinds of things that confuse people when they come up against how paradoxically traditional and southern I am).
I also sometimes I think that he doesn't quite get that my intense family loyalty (in the face of some ****ed-up behavior on my parents' part), feeling of responsibility for my (developmentally disabled) younger brother, and my guilt about not being a dutiful enough daughter is somewhat cultural.
I think that A. thinks all of this is enmeshment, and that it is pathological, but I think he might be taking that a little too far. I'm trying to tow the line between establishing healthy boundaries and protecting myself, and keeping my responsibilities to my family and my identity.
Sorry, this is super long and detailed, but does anybody else have stories or thoughts about cultural differences between you and your therapist? And how that plays out in therapy?
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