Quote:
Originally Posted by orangebish
My new T is great, she's been really helpful, and I like working with her a lot. But. From the start she insisted that I call her Dr. And she calls me Mr. I didn't like it, I asked if we could just use our first names, but she explained it's her boundary (kind of) with all of her clients, and she wants it to stay that way.
It wasn't such a big deal for me at first, but now it's just driving me mental to the point I can't talk to her at all. When I think how I share some intimate things with this person and I still call her Dr. (sigh) I just can't do it. I've tried talking to her about this, but she won't budge. She thinks it's my resistance acting up or something like that. It annoys me so much, I even consider switching therapists.
How do you address your T? Do you have a T who prefers formal titles?
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I wonder if she has had some kind of experience that made her introduce this 'boundary'? I think it's important for a T to have a degree of flexibility and to be able to understand that different clients have different needs. Clearly this formality thing is not meeting your needs (I would hate it too). If she is inflexible and can't adapt on this thing I wonder if she will be able to understand you and meet your needs over other things?
My T goes by her first name, but I have never addressed her in any way, it feels too 'close' to do so.