Interesting question! This has kinda come up. As I’ve talked about on here before, the focus in my therapy is finally processing my childhood abuse. I was telling a story once of being whipped and my mom taking stuff away she had just bought me. Because I’m an only child and I’ve never wanted to talk to anyone about what happened, me finally telling these stories is the first time I’ve ever asked someone to (to use an Alice Miller term) be a “helping witness”, to validate that it was wrong. And my therapist became speechless after letting that sink in after a few sessions—he said he had studied the concept before, but never so profoundly had understood until now what that meant to not have validation, to have no one to have that shared experience with. With no siblings and parents who refuse to admit anything bad ever happened, I really have been alone with these stories until now. It means a lot to me that my therapist contines to offer that validation. I was touched that my perspective taught him something. (I like to believe it continues to teach him something )

This is kinda related, but I’ve also been impressed at my therapist’s poker face and non reactiveness to even kinda shocking info, which leads me to believe even if he hasn’t heard it all, he knows how to act the part when needed. He didn’t blink an eye when I explained my mother sleeping with her first cousin and the possible child that the cousin fathered (long story and reason 67,456 I’m in therapy, sigh.)