Quote:
Originally Posted by comrademoomoo
I find it strange that people are very keen to claim that their therapist is their true self in session. How would a client know? By definition, a client only experiences a therapist as a therapist. We have no idea what they are like in private or with peers, and hopefully we have no idea what their sexual, political or familial self is like. We should not have access to all aspects of a therapist's self. It seems that people want to confidently say that their therapist is their real self as evidence that the relationship is real or "truly" compassionate. Relationships can have limits and therapists can be partially hidden from us, it doesn't mean that the work is any less authentic or valuable.
So, I experience my therapist as relatively genuine and authentic (partly because she also shows her darker sides such as shouting or crying, I don't consider this professional or helpful behaviour, but that's another story). However, I don't experience her real self since it is a partial self. And I am ok with that.
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I have access to a very sanitized view of my T’s personal and family life. T knows I have access to this information and that I check back with it regularly as it is sporadically updated. For me it has greatly enhanced our work together in several ways. My mother is DID and so I had a lot of inconsistency from my primary attachment. Dad was mostly absent and was very different based on what setting he was in. So to see someone else’s view of the human being that is my T and see that they see much the same things as I do was a shocker for me. The idea that T was loving, kind, gentle, considerate.... when he wasn’t being paid to do so was earth shaking for me... and great fodder for processing in session. Many things T is trying to teach me as part of a healthy life are completely foreign to me so how do I learn? Most of the families I have surrounded myself have similar issues to my own family... that’s why I feel comfortable with them. T’s family life is very different, beyond what I can imagine. I can go to this resource and see what something he is asking of me looks like in real life. It is all public but would be hard to trace back to him if you didn’t know.
Many would find this problematic but what T and I use to judge where the boundaries are is 1. Does it help my healing 2. Is he comfortable with it 3. Can we both maintain appropriate boundaries around it (ie I won’t use it to find his home or stalk family members and if I mention something from it in session he will discuss how it impacts me not go off on a tangent about his feelings on it).
T has also shared with me about his own spirituality as we have both gotten to similar places spiritually from very different paths. His political values really are not hard to figure out and we have very different views on some things. I know even though we have different views if it comes up as pertinent to my therapy we both set politics aside and talk like adults.
I also know that a vast majority of T’s have not done enough of their own work to be OK being this transparent and vulnerable with a client even if they think they have. Even more clients are not yet at a point of having healthy enough boundaries to not misuse this information. A lot of my T’s clients specifically really don’t give two farts about him as a person and just want his training/expertise. So I think it is different for everyone.