What would you like to tell a T reading PC?

I think the most useful thread for Ts to read on the forum is the one Squiggle started about "Dear T, I want to tell you this but I can't". There is so much pain in those posts, and so much information that a T needs to know in order to help the client. Even if many of us go on and do tell our Ts what we post there first, I think there are many who don't. Why not? How can you, as a T, make us feel comfortable telling you what we need to?

I struggled so hard in my first years of therapy, hardly telling my T anything. It was like pulling teeth. I didn't even have the words to tell her that I needed her to make me feel safe to tell her my secrets.

Time has changed that, but also what my current T tells me has helped greatly. She has said that she accepts whatever I tell her, and that nothing is TMI, and she is not going to judge me. She says I can tell her anything. Maybe we clients are supposed to KNOW that, but I need to hear my T tell me over and over that I can tell her anything. My former Ts never told me that, and I didn't ask. I don't have to resort to a forum to write what I "wish I could tell her". Ts need to find a better way to enable clients to know that they are safe and can tell them anything; otherwise, maybe they are in the wrong profession.

"Empathy first, challenge afterwards."

"Never forget the patient is in pain."

They tell you that you can tell them anything and that they are trustworthy and then they turn around and mock and humiliate you. If a therapist is reading, I suggest you people not do that.

I'm sorry you've had that experience, stopdog. My T has never mocked nor humiliated me for anything I've told her, and I know 100% that she NEVER will.

Thanks for this, all good suggestions. I came here (it to PC) years before I decided to go into training, so Im now working with people on a ont to one as a student T. I've been on both sides of the desk. In fact I decided to train because what I felt I myself needed wasnt there, so I had to create it. So chuck things at me if anyone wants. I couldnt read the whole thread. But I absolutely have been horrified about Ts making promises and not sticking to them, so I always try to be as good as my word.
The only thing I would say is that recording/ writing things down has been so helpful. Clients who have consented to taping, listening to the tapes again, Im struck by things they say, that I missed in the intensity of the 50 mins, it moves so fast.

Theres some of us who have been hurt by the T's themselves... one really good thing to know is not to be one of these T's.. But to understand that just because someone else was a T and they are in the same profession as you, that you don't have to side with them. And when you do side with them, it makes it VERY DIFFICULT for the patient to be open to you about why they are certain ways, and why they don't fully listen to T's anymore, and why they stay on guard 99 percent of the time.

We really do google you.

A lot.

Have a nice day

Dear T's,

Ummm, not to be rude, but y'all have your own little closed section for your eyes only and isn't it "stepping over a boundary" to be reading our little section?

Just sayin'

Most of the time, patients WANT to get better. Telling them (or treating them as if) they are "resisting" treatment whenever they don't do something that you think they should is an empathic failure of epic proportions. Almost everything we do is to try to make ourselves feel better, and often has nothing to do with whatever it is our therapists are expecting.

This is a good one.

I concur.

I would say to the silent Ts out there:

Keep up the good work! I would guess that being a T would be one of the most challenging and intense kinds of professions out there. I reckon it would be easy to be burnt out in that job.... so please make sure you take care of yourself and have plenty of breaks so you don't burn out!