Therapist as blank slate - does it really matter?

I actually thought it was weird that a T would be hurt by the clients not asking questions. I don't think that it is usual or normal.

Irvin Yalom- he's a psychiarist that does therapy in the bay area where i live. Funny cause I got off the phone with him an hour ago to inquire about his fee and he could see me....
His fee is in the $200's per hour
Oh how I wish I could see him

But yeah in that book, his clients that didn't care to ask him anything about himself, he wrote, do I not matter to them? (client), are they. Or curious about me? And yeah took it as they didn't care...

I'm afraid I'm not convinced by this argument.

If it was a boundary thing, T would never disclose. My T did disclose over time, but she started by refusing to answer any of my questions.

So she withheld when I was most vulnerable and disclosed when I didn't need it any more.

Where's the sense in that?

I find that I am still angry about this seven years later.

Take it back to T!

read a few of his books and he seemed to have a real grandiosity.

Boy I think this is BRILLIANT. I asked my cold, distant T a few very bland questions about himself. He would not answer. For example, he had been out of town for a few weeks and said he was taking a vacation. So...after the vacation, I asked...How was your vacation.

"Too much driving."

I asked, at the beginning of appointments, how are you.

OK

I asked, what do you think of all this snow...wow!

Winter.

Have you ever done anything artistic?

My disssertation.

It was really ...in retrospect....ridiculous...

And, then, he told me he wondered if I was the kind of person who "was hard to get close to."

Ha!

I am very curious about my T's personal life, but I would be way too scared to ask her any questions, b/c I feel like she might think I would be crossing a boundary and being too intrusive and wouldn't answer my question, which would be super awkward. Sometimes, I do wonder if her other clients ask her question about her personal life and if they do, what she thinks about me that I don't.
On a related note, I always call my T "Dr.whatever" when I address her in my emails. Then one of her clients was leaving and as she was leaving she said "Bye Amy (not her real name, obviously), but it made me think about other clients not calling her by her "title" and that it was weird hearing her first name out of a client's mouth said so casually, like they were friends or something. I almost wanted to ask her if I could call her by her first name (I actually do think she would prefer this), but I would feel weird, like I was talking to my friend or something. But there is a part of me that would like to use her first name, but I would feel really weird saying it.

Your T is Nanny McPhee! When you don't want her to stay, she does; when you do want her to stay, she must go!

I realized reading these posts that I seem to think my t has no friends, only family. That's probably incorrect but I can't picture her interacting with friends.

that's it, the risk factor.
How reasonable does it seem that one must open up one's most closely guarded secrets to a stranger who insists on continuing to be a stranger? weird theory.

If the "blank slate" is supposed to facilitate transference, I'm no T but I think that transference is going to happen anyway. T1 disclosed a lot about herself, over 4 yrs, and the transference occurred anyway.

There is just something about disclosing for the client that is different from disclosing for no reason. Disclosing for the client is professional. Disclosing for no reason is anything but professional. That professional boundary is needed. Doing therapy is hard work. You know how you can get vulnerable feeling and you don't like it sometimes? Well, the therapist is human too. The best work is done when the therapist can be emotionally available to the client. This requires stripping away some boundaries. Other boundaries are a must in order to do this. It is a tight rope to walk across.

Now for what happened between you and your T, it would be hard to speculate since we need more info, a lot more info.

That's it in a nutshell!

I don't see how any of this stops her from answering, "Are you married?"

Some details:

I noticed she was wearing an engagement ring but not a wedding ring. I asked her about that. I noticed the evasion, and asked her directly, "Are you married". She answered with a question.

And when I challenged her, she answered in terms of blank-slatiness, not privacy or boundaries.

Are you reading too fast? I am not saying that snidely. How do you not see how that that disclosure is not "for" the good of the client? Why would it be for your good? A disclosure isn't benign, she's saying it has to be a definitive positive.

And I would "challenge" you on "challenging" her. Would you say you deliberately challenged her at the time, or were you just taking poetic license in describing the scene for us here? If not poetic license, then why the challenge? ie what's that all about? what is the need to challenge about? that would have to be answered before I ever satisfied your curiosity about my marital status, were I your T (afraid there is no smilie for 'cold day in hell!') (hey, who said that, me or you?!)

So the patient is told on a "need to know" basis? I feel that as hostility and it certainly doesn't help to build trust.

Yes I did challenge her. I said something like:

"I notice you're not answering my questions. I know less about you than about the people at work. That bugs me. What's going on?"

She then gave me some spiel about the blank slate.

I do read too fast. And you may be as snide as you like, because you have won my trust. You're one of the few people I will listen to when I'm angry. A very exclusive club. (Go on, quote Groucho Marx.)

Yabbut the need of one (time) is "sacrificed" for the greater good - it's a judgment call, and THEY feel they're entitled to make it, I guess cuz they're licensed and getting paid and we came to them for advice, not vice versa? I know, the nerve of some people! Remember, my T told me he knows how to do his job?! That's why my criteria for picking this T, somebody huggable, like Dr Sweets on Bones - so I don't want to hurt him too much when he has to do carp like this. Hmm - there IS that question of who is going to survive, like the two rams in Wild Kingdom, or Hamlet; can mummy "survive" our anger and needs etc... thanks btw! and back atcha!

My T has used self disclosure quite a bit over the years that I've been seeing him and I don't believe it has affected his ability to be effective in my therapy at all. It has if anything made him seem more human to me; that in turn makes me feel safe and less vulnerable. He has touched very lightly on some of his own weaknesses which makes me able to open up with him about my "lurid" past and current problems. I couldn't imagine seeing someone who insisted on maintaining the blank facade - it would feel very threatening to me. As a real person, not just a therapist, he comes across as very warm, caring and compassionate, but most especially, real. And that's what I respond to.

Serious trigger! I don't want to be sacrificed for the greater good, do you?

Yes, I know that's out of context, but triggers are generally out of context. That's what makes them triggers!

Hankster, I like where you are going with this. Can't Explain, I'm also seeing where your questioning has a purpose and it isn't just to find info. Is it a power struggle? I would resist you too. Maybe your T feels assaulted?

I was actually never curious about my T's lives. I can be curious about so many other people for free. Why would I pay someone to find out info about them? That time in session was my time.

It was initially about information, but it became about power.

But she started it! I asked a perfectly civil question and she refused to answer.

And in anticipation of your next question, my mother raised to believe that it was rude not to answer questions.
Plus I'm Aspergic. Any kind of secrecy or evasion or (God help us!) deceit is anathema.

I always did my very best to answer T's questions, and they were much tougher than the ones I was asking!

Was it really only about info? Why did you really want to know more about her?

It was a civil question? Not in a therapy context it isn't. You go to her to get help. This is the agreement. Her job is a professional one. Her job is not to share her private info.

Well, that's up to you. If it doesn't feel like "withholding" to you, then I can see why it wouldn't bother you.

You didn't see Spock (the "one") holding his hand up to Jim in the glass room, and just find that calming, knowing now he would be coming back? That's what I was picturing with that expression, sorry! Guess now we know who the true die-hard Trekkie is!

but you evaded my point by saying it triggered you. T is doing it for the good of your therapy, but - oh, no, I guess we were BOTH on point. To be totally Freudian about it, you challenged her, and you found her non-responsiveness castrating ("sacrificed"). Verrry interesting. NOW we're getting somewhere! (is that on the list of things T's should never say?!)

I don't question her motives. I just think she made the wrong decision. Worse: I think the whole concept is wrong.

And I didn't go to her to be castrated, thank you very much!

My wife has a very different interpretation. She says the blank slate has nothing to do with therapy.

Instead, it is a security measure to protect T's family from a potentially dangerous patient.