[growlycat]

I just wanted to ask what you all felt your T's weak points (and strengths!) are.
By weak points I mean that there are some issues he/she consistently seems to handle worse while being great at others...

My T's weaknesses include:
*dealing with my health issues without getting angry or being judgmental
*talking about trauma after the 1rst "reveal"
*talking about anything sexual unless it is about generalities or "other people", "studies" etc.

Strengths:
*Being nurturing and supportive
*talking about anxiety and depression
*talking about family issues past and present
*Telling him anything new for the first time, trauma related or not
*helping me deal with other people
*helping me reconnect w/him
*practical everyday advice

Anyone else want to play?

I'll play.

Weakness:

Has a major blindspot concerning exercise. He loves it; I detest it. We constantly butt heads about it. That's actually the only weakness I've noticed.

Strengths:

Very strong with cognitive restructuring/CBT/REBT

Very consistent with boundaries

Very consistent with support and availability

Very knowledgeable of psychopharmacology - has received extensive training and worked with a psychiatrist during that training - invaluable resource for dealing with meds and communicating with my psychiatrist - helps create a "team" concept for working with my problems while working with my psychiatrist

Straightforward honesty

Humanness and humor

Makes talking about just about anything feel safe

Sense of calm

Oh, and he was the world's best secretary

[KazzaX]

Strengths:
She takes less crap from me than others I have seen (I respect that)
She tries to look cheerful at the start of each session even if I have been horrible to her at the last session
She is thorough with certain things (eg paperwork, red tape stuff)
She has a lot of determination
She is not lazy
She doesnt get burned out from working with hardcore clients (i dont think)
She keeps the session on track and to a schedule
Very goal oriented (as goal oriented as you can be in therapy.. lol)

weaknesses
She tends to allow me to take over the session with my depresso diatribes
not very good with translating airy fairy concepts into language that I can understand
She gets frustrated/angry when i dont understand something and ask for clarification, and then when i point it out she flat out denies it, hehe
That's about it really

[lostmyway21]

Originally Posted by growlycat

I just wanted to ask what you all felt your T's weak points (and strengths!) are.
By weak points I mean that there are some issues he/she consistently seems to handle worse while being great at others...

My T's weaknesses include:
*dealing with my health issues without getting angry or being judgmental
*talking about trauma after the 1rst "reveal"
*talking about anything sexual unless it is about generalities or "other people", "studies" etc.

Strengths:
*Being nurturing and supportive
*talking about anxiety and depression
*talking about family issues past and present
*Telling him anything new for the first time, trauma related or not
*helping me deal with other people
*helping me reconnect w/him
*practical everyday advice

Anyone else want to play?

Talking about trauma after first reveal. Great point. I think my T struggles with this as well. I'm not sure how I'm going to adress it yet. It's highly annoying.

[elliemay]

My psychiatrist's strengths are:

He has a lot of experience.
He is very kind and a good listener.
He is very patient and meets me wherever I may be.
He is very very smart.

The weakness's I see are:

He can positively vapor lock on certain things. It takes a crow bar to get him to think a different way.
He also handles my meds, and it cuts into my therapy sometimes.
He can be very dismissive.
Lately he's just been "phoning it in".

[granite1]

what a great threadif i focus on what i see as my T's weaknesses i will tend to tear her apart in my mind and i am trying really hard to get out of this space right now so i hope it is OK if i use this thread as a place to put some of the strengths my T has.

she is very strong and grounded(emotionally and all)
she listens when i can share with her.
she is willing to try different things
she is patient yet encouraging

things i wish i could feel about her

i wish i could feel that she cares about me
i wish i could feel the empathy she must have
i wish i could feel i could trust her
but i'm working on all this it has just been a very bad week

[granite1]

Originally Posted by lostmyway21

Talking about trauma after first reveal. Great point. I think my T struggles with this as well. I'm not sure how I'm going to adress it yet. It's highly annoying.

just wondering what you mean about talking about trama?that they dont want to or the want to to much or dont do it right etc...my T doesnt push me much at all to talk about the bad things all she does is ask and says she hopes some day i will trust her enough to see she can help me with it

[Chopin99]

Strengths:
*Willing to be open and honest about her own story and weaknesses
*Very humorous
*Quite loving and affectionate
*Has positive attitude on life
*Gives practical solutions to life problems
*Very intelligent and knowledgeable

Weaknesses:
*Forgetful at times
*Talks about herself too much on occasion
*Uses spiritual concepts a bit more than I'd like
*Current clients mold her boundaries

[pbutton]

Strengths:
Tremendously calm
Very good at setting clear boundaries.
Tries very hard to help.
Makes it safe to tell him anything
Willing and able to discuss anything
Responds really fast to emails
Humorous

Weaknesses:
His lack of mental math drives me insane.
He turns pink when he is frustrated
He's human

[growlycat]

Originally Posted by granite1

just wondering what you mean about talking about trama?that they dont want to or the want to to much or dont do it right etc...my T doesnt push me much at all to talk about the bad things all she does is ask and says she hopes some day i will trust her enough to see she can help me with it

He was great when I finally came out and said what happened to me. But I feel like I need to talk about it again, often actually. When I try to bring it up he doesn't see the need to rehash it. I do!!

Some T's are better than others at revisiting old issues!

[crazycanbegood]

Weaknesses
Forgets that she's told me things before
Repeats herself a lot. One statement becomes 10.
Doesn't provide structure to the treatment when sometimes I could greatly benefit from it
Doesn't know concrete techniques to help with my anxiety or messed up thinking, like CBT stuff or whatever
some of your rules!

Strengths
Knowing what's wrong with me
Doesn't use the psychobabble with me after I asked her not to
Knowing what I want to say without saying it
Being able to comfort me
Being able to change how I view some things
Loving me
Treating me like a daughter
Being available to me outside of sessions
Allowing me as many sessions as I like

[rainbow8]

Strengths:

She's genuine
She makes me feel that she and I are partners, working together
She's gentle
She's compassionate
She is willing to give me 90 minute sessions
She makes me feel safe so that I can tell her anything
She is flexible, has done things outside of the box like go on walks with me
She is willing to tell me that she likes me a lot
She's honest with me
She's worked with a grief organization so talking about grief and death are her specialties
She's casual/informal but not too casual
She does other than traditional talk therapy: EMDR, IFS, art therapy, meditation

Weaknesses: She changed her mind about boundaries but doesn't do that so much any more
She forgets stuff I've told her (but on the positive side, she admits that she's forgetful)
She doesn't return phone calls promptly. We have to set a time for the phone call via email.
She won't call after she leaves the office.

[laceylu]

I told my Pdoc that my seasoned T is exactly what I need, otherwise I would have walked away from therapy. I would have sensed any inexperience. She told me she has a therapist. She smiles at her clients and talks with people in the waiting room. She helps people in with disabilities and out. She appears to be kind. She keeps me on track, focused. She is patient and a good teacher. She never says time up but recaps the session or goes over the plan. Then she stands up and continues to talk to me. She also makes a joke and gets me to smile. We walk to the door and she says good-bye. It is a gentle way to end the session. If I get triggered she helps me out of it with the body stuff. I feel embarrassed when she apologizes for yawning(only twice). I guess I have a good T, I cant think of any weaknesses.

[unaluna]

Hmm. Now I want to ask my T what his weaknesses are. But that would be hostile and hurt his feelings. I am having a bad few weeks and I do know why, birthdays and national holidays - I am afraid my mother will attack me, is what I said to myself this morning. I was surprised by my use of the word "attack" - wth does that mean? My hostility seems to be a preemptive strike - like a baby velociraptor flexing her necklace thingie.

[CantExplain]

My T's greatest strength is her time management. We never start late or finish early. And reading some other people's posts, that is something to be grateful for.

She has very strong boundaries. I didn't understand at the start that someone can have strong boundaries and still love me.

She has compassion but sometimes it seems she keeps it on too short a leash. Boundaries again.

I guess the punctuality is also about boundaries. All her strengths and weaknesses are about boundaries.

Boundarywoman.

My T's weaknesses are that she absolutely CANNOT be on time to anything to save her life!!! I mean, she just CANNOT be on time. She has what I call "T-time"-- if she says we will meet at 10:00, I know it will really be like 10:30. If she says she will meet me somewhere in 10 minutes, it really means at LEAST 20. Or maybe an hour. Most of it is not her fault-- she has SO many people, and her pets, and her family, constantly making demands on her time that its hard for her to manage, and she has a hard time saying no to people (HENCE why she is still on the other side of the world from me for SIX months when it was supposed to be for "a few weeks")

Her strengths: her compassion, her HUGE heart, her love , unconditional acceptance, her therapy skills, her ability to work with DID, willingness to meet for as long as I need to

[lostmyway21]

Originally Posted by granite1

just wondering what you mean about talking about trauma?that they don't want to or the want to to much or don't do it right etc...my T doesn't push me much at all to talk about the bad things all she does is ask and says she hopes some day i will trust her enough to see she can help me with it

Well after the first time I told him, I would try to go back to it, and he always seems to move me away from the trauma and into the present. ALMOST like he doesn't want to address it again. He was amazing during the reveal, super understanding, and supportive and non-judgmental. BUT after thinking about this post the last few days...I think he may be steering me away from the trauma stuff for my own safety right now. I haven't been stabilized in weeks. Maybe he is just looking out for me, and not avoiding it?

[lostmyway21]

Strengths:
Honest
VERY caring
Flexible
Professional
Stong presence
Available: I can email him 24/7, and he is always willing to take me in early if I am in crisis.
Reliable: He has ALWAYS answered the phone within like two rings. Even at night, or weekends.
Consistent boundries
Adaptive: He almost never tells me no, to any of my idea's. He goes for walks, and seems up for trying different things that I could benefit from.
Funny
Personable
Patient
Understanding
Non-judgemental.

Weakness's:
Time management: He often starts sessions late.
Forgetful: I have asked him to call my pdoc a million times.
He has the WORST hand writing.

Strengths:

Very professional, doesn't get rattled at all. I really think I would have to do or say something extremely off-the-wall to shock him.

Has a very calming demeanor... I might go in there nervous about something, my heart pounding like crazy but within just a few minutes I can feel myself calm down as I talk to him and hear his voice.

His availability, I can email him anytime about anything, and he seems very devoted to getting back to his clients in reasonable time as I've gotten responses from him on the weekends, the days he doesn't do therapy and even as late as 1 or 2 AM.

He's very insightful and good at reading me, both my nonverbal language and interpreting things I say.

He is very patient, and he just seems like a nice, caring, and understanding person.

Weaknesses:

Honestly very few. One, that I'm sort of half-kidding about, is I would like to tell my dear T that there is in fact a difference between "your" and "you're" and it makes me slightly batty to see him use the wrong one often in his emails

He is sometimes a few minutes late, but I do notice he then finishes a few minutes later so it makes up for it.

Those are the only ones I can really think of.

[learning1]

weaknesses

• sexist/conformist ideas about appearance (but kind of acknowledged it and said didn't grow up with good role models for this)

• can be too pushy/mean instead of supportive (but acknowledged it and said he didn't get that from his foo)

• can talk too much at times when he should listen- too quick to judge/describe something he doesn't understand

Strengths

genuine/emotionally expressive
intelligent
keeps conversation going (but speaks too quickly without letting me finish at times)
has said he cares
shares things about his own life when relevant
his orientation is to understand how something got to be the way it is, foo, not only changing current behavior
Flexible and reasonable about starting/ending a few minutes early or late if convenient for both of us. Flexible about cancelling appointments when I was sick, when I was very late once and didn't know he had moved his office within the building, and when I got too busy once. He only cancelled on me once and never made a mistake with scheduling.