Another take on the blank slate

My T has defended the blank slate on the grounds that if she answers the question, we lose an opportunity to explore how I feel about it.

If the slate is blank, the patient automatically draws on it with his subconscious fears and prejudices, and that is a diagnostic tool and an chance for healing.

My personal view is that it is better to lose an opportunity than to lose the trust of the patient. The idea that Ts play games with that trust is abhorrent to me.

As long as she retains my trust, I'll keep coming back and there will be other ways to reach the subconscious.

I reject the blank slate. I don't believe I have ever gained by it.

I'm with you. I detest the whole blank slate thing. I don't ask questions just for the sake of asking. I could not put trust in someone who didn't trust me enough to answer even the simplest of questions. My current therapist just answers my questions and engages in normal conversation. If my question of "what grade is your daughter in?" got met with "why do you want to know?" when my question was a lead in to how horrible teenage girls are to each other, that would frustrate and distract me from where I was going.

As an aside, the more I know about him, the more I trust him and the less I ask.

There is no such thing as the blank slate; like saying children are born as a blank slate! Every time your T engages in a conversation with you, asks you a question, fidgets, is late, thanks you for your check as you hand it to her, you are learning what sort of person she is.

However, what the blank slate affords, that is valuable is a "triangle" made of our projections/transference and T, and ourselves. We can "see" what we are doing up on the slate space because it isn't crowded with "actual" versus imagined thoughts and feelings about T and her life and views; it's all about us and that is what therapy is for! Imagine it like you would two professors with a blackboard discussing their latest theory. They "know" one another but it's the theory, what's going on on the blackboard they want to focus on at this time.

The one I see has told me many times I can ask questions about her and she will answer. Sometimes I wonder if she thinks I should ask her about herself. She interjects things about herself into the conversation sometimes, but my usual response is more along the lines of why would I care about what you would do or have done or your family does or what you think about x. If I was ever foolish enough to actively seek her opinion on something about me, she would probably go on for 15 minutes. She also will just say what she thinks during a conversation, although sometimes if I have been particularly dismissive of her, she will ask if I want to hear what she thinks.

The only thing I have found her to be reticent about is what is supposed to happen in therapy and to explain it. Then it is like she is guarding a state secret.

I would imagine a total blank slate T would be frusterating. The current T I go to doesn't seem to have any problems telling me her personal experiences as they relate to my issues. I don't have any desire to know facts about her, so I haven't really tested by asking a randon question such as whether she has kids. I would think she would answer this. I don't care to know her so much as her perspective and professional opinion as they relate to me. Her freely making personal disclosures does seem though to alleviate the issue of T being some superior mysterious being that possess all the knowledge and power, so long as they have relevance to the issue at hand.

I think it depends on what you mean by blank slate. If you mean absolutely no sharing of thoughts or opinions on what you're talking about it therapy, that's different than not sharing personal information and experiences. I think the latter is lot easier to deal with than the former.

My T does not share anything about his life, beyond what's revealed by the diplomas on the wall and decor in his office. But he routinely shares his thoughts and opinions on what I talk about. I know where he stands on almost everything I bring up. I feel very tightly connected to him, even though I have no idea whether he has kids or if his parents are still alive or what tv shows he's seen.

I do ask my T a lot of questions- about his family/childhood/personal/professional life- well anything. Sometimes he answers sometimes he doesn't. Depends more on my reason for asking the ? than on the ? itself.
I would not be with a T with blank slate approach (not sure if it's the correct term but I know there is a therapeutic school build on that). I'd feel inferior, couldn't take my T as a real person and in the long run it would only push me to ask more (or surf the net for answers)

Still I do understand there are some ?s my T doesn't want to answer, but do you have kids is not one of them. BTW my T doesn't talk about himself ever, I have do the asking and even then he is able to transfer the focus back on me. He is very good at changing the subject, better than I am- surprisingly, cause I have considered myself to be an expert in this area.