[PurpleFlyingMonkeys]

Is it common for therapists to tell white lies? Perhaps he thinks i wont notice, perhaps he doesnt give my intelligence enough credit. Is it ok or common though for them to be less than honest in an attemt to "help"? Its not helping, but making the trust very difficult

[stopdog]

Ask the therapist if she is lying or what the point of what she is telling you is.

I don't see what the value of lying to the client would be. Just as you say, we have to be able to trust our therapists if they are to help us!

Does your therapist do this regularly? And are you sure that's what he is doing? Not asking you to share more than you are comfortable with, but I do think it sounds like an odd thing for a T to do. If you're able to, you should call him on it, as stopdog says.

[noodle_82]

Have you got any evidence that T has been telling you white lies?

This has been an ongoing thing for me in T and I've told my T many times that I feel he is keeping things from me or not telling me the whole truth. Like other have said, his response has been- how would me keeping things from you help. Therapy can only work if we are both transparent. Why do you think I would do that. And his old faithful...what evidence do you have that I have been hiding things from you.

I never have any concrete evidence that T has said or done something specific that I can relay to him, but it is a feeling in the pit of my stomach that he is keeping things from me. So I hear you and although it just doesn't sink in for me, do you have evidence that T has lied to you? Like the others have said, I would definitely bring this up with T whether you have evidence against him or not.

[unaluna]

just tell him (i have) that our stink-o-meter is much much better than his ability to lie. It's not an insult to him, it just means he's not as evil and conniving as our abusers, or just the people we grew up with in general, were! so he should get over himself. we understand it might not be in our best interest for him to always say the first thing that comes into his head, but he shouldn't put it on us, either, when we catch him overdoing it. this is some bad game-playing on his part and we don't deserve it. how is it therapeutic to try to make us doubt ourselves to preserve his stupid ego???

[PurpleFlyingMonkeys]

I dont know if it would be evidence but an example. I was having a very difficult morning a few mondays ago and called him at 9am, as he said to call any time i was having a melt down. Due to a couple of new onset seizures in the last 10 months my license is suspended so i had no ride to go in to see him. He told me monday mornings he set to the side for patients who could not make it in to the office, he would make house calls. Since i was so unstable he said he would push me to the front of the line for his house calls and was at my home within 30 minutes. He said he had another stop down the roas from me after we were done. But 30 minutes after he left he called to make sure i was ok. He called from his office. It takes 20 minutes to get to his office from here, obviously there were no other house calls. When he tries to reassure me about my DID diagnosis he often mentions (without name) a patient of his he's been working with for 20 years. Some days he says the patient has integrated to one, other days he says the patient integrated to two. Not to mention hes only been living in this town 10 years according too him so working with this patient20 years now when he moved from a few states over makes no sense to me. Its small things like these.

I would like to bring it to his attention but i have no spine when it comes to calling people out...

[unaluna]

a dr who makes house calls?? I wouldn't say a word!!! I would kiss his feet and polish his shoes!

[ListenMoreTalkLess]

I don't see that these are "lies" as a matter of proof, so I think that it's interesting that you are choosing to see them this way.

It's very possible that T's next house call took less than 10 minutes and it's also possible that it may take him less time to get to the office than you think it does.

And your T may be continuing to work with a patient who either has moved to town or they travel occasionally to see him or they skype or phone for therapy. It may be that the DID patient has shifted in their internal system, or continues to shift.

But when my T has told me something that makes me think I've misunderstood a fact, I will ask something like this. I had thought her wife worked at the university in my town, but then she said that she worked at the larger 1 an hour away. I said, oh, I thought she taught here in town? My T said, no, she teaches at Y University. I said, Oh. I think asking in the moment-- oh, I thought you said the patient integrated into one before? gives him a chance to explain, because it may be your misunderstanding or your T's lack of clarity. I doubt these are lies, as that is antithetical to T training. They may withhold information, but lying is really not part of T. So I would be skeptical that you are being lied to.

[mixedup_emotions]

What's truly important here is how you're feeling about it, the reactions you have, and what your actions are.....because that may be valuable information that can apply to other relationships you have. Knowing that you may not bring it up - but that it affects how you feel about that person - is very telling.

[Sannah]

Maybe the client after you wasn't available or they cancelled?

I'll bet you are trying to figure out whether to trust him?

Talking about his other clients would be a trust issue for me.

[PurpleFlyingMonkeys]

Hankster, thats how i was feeling, i was so thankful that he made the trip out that i didnt think much of it at first. But we live on a strand of small islands and the only way to get to his office is by taking two bridges, both bridges get you there in 20 minutes, if you make good time. We leave 30 minutes early for every appointment yet get there on the dot every appointment. There is no way, unless perhaps his other appointment cancelled on him, that he could have gone to that appointment and made it back to his office in 30 minutes. But perhaps they did cancel. Perhaps he retains a phone conversation with this client of 20 years. But these are only examples, each appointment he says things that make me confused or question what he has said, thing just dont add up in the appointments.

He knows i have a very difficult time making myself be heard, with anyone. I fear confrontation. I fear for them having to defend themselves because of me, im a push over and a coward through and through. Something we are working on, perhaps he is trying to push me to actually question him, stand up and say "wait a minute thats not right" but i cant.

Ive been trying to let it all slide, brush it off, but with every appointment, im left questioning what hes said because it just doesnt add up

[Perna]

I would not worry too much about T things outside of one's hour; we can't know what T's do in their own time, with their schedules, etc. A call to the person's house "down the street" after he left you could have revealed the person didn't need them to come anymore or he could have needed to go to the office for something and then go to the person's house, "down the street" could have meant any number of things. It does not sound like he's that far away if it only takes him 20 minutes to get to/from his office; takes me almost that long to get out of my development.

I worked with my T for almost 10 years then I had to move and it was 10 years more before I saw her again, new location, new state, etc. and saw her another 10 years; I think of all that time as one, that I literally saw her 18-20 years but "knew" her for almost 30 since the time in between was as important to my therapy experience as the time actually spent in therapy.

[PurpleFlyingMonkeys]

Sannah, you are right. I have been through many therapists that caused more harm than good. I am trying really hard to finally work on this and have even accepted maybe digging into the blackouts and things, but i cant if i cant trust him. I have to trust someone who is going to pry into that part of me. Complete trust, something im having a difficult time with at the moment. I want to know that i can trust him so i can start working toward healing but if we dig into my blackouts, and he cant be trusted, hw can really screw me up

[Mike_J]

You know there is the possibility that he did have another house call, but maybe the other person wasn't there, didn't want to talk, ect, there could be countless other things that would explain the situation.

There are so many possible completely innocent reasons/explanations as to why there are variations in what you are hearing, probably the biggest of which is that he is very most likely not telling you everything because it really is his business and he probably doesn't think you care much for the details or need to know them anyway. It really doesn't sound like he's trying to be deceitful or hurt you in any way. Sounds like there is just more to the stories than you are privy to or can be privy to since in both cases another patient is involved. He can't give you all the details, right?

[PurpleFlyingMonkeys]

I truly get what everyone is saying, but if t isnt chalking anything with me up to coincidense, why should i? Hes my only option so i should give him the benefit of the doubt, but how do i bring up these concerns in a non confrontational way. True he doesnt have to tell me everything but if he is going to mention something and contradict himself, perhaps a explination or just leaving it it out should be considered. I need to be able to trust him for the work we are about to start, but i cant when his words dont always add up

[ListenMoreTalkLess]

I think you're not really leaving room for the possibility that you are misinterpreting what you T is saying and you are creating the "lies" inside yourself. And if "trust" is necessary for the work you have to do, then perhaps it is beneficial to you in some way to find ways that he can't be "trusted", because then you don't have to do the work.

I find this interaction very nonconfrontational: T says, for example, "My long term DID client, that I've been working with for 20 years, integrated into two." You can say, "oh? I thought she integrated into one?"

Or you can raise it upfront, saying something like "sometimes I am confused about what you say about the DID client you've been working with for a long time. Sometimes you have said she integrated into one, other times you have said she integrated into two."

But however you do it, it seems like you need to be honest yourself about what the issue is. Your t can handle it and you can do it.

[SallyBrown]

Originally Posted by PurpleFlyingMonkeys

I truly get what everyone is saying, but if t isnt chalking anything with me up to coincidense, why should i? Hes my only option so i should give him the benefit of the doubt, but how do i bring up these concerns in a non confrontational way. True he doesnt have to tell me everything but if he is going to mention something and contradict himself, perhaps a explination or just leaving it it out should be considered. I need to be able to trust him for the work we are about to start, but i cant when his words dont always add up

I get what you're saying, PFM... we could sit here and come up with a million potential reasons why your T might NOT be lying to you, but that's not exactly going to help with the fact that he actually might be. And it seems to me that you know that none of these inconsistencies is really a big deal in the grand scheme of things, in fact he could probably omit the inconsistent things he says and still be a really effective therapist -- which to me would make it MORE maddening. Why tell me unnecessary things that end up feeling inconsistent and possibly untrue??

So I think you should approach it head-on, and in exactly that way. Let your T know that you feel he's been inconsistent with you and self-contradictory, and while you know there are plenty of possible explanations for the inconsistencies, the fact that you don't actually KNOW these explanations makes you FEEL like he's being dishonest -- even if that's not the case. If it's reminding you of other times in your life when people you rely on have done things that don't totally add up or make sense, and it turned out to be really damaging, definitely bring it up.

There's nothing wrong with what you're saying, and I totally relate to the feeling like things just aren't quite adding up about what someone says, and having that trigger inconsistencies from the past that I would always just try to explain away in my head, but turned out to be a big deal once I finally confronted the person and/or they fessed up.

And of course, there could be good reasons for all of these inconsistencies. But the fact is, to you they're inconsistent with the information you have now, and as you said, if he's going to open the door by mentioning them, he should also be ok with explaining why they don't add up without compromising anything. Otherwise, he should really just be keeping those things to himself.

Let us know how it goes