Knowing about Ts

My T rarely discloses, and she doesn’t disclose much personal information. She says that therapy is about me and not her and that she wants the focus on her clients. She has told me that she only discloses when she thinks that it will really benefit the client, and I have found that to be true with the items that she has disclosed to me. That being said, she will readily let me know how she feels about me. I believe that she finds that to be therapeutic.

And it sounds like you find it therapeutic too?

Once, when I was talking bad about myself, she let loose a litany of compliments. It was very comforting and brought me near tears (and I am not a cryer). Also, when I told her something that was huge and shameful to me several months ago, she asked me what I was thinking. I told her that I was thinking that she must be thinking how terrible I am. She said that she was not there to judge me and that she thought no less of me and said other kind things to me about me in a soft and soothing voice. I can tell that she does sincerely like me and thinks well of me.

It has been important, to me, to “feel” and “hear” her unconditional positive regard for me. I do not constantly ask her questions about it though nor do I seek it from her. She will occasionally offer it when she thinks it is appropriate and/or necessary. Tim Keller, in his book, The Meaning of Marriage says the following: “To be loved but not known is comforting but superficial. To be known and not loved is our greatest fear. But to be fully known and truly loved is, well, a lot like being loved by God. It is what we need more than anything. It liberates us from pretense, humbles us out of our self-righteousness, and fortifies us for any difficulty life can throw at us.” Yes, this quote is about marriage, but I believe that you can carry this to any relationship. In counseling, we make ourselves fully known or at least more fully known than we do to other people in our lives. So, we want that “love.” While the T may not give us actual love, we do want it and hope for it and expect it in the form of acceptance and unconditional positive regard. It would have been extremely harmful if and was a huge fear of mine that my T would reject me or lessen her acceptance of me based on the things I told her. She has not; in fact, our therapeutic relationship has grown…and, as Robert Frost said, “That has made all the difference.”

My t talks openly about her feelings for me. Just last night in fact, she wanted me to talk about a terrible situation i went thru years ago, and she assured me she wasnt judging me, that she didnt think badly of me, that she could never hate me. She often reminds me that she loves me and thinks highly of me. She often tells me what a wonderful teacher/ person/ director i am.It means a lot to me that she tells me these things and haas helped our therapy go much better. I dont have to worry about what i tell her, i dont have to worry that i i say something horrible that she will change her opionion of me.

Well having two polar opposite ts, one completely blank slate- I went to her house for a year and half and didn't know if she was married. She told me nothing and I never asked. My current t tells me everything, I don't ask her any personal questions she just tells me everything about her family her children, her students, everything.
First t never have me any compliments or said anything about me but I was dying to know what she thought and also about her, I think the less I know the more I want to know. I fell completely in love with her but she treated me so bad, one of the reasons I fell in love with her.
Current t, I feel something for her but don't know what it is, she feels more of a friend then anything. She always compliments me and tells me what she thinks. So I think the more a t discloses it helps me not to attach.

For me, it's been helpful experiencing my T's emotional responses. quote]

It seems to me that an honest response to hearing the 95847362354th client go on and on and on and on and on, and sigh and cry about their story, would provoke feelings of impatience in a T, at least sometimes.
Honest feelings that patient # (5847362354 - 48472) really had it a lot worse.

And while I agree that those would be honest emotional respoinses, no, i don't think that knowing any of that would be helpful to me.

At first I thought I disagreed with this, that Ts wouldn't feel impatience related to hearing the same kinds of stories over and over. But, upon further reflection, I think you're right, that these kinds of feelings are only natural. I suppose I would want to be able to trust my T to carefully select which honest responses to share. The fact that she didn't share many makes me wonder if she didn't have many positive ones to share.

What *I* need is for someone to hear it, even if for the 95847362354th time, and with a credible semblance of patience & compassion. A 'good enough' hearing, you might say?

Yes, this seems perfectly reasonable.

What I EXPECT?? Reeeeeeeeeeallly???

is that , one day, I will exhaust T's patience (she's only human after all) and will hear what the true emotional responses are. Lleaving me to crawl out of there bleeding and irreparably shamed.

There, T, if you are reading PC even after telling me you don't. Now you know.

I'm in a real hurry today and just quickly wanted to catch up with you and read how you're doing - I had to post though and say I really liked what your consult T said about the dynamic between you and T and how you wanted that part of you mirrored (that resonates with me SO much!) and how she didn't get that and got all defensive instead. I have to say I would have been very upset with a response such as the one she gave you about having already answered that question. Not good...

Sorry to rush and sorry if I'm repeating what others might say further on I haven't had time to read all the posts, hope to be back in the next day or so though.

Sending you hugs (((((((((( LL ))))))))))))

p.s. just saw your post FKM as this one posted, sorry to rush and not answer it right now but wanted to acknowledge that I read it