Knowing about Ts

Rainbow's thread got me thinking more generally about knowing personal things about my T. I was always curious about her life, but very rarely asked questions. I typically enjoyed her self-disclosure, because it made her seem more three dimensional to me.

What I was most interested in, though, were her emotional responses to me, how she perceived me, experienced me, etc. A lot of that "interest" was driven by my pervasive fear of being judged. And some kind of terrible mix of hope and disbelief that she might have some positive feelings toward and impressions of me.

In the end, I think that wanting this information undid the therapy. I'm left wondering if what I was asking for (her emotional responses) was too much. I suspect it was. Do any of your Ts share this kind of information? If so, what is it like to receive that info?

I don't think the asking is too much. I think what you do with that info can be problematic.

My T was always quite straightforward with me about such things. He would frame his answers, however, within an exploration of what was prompting my asking, and what the info meant to me.
But my therapy was relational psychodynamic which expects the relationship, whether or not the T self-discloses, to figure prominently. A T who doesn't work that way may feel differently.

Inside, yes, I'm curious to know what my therapist thinks of me - but frankly only if it's good. And since there's no guarantee of that, I couldn't bear to ask like you did. How's that for avoidance!

Given all the flaws, weakness, idiocy and generally unlikeable stuff that I disclose to him on the principle that I should favor honesty over embarrassment in therapy, I can't imagine how he could think well of me. But he never gives me any indication of displeasure.

I'm on fire with curiosity about his inner and outer life, but I almost never ask questions because I don't want to pry and because I know that's not what the work is about. He talks a fair amount about our work, which I appreciate (I didn't like my previous therapist's "and how did that make you feel"), but discloses very little about his life. The few questions I've asked he's answered simply. Like you, I've enjoyed knowing something about him, and also that he cared to share.

I think of him very much as a person and I'd love to know his story, though I try to tamp that feeling down during the session. I told him once I'd love to be quiet and have him talk instead for as many hours as I'd been going there. Oddly, he didn't comply.

LOL this is so me, too! I would want to know what T thinks of me, but only if it's positive. I supply enough of the negative myself and having it confirmed from out there, especially by a T, would just flip me out. Though in my experience Ts manage to convey negative feelings about a client in a zillion different subtle ways, not necessarily openly (I suppose that could go equally for positive feelings too.)

As for wanting to know anything else about T - I'm at the point still (or maybe it will never change) that I really don't want to know anything real world about my T at all. The more real stuff he discloses the more I want to withdraw (not that he discloses vast amounts, but I do get the odd anecdote or reference to his real life). I think I need him to be pretty blankish when it comes to details about himself so I can impose my own necessary image of who he is, onto him. At this point in the therapy anyway.

Or maybe that's just me, therapy is about ME and I resent having to be concerned or worried or considerate or undestanding of T's feelings or life details.

Likelife did you actually openly ask your T about how she felt about you? Or were you just interested in that background wouldn't dare to ask just in case frame of mind? And did she often indicate her feelings about you? Just curious, as you experienced that aspect being partly responsible for the therapy breaking down - and like FKM described above with her T, I'd have thought exploring what it all meant to you would have been a great opportunity to deepen the therapy. I'm sorry your T failed you in this, as in so much else

((((( LL )))))

Torn

I see a relational therapist as well. And I do often ask about his responses to me because I need to reality check my assumptions. Transference tells me he is angry, doesn't care, etc and makes me misinterpret his facial expressions and tone of voice. We do talk about how he experiences me but he is very careful and thoughtful about what he says.

I am constantly surprised to find that my T isn't angry, doesn't think I'm shameful or pathetic for talking to him, doesn't think I should stop complaining and isn't criticising me. Gradually I'm starting to believe him!

I'm so sorry your T failed you so badly.

Or maybe that's just me, therapy is about ME and I resent having to be concerned or worried or considerate or undestanding of T's feelings or life details.

Torn, somehow I never found that having warm feelings, or caring, or "softening" in any way toward my T got in the way of my needs being met. On the contrary, it was of great benefit to me to be able to experience those feelings. Of course, my concerns weren't obsessive, nor a distraction, and my T would never have sustained such an imbalance.

Is it possible you might experience less negative feelings if you made a bit of room for warmer thoughts?

How did it undo the therapy? Did you end up quitting because you got too much or not enough information? For me, it's been helpful experiencing my T's emotional responses. I'm not sure therapy would have worked if he had been withholding. (I had enough of that pattern in real life!) Likelife, how would you have liked your therapy to be instead? Sometimes it takes a while to figure out what works best for us in therapy.

It can feel scary and even overwhelming when T says something good about me, especially at first. It's better now, so I guess I've made progress. He has also said a few things not so good, but I appreciate his honesty, and strangely, hearing the not so good was not as hard as hearing the good in those early days of therapy. Having a strong relationship made it possible for me to hear the not so good and deal with it constructively. So we had to develop the relationship enough first in order for it to bear that. For me, I think it was important that this information be present so as to have more of a real relationship in therapy. Because a big problem for me is relationships so it was good to have therapy as a way to model a healthy one, which means having give and take and there being emotional content going both ways.

My XT was a pretty good T...but he disclosed way too much about himself, and I accidentally learned things I should not have known. This all together left me in a place where I just could not do therapy with him, because I had no respect for him. I think it's best not to know too much, it causes less stress. I have read so much on these boards the last 3 years, and I've noticed it's a trend.

Don't want to hi-jack LL's thread but wanted to respond to FKM quickly.



LOL yes it's eminently possible, only the relationship with current T is a bit new for me to sustain any warmer feelings that might be lurking around in the background. Given time perhaps...

I'm not actually sure what negative feelings you mean here though? and I don't think I am able to manufacture warmer thoughts out of thin air, so to speak. If I were able to do that, I probably wouldn't need therapy


Oh while I'm hijacking, also just wanted to add re Wikid's post, that I think I understand what you mean about getting to know things about a T that then makes you lose respect for them. That's the sort of thing I would fear.

Back to you LL (hope you're doing ok today )

Torn

I have wanted to know.. and I have found that when I DO know, I realize I don't actually really want to know. If you know what I mean... !

Both of these ideas are really quite radically profound.

I suppose that after 2 years with the opposite of a blank slate therapist, I would say that I have the same experience. His self disclosures, which are typically multiple during each session but well-boundaried (do not have extraneous or intimate details) certainly contribute to my feelings towards him. These feelings are warm and fuzzy in nature, and give me a broader sense of him as a human being as opposed to who he is to me. Neither these feelings nor the disclosures make my therapy about him, nor have I ever felt motivated to take care of him. He does not encourage the expression of these kinds of feelings (another way he insures that my therapy is about me)-- not that he shuts me down when I express them, but he moves along to something else.

I think that there is something that happens with self compassion in this process. I think that the benefit to me of expressing these feelings (and feeling them) is that because his disclosures are of the sort that are about "I have felt a version of what you are talking about in this way" or "I have had a version of that experience in this domain), that the warm, compassionate, connected feelings I have towards him are really about having greater compassion for myself. It kind of turns around the whole idea of the "blank slate" on its head.

Perhaps the most personal self disclosure that he has made is that he is a survivor of childhood physical abuse within his family of origin and a survivor of sexual abuse outside his FOO. As I relate to my feelings about what he experienced, those feelings become translated into a deeper understanding and more tender feelings for myself.

I don't know if he is doing this with conscious intent, but I suspect his disclosures are very strategic in nature. But I haven't felt that I know too much about him or really I don't think that even learning things I don't necessarily like about him (like all real people, some of his anecdotes reveal flaws about himself) doesn't distress me or interfere with my therapy in any way. I think he sometimes tells me things he knows will make me snort with derision or make fun of him (because I do). And as I become more tolerant of his funny ideas, I also become more tolerant of my own (and those of other people). I am less rigid as a person.

I don't know that I could have done therapy this way in the beginning. I think I would have seen self disclosures as being about him, and not understood the more nuanced ways that they are really about me. I think in the early therapy I did, I was narcissistic in the way that is appropriate to be in therapy-- me, me, me, me, I want it to be all about me, in a very clear way. Having those firm and clear boundaries of a pretty blank slate therapist made therapy less scary. Now I'm just less insistent that anything in my life has to "be" a certain way, I'm better able to be more flexible and curious and willing to explore other approaches than the way I think things must be.

I like the way that you put that second idea, the way of "making a bit of room for warmer thoughts." I have found in my own experience that I can completely shut off from having a certain kind of feeling, like I kick feeling warm into a zone of zero possibilities. Sometimes just noticing that I am shut down in this way, or considering the possibility that I might "feel" this way even when it seems extremely unlikely, brings these feelings to the surface.

Thanks for the thoughts.

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. 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.

[quote=sunrise;3070367] 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.

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?

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.

You make a good point. If I'm really honest with myself, I probably only want to hear the good. But then it might be more difficult to trust the good if that's all I ever heard.

That's too bad he didn't comply with your request! I think it's a great one

I don't know that I could have done therapy this way in the beginning. I think I would have seen self disclosures as being about him, and not understood the more nuanced ways that they are really about me. I think in the early therapy I did, I was narcissistic in the way that is appropriate to be in therapy-- me, me, me, me, I want it to be all about me, in a very clear way. Having those firm and clear boundaries of a pretty blank slate therapist made therapy less scary. Now I'm just less insistent that anything in my life has to "be" a certain way, I'm better able to be more flexible and curious and willing to explore other approaches than the way I think things must be.

Yes, I think this is a big part of it all. My experience was much the same, though the self-disclosures were less about his life and more about the experience in the moment. Because my therapy was long, I moved through these stages with the same T. But had we not reached this stage, I don't think I would feel the same sense of completion and satisfaction. I could never have foreseen that when I began.

Yes, I asked her on multiple occasions. I know that how others perceive me is both pretty different from how I perceive myself, and how I imagine they would perceive me if they knew more about me.

It wasn't easy for me to ask. I was terrified that, since I had disclosed so many shameful things (from my perspective) over time, she would be disgusted by me and no longer want to know me. At the same time, I felt compelled to know, probably because I also hoped that my fears were unfounded.

She offered reassurance initially, which I had a hard time trusting, I'm guessing because I'm so unaccustomed to it. I'm pretty sure I asked too many times because eventually she said something like, "I've already answered that question, and I'm not going to answer it again."

I talked with consultT about this today, how I had the feeling that my T kept equivocating, and that I could never really tell what she was saying. I really liked consultT's perspective, which was that I was trying to get my T to mirror the part of myself that thinks I'm worthwhile and basically ok. But she took it personally, which caused her anxiety (this is consultT speculating), and we seemed to alternately pull away from each other. Sort of a pursue-withdraw dynamic, except I was the only one ever on the pursue side.

I struggle with the idea of whether my T failed me. Or I failed the therapy or her, or some other combination of these.

I do the exact thing - assume the worst. I imagine it was crazy making for my T. It feels like kind of a catch-22 sometimes: either I trust my perception, that T really is angry with me, or I take at face value that because she says she's not angry, she's actually not. In the first case, I end up feeling like my T is being inauthentic, and in the second, I end up questioning my perceptions.

Today, I told consultT I was a little scared of coming back, out of (an irrational) fear that she would also turn me away. She asked me what it felt like to know that she had looked forward to seeing me. I'm not sure why, but I believed her, immediately. And it's not something I've gone back to obsess about later, like I would have with exT. I can't pinpoint exactly why my experiences are so different. I think I just have the general sense that consultT is all around much more genuine than exT. Today, when I also told her that I was worried about screwing up the relationship with her too, she asked if she could share that she was also afraid of screwing it up. There was something oddly relieving about that.

Thanks for sharing your experience, sunrise. It undid the therapy because, after a certain point, my T told me that we just weren't going to talk about her feelings anymore. I definitely had enough withholding in my past as well - I didn't think of it in that way earlier.

I would have liked my T to be honest and transparent with me. Therapy had moved beyond dissecting events from my week and into a more relational realm, or so I thought. I saw therapy as a way to work on increasing attachment security and decreasing my sensitivity to rejection. After my T kind of cut off that avenue, I ended up feeling that much more preoccupied with what she was thinking/feeling. And I felt rejected.

What you described about modeling healthy relationships mirrors what I had hoped therapy could be. I'm glad you've had such a positive experience.

I definitely agree. Even though I'd like to know personal info about my T, I think there are some things that are best left unknown. I did want to feel as if my T was more emotionally engaged, though.

Hijack away

Thanks for your input, Anne

I was thinking about your past posts regarding anger that the expression of which has seemed to derail some of your T relationships; and the "hate" thread somewhere on here.

There's the rub: if you wait for the warm feelings to evolve, they may never have a chance to emerge. I think the trick is to be willing to create the space for their emergence in advance of feeling them. Prepping the soil, so to speak. It's not about materializing them from thin air, but about actively creating the potential of their possibility in your mind.

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