[CantExplain]

Maybe there's an upside to all these problems among psychologists -- if, say, a therapist needs to have experienced pain and suffering in order to relate to his or her clients' pain and suffering. This "wounded healer" concept is, I believe, woven into the fabric of the mental health profession. When I served as chair of a university psychology department, I helped evaluate candidates for our marriage and family counseling program. The admission process -- interview questions, essays, and so on -- was structured, albeit subtly, to screen out people who hadn't suffered enough. What's more, I've heard colleagues express concern about the occasional student or trainee who, through no fault of his or her own, came from an unbroken home.

Data supporting this idea, however, are hard to find. "There's no evidence whatsoever that you need a history of psychological problems in order to be a good therapist," insists John Norcross. "In some studies, in the first few sessions only, [patients see] the wounded therapist as a little more empathetic, but the effect doesn't last. Experience with pain can enhance a therapist's sensitivity, but that doesn't necessarily translate into good outcomes."

"I don't think therapists need to have had the same experiences as their clients," adds psychologist Laurie Pearlman, Ph.D. "As long as the therapist can feel those feelings, he or she can connect with clients."

What do you think?

My first two therapists came from very stable backgrounds. As far as I was aware, their families were intact, functional, etc. They were very solid, stable individuals, and they were both VERY good at what they did. I never found they were in any way unable to connect, empathize, support, etc.

My current T comes from an intact family of fairly standard dysfunction. Nothing horrendous; just a bit more chaotic than the other two. He has ADHD and he has been through divorce. Honestly, he is very much like the other two, so I can't say that his own experiences have given him some kind of better ability to work with or relate to me.

I want a therapist who, whatever his background, has worked through his own problems for the most part and is quite stable and secure and confident, with strong coping skills, interpersonal skills, and secure boundaries. That is what I have worked with, and I appreciate that their own baggage doesn't interfere in my own therapy in any way. They need to have worked through the bulk of their stuff before they go into practice.

I have encountered, briefly, therapists whose own "stuff" was introduced into my session very early on (all women which is why I won't go back to a female therapist). It was creepy and inappropriate and definitely not helpful or healing in any way. It felt like they were making my sessions about them, and that just was NOT an appropriate way to show understanding or support. I think they thought they were showing empathy, but it really had the opposite effect and felt burdensome. I didn't stay with them long.

[Asiablue]

Originally Posted by CantExplain

What do you think?

hmmm. I don't think a therapist needs to have had a terrible history to be empathic or able to help a client. But i think perhaps it would be harder for that therapist to really know what it's like to be in a place of real hardship.
When therapist talk to me about Self-harm for example and they give me "coping mechanisms" i can tell they have absolutely no idea what they are talking about, i can tell they've never been in that place cos if they had they'd never spout the crap they do about coping mechanisms. They'd know that stuff was fairly useless.

I would prefer a therapist who's experiences at least a little hardship in life and overcome it rather than a therapist who had a picture perfect upbringing.

[feralkittymom]

I don't think anyone gets through life without some difficulty; the difference is that some recognize this and reflect upon it, and others don't. The ability to reflect, to me, is far more important. And because it's impossible to really know except through experience of them over time whether or not someone has sufficiently worked through their stuff, I do not want a T that shares my specific difficulties.

The attitude in the quote about screening out those without obviously troubled backgrounds seems to me to be a good explanation why there are so many compromised Ts.

[growlycat]

I really prefer therapists who have gone through therapy themselves--regardless of background.

[growlithing]

I don't know how anyone would know. I know my T's first and last name. That is about it. She wears a ring on her finger so I know she's married. She told me about her work towards her PhD. Beyond that, I know nothing. How could I possibly know what has happened to her in her life? I think I can safely assume she hasn't self harmed solely on her reactions to my self harming. She can empathize with it and doesn't guilt me for it, but she doesn't seem to understand the attraction to it or the need the way someone else who has struggled with it might. For example, I asked her "why should I stop?" and she scrambled for an answer because to her, not self harming is an obviously good thing. Her #1 reason was that it is dangerous. I feel like another self harmer would understand that isn't a compelling reason to stop. But she can still empathize with the action and doesn't hate me when I come in the room more cut up than the previous session. I don't know if she needs to have had a history of self harm to treat it effectively. She needs more experience dealing with clients who self harm.

[blur]

the perspective in the OP's quote is kinda crazy imo. excluding healthy people from counseling programs is weird to say the least. also, not everyone self-discloses all their stuff, so some people may have more issues than they are admitting to, either consciously or unconsciously, on their applications.

personally, i feel inspired by Ts and people who have overcome difficult things in their lives. "overcome" being the key word. it gives me hope that i can overcome my struggles as well. while no one is perfectly healthy or perfectly healed i doubt anyone would want an unhealed T.

[MoxieDoxie]

T#1 I know what is public and i have found a couple of articles that gave me information on his family. 7 kids in his family and he likes to go to nursing homes and sing Sinatra songs to the ladies.

T#2 feels disclosing information about himself helps the client open up and it demystifies the therapist. So I know he is OCD since a kid, had a lot of therapy, was on 150mg of Xanax, has mommy issues, was an accountant, went back to school against his mothers wishes, to become a LMHC, heads up a large cycling group in our surrounding area.

So when he told me, or threw at me, that I was BPD and really could not explain much about it except it is about fear of abandoment. Sent me a crappy link to a sight that was down, left me to figure it out on my own......he disclosed his wife is BPD........describing extreme symptoms of suicide, rage, and cursing, she says her father sexual abused her but she has no memory of it....worse than me! He said she did a year of DBT and he feels she is better, not because of DBT, but because his parts loosened up and was not so fearful of her.

He does not know much about DBT.....found it boring, after 10 years with a BPD wife you would think he would know about this disorder inside out upside down! But no! He could barely explain it to me...had no resources for me...then asks me how he could have been better at delivering the diagnosis to me. He says he has told many clients they have BPD and the reaction was never good.

Is it paranoid thinking that I do not believe a word he is saying about his wife because it is contradictory? I told him i do not believe him because he is so uneducated about BPD even with a wife that has it. He says Internal Family Systems does not look at BPD the way the rest of the field does. They see it as the client having extreme parts that need to be unburdened.

I feel like i am being played....or paranoid thinking?

My own t has suffered terribly but come out the other side and is happier for it. Sometimes this is not good for me because she keeps pushing too much and to solve everything too quickly.
I don't know if my second t has suffered, she had told me she was in a bad relationship before so I guess she has suffered but I agree that everyone has suffered in some way or another, a certain amount is good for us because it makes us more kind and have more empathy I think. It helps us grow and become better human beings.
In my training to be a counsellor there are wounded people in my class including myself and we are willing to help and to learn but so are the non wounded but I can see a difference in the empathy with them, sometimes it's hard for them to grasp the emotional pain if they have not felt it before and often they will not understand it but they are willing to try and understand and to me that's enough

[Freewilled]

It annoys me when a T seems to have it all together...while I know that nobody is perfect or has a perfect life, the facade or whatever it is creates a huge gap between us. I prefer a T who has a strong level of self-awareness most of all. It would be nice if my current T was less blank slate-y. I actually touched on this in our last appt. but it seems its up to me to ask questions of my T should I want to know more about these things, like his past experiences. Why ask? I mean, how would you believe the answers anyway? Those of you with more open Ts, did they just come out and share about their pasts or did you have to ask?

Wells t just tells me, I would never cross her boundaries and ask. This week I was telling her about the pain in my back and she went on to tell me how when she was pregnant with her first daughter, her daughter was lying on her sacral joint. T went on to tell me how she did some exercises which she showed me and how the pain disappeared after the pregnancy and her exercises. She always discloses to me freewilled.
Ps, I don't like it when they have it all together it's hard to relate to them

[Freewilled]

Originally Posted by monalisasmile

Wells t just tells me, I would never cross her boundaries and ask. This week I was telling her about the pain in my back and she went on to tell me how when she was pregnant with her first daughter, her daughter was lying on her sacral joint. T went on to tell me how she did some exercises which she showed me and how the pain disappeared after the pregnancy and her exercises. She always discloses to me freewilled.
Ps, I don't like it when they have it all together it's hard to relate to them

That sounds nice. I think my T is too closed off. He encourages me to ask him stuff but he does not treat it as a two-way conversation like I think would be helpful to me. It sucks /: would it be crossing boundaries to ask though? Like maybe just ask him his experience with certain things that matter to me....(?)

[elliemay]

I don't know why suffering should be a requirement for anything. Maybe it's just me, but I've sat across from my therapist and thought/said "I hope you have no idea how I feel, that I do is bad enough".

The therapist the helped me the most was stable, from a well-respected family of physicians and lawyers, no divorces, no nothing. Very stable.

What he was was smart. Very very smart. The last thing I needed at the time was a co-sufferer. I needed a professional.

So, i guess my point (and I do have one) is no, I don't think suffering is a requirement. I think doing your job well is.

I think we project our own inability to connect to our own suffering when we think only someone whose suffered can understand.

[0w6c379]

Originally Posted by CantExplain

What do you think?

My thoughts are that a T who has experienced pain, in some fashion, can relate better to a client than someone who has not. I think it would be rare to have someone from a stable background "untouched" by trauma to have the ability to be empathetic. I don't think it's impossible, but I don't believe "book learning" is going to give you compassion and understanding. These qualities may be inherent in the individual but are not common in today's world.

I agree a T does not necessarily need to have had the same kind of experience as their client to appreciate their pain. If a T has had to face any type of difficulties in their life, and has over come them, then I am impressed. I would want to hear about a T's struggles. I wanted a T who shared with me so that I might learn something from them. My T was great to talk to and I believe had empathy (something else went wrong in our relationship that caused it to end in a bad way). There needs to be some kind of connection with your T in order for it to work.

Perhaps the T's who have not experienced significant pain are better matched with clients of a similar background, and vice versa. Even a T's socioeconomic background can be a huge factor in understanding where a client is coming from.

My former t had her entire life handed to her on a silver platter. She mentioned it quite a bit.
One session...
I brought up the subject of want vs need.
I said that she wants her techniques and popular approaches to be effective and she doesn't need them to be effective.
So I asked her, what was the longest you ever went without food??
She said...eight hours. She was smiling.
I said...after eight hours you wanted food because you were hungry, but can you say that you needed it?
She answered...no.
I then related this experience to her...
When I was 15 my parents left.
I had to quit school and go to work in order to eat.
I wasn't able to find a job right away and i went long periods of time without food and became malnurished.
There was a particular month where I only ate 4 times and the longest I went without food was 10 days..
My mother stopped by one day and brought an ice cream cake.
It was frozen and using a butcher knife I tried to cut it but I had no strength.
My mother actually yelled at me and told me to wait for it to thaw out.
I was starving. I would've broken every tooth off in my mouth for just one bite.
I hoovered over that cake and I was embarrassed because I didn't want the cake to satisfy me, I needed it to satisfy me.
My mother thought I wanted the cake.
I needed it.
My therapist thought I wanted her approaches to work.
I needed her approaches to work.

The attitudes of want and need produce different motivations.
Want is a luxury approach of striving to enjoy.
Need is a survival approach.
Wanters can be choosers.
Beggars cant be choosers.

This whole conversation took place because my t asked why I sit in a slouched position.
I told her it was because a thin piece of skin separates my tailbone from the outside of my body due to the long term effects of malnutrition. When I sit up straight that area of my body burns.

Do I need a therapist to suffer? No.
Do I need them to not dismiss mine? Yes

[ouinonpeutetre]

My T is very young and divorced from a much older man. She lives very far away from any family and had to restart her network from zero after her divorce. She's also a doctoral student and for a bit after the divorce, they overlapped as doc students in the same program. She has disclosed that she sees a therapist and has gone as far as to tell me a few details about herself that make me think she probably needs therapy badly. I appreciate her openness, and I love that she isn't perfect. She looks very put-together, but after seeing her for the few months I have, I've learned it's a facade.

PS: I googled my therapist which is the only reason I knew so much about the divorce. One of the top results was a blog post by her ex husband telling all the dirty details.

I know it shouldn't but sometimes talking to her and realizing she has worse problems than I do, makes me happy about the way my life is...

One of my very first questions for therapists when I meet them is, "what qualifies you to help me? I'm not just a typical textbook illustration of a case... what practical experience will help you understand me?" My therapist was pretty good when we had that conversation and was able to name the differences that separated us and the ways we can work together "help each other" along. Too bad my schedule is so crazy; I might very well have to keep this hiatus permanent.

[kirby777]

My T reveals very little. I know she is married, but I just noticed she does not wear a wedding ring. I once said I was going to ask new neuro if he had a dog & feel him out if he liked dogs, because if he did not, I did not want to see him. T wondered why. I said "I will of course compare him to prior Neuro, whom was the BEST physician ever(she diagnosed me), and she liked dogs. I do better w/ "dog people", No one will compare to her(prior neuro), she held my ability to walk in her hands and I need to trust someone like that w/ everything". T revealed she had a pit bull mix. Coincidence...I do not think so. As I mentioned pit bulls in a prior session, she never said a word...and I was just saying I felt sorry for pit owners whom cannot get a vet to treat their dogs.

I gather from her LinkedIn profile that she did not go from highschool to college to grad school.

If T thinks she will ever come close to prior neuro, she is on another planet.

Not yet!

But I'm trying my darndest to make them!



All joking aside, I don't know what my therapist's life trials have been.

Nor do I want to cause them too much pain and discomfort with mine.

I don't think it's necessary that they've suffered.

I do think it's necessary that they have empathy and compassion though.

I'm sure if Jesus was to return and choose 12 more disciples he would choose only 12 that had doctorate degrees.
After all, I only have a ged. I'm sure he would choose my former t.
Couldn't resist some sarcasm.
I know that not all therapists are like the one I had but I wish I could've had a different one.
One that didn't get her Ph.D. for a status symbol.
I shouldn't feel more qualified than her.

[content30]

To be honest, I don't know about the extent of my T's suffering. I know that when she was younger, probably late high school, things were such that she went to counseling. She was greatly helped by her T, and that is what made her want to become a T. She shared that with me when I embarrassingly told her that I decided that I really want to become a T (at the age of 30). So, she disclosed that to me for my sake, so that I would know that she had done the same.

I started T school this semester. I do come from a broken home and now have a stepparent and half sisters. My very early childhood was rough at times. I've had severe depression and anxiety and suicide attempts. My father died completely unexpectedly over 2 years ago, on top of my mental health issues. With the help of my current T, through my own big life changes I made as a result of T, and by getting off of medicine that made my mental health worse, I have been able to do an entire 180. So, please, all, know that there is hope!

I do believe that for me personally, my own life circumstances and, especially, my own mental health issues and struggles with suicidality created a level of empathy in me that I could never have received or created in any other way.

In sum, I have no idea about the personal issues of my current or past T, but I know that my current T's level of concern and empathy could not have been achieved through a life of gumdrops, rainbows, and unicorns, in my opinion.

[boredporcupine]

When therapist talk to me about Self-harm for example and they give me "coping mechanisms" i can tell they have absolutely no idea what they are talking about, i can tell they've never been in that place cos if they had they'd never spout the crap they do about coping mechanisms. They'd know that stuff was fairly useless.

I'm going to have to disagree with this one. I used to self harm and I stopped in large part by switching to different coping mechanisms. I'm not sure why it's crap to think there could be other ways to deal with your feelings besides harming yourself...

[Victoria'smom]

I don't know my T's suffering but I know her favorite patient group is crisis care which has really helped me be truthful and her trust in me. I know she's seen close friends loose themselves into Bipolar. I have had to break my ED down to her.

[Favorite Jeans]

I love this question!

I've actually thought about this a lot. I'm pretty sure that someone's ability to empathize is not directly proportional to how much hurt they've experienced. Also, empathy is so important in a therapist but it isn't enough. I think a therapist needs to be able to identify with their client's pain (not necessarily from having experienced the exact same thing though) and also with the experience of being in therapy. Nobody gets out unscathed. Some people have experienced more horrific trauma than others of course but everyone has been hurt. It's all about what the T has done with that experience.

Have you ever had the experience of hearing somebody complain about something and thinking "That's nothing! You should hear what happened to me..." ?

Have you also had the experience of thinking "I get where you're coming from because I've been there" ?

Finally have you ever heard a story and thought "oh my god, that is so horrendous, I can't even imagine something so dreadful!"' ?

The thing is, no matter where your T's hurts are in comparison to yours, you want a T who is processed enough that they aren't constantly using themselves as a frame of reference when they are listening to you. You want them to care about you and your struggles because that is your life. Not because it's better or worse than or similar to theirs. They have to help you make sense of it and communicate to you that they care.

A T who over-identifies with you because they've experienced the same thing or come from the same background is just as unhelpful as one who looks at you like you're from Mars. They have to help you sort out your own story with patience and compassion and coax you to be able to explain you to yourself. The aha moment should belong to you, not to them. You need for them to just nod and get it sometimes and for them to be puzzled and ask you clarify other times.

[Asiablue]

Originally Posted by boredporcupine

I'm going to have to disagree with this one. I used to self harm and I stopped in large part by switching to different coping mechanisms. I'm not sure why it's crap to think there could be other ways to deal with your feelings besides harming yourself...

Feel free to disagree. This is just my experience with my therapists and my experience with the coping mechanisms.

I never said it's crap to think there is other ways other than self-harm.