Will a T ever change because you ask her to?

My own experience is that Ts either "get it" or they don't. There's no point in trying to talk them round, though goodness knows I've tried.

What do you think?

Asking anyone to change their personality style to our liking is a fruitless endeavor. People are who they are.

That said, there are a few topics that my T and I understand we will never agree on, and we've more or less agreed to disagree and discuss those topics rarely. He realized there was no progress to be made by continuously butting heads.

I think certain concrete changes like that can be made, but that doesn't change his convictions about those topics in the least.

Depends on what you are asking your T to change.

I have gotten the woman to stay back from me when I enter and leave her office. I have been somewhat, although not entirely, successful in getting her not to try to play with me - I will not play with her as she has not proven worthy, so sometimes she must be squashed back on that one when she either forgets or tries to see if I have changed my mind on that (I have not and don't see it happening). I have gotten her to agree to let me know before I show up if her dog will be there so I can cancel. She has stopped trying to shake my hand. And there are probably some other things like this that have been rearranged.
So there are some things I think that can be changed, modified, or negotiated.
She will not explain most things (she says she cannot but I do not believe her) - so for explanation I simply go to other ones who will.

The answer depends on what you mean by "change". As Chris says, we can't actually change anybody in a fundamental way.

Your question seems to be aiming at "Can a T be flexible?" And there the answer seems to be "Yes, to a certain degree anyway". Because the T persona isn't the real person - I don't mean that in a negative way, I really do think that a good T is genuine in the emotions they display, it's just that they can't, and shouldn't, necessarily display every emotion they feel, and they certainly shouldn't speak freely every thought that comes into their head. But the persona can be modified, and will inevitably change a bit as the T gets older. And a good T will be able to modify the persona slightly on a client-by-client basis.

But of course they won't adapt to exactly what each client wants them to be. Often, we want things that are not all that healthy for us. I know I do, anyway.

No? Isn't that exactly what T is trying to do US?

No, actually a T is simply guiding US as we make changes ourselves. A T can't do squat to make us change. We have to be able to see how we need to change, and we have to do the changing.

I agree with those who say it depends on what you mean by "change." Can you change her personality, her therapeutic orientation, or her outlook on the world? No. Can you get her to change the way she responds to you in a few specific situations, if there is a legitimate reason for doing so? Perhaps. For instance, I told T that she often used a phrase my Dad used when I was growing up, and it bothered me a great deal. I asked her to please not use that phrase with me, and she agreed. My T also learned, through trial and error, that she should not have agreed to see a friend of mine as well. She now has a policy that she will not see friends, spouses, or family members of her clients. In another situation, I mentioned to my T that she sometimes gave me a 1-arm hug and, other times, a 2-arm hug. I told her that I was reading into the difference. It caused me to think that, on 1-arm days, she felt distant from me, she didn't really want to hug me, or she thought I needed less support. She told me that she didn't even realize that she was hugging differently. Now, she always gives me 2-arm hugs. In these instances, my T has been very open and willing to make changes.

Concrete examples:
1. You want a diagnosis but T won't give you one.
2. You want a hug but T won't give you one.
3. You want T to teach you skills but she refuses.

You could get all these things by changing to a new T. So will your T cooperate or not?

1. I would change therapists if this was an issue
2. I don't want the therapist near me. I think hugging is not something to force on another human even for or from a therapist.
3. If it is not their type of therapy - this one would seem like asking for espresso from a drip machine. Simply not their forte.

These seem like issues of therapy orientation which a client is very unlikely to get them to change. That would indicate a need to find a different therapist more able to fit your needs.

1. My xT said a diagnosis won't make any difference... I am still me and I still want to change me.

2. Touch is a principle issue. my xT told me in the first session that he didn't do touch...plain and simple... its his decision and he had a policy so no he won't change that no matter how much I may have wanted it to.

3. Now you are talking about therapy philosophy...lots of Psychodynamic types don't "do" skills... so if that is the philosophy they do then I doubt they will change it for you. Now if they profess to be more eclectic then I would think they might be more flexible.

No, you can't change a T's ethics/boundaries, therapeutic orientation etc.
However my T once changed something for me because it was super irritating to me. She use to take notes in session but to me, even though I know she was listening, it was still bothering me and I asked her if she could wait until after session to take notes--and she did!

Actually I have experienced a great deal of flexibility in my therapy. My shrink early on told me to tell him if anything wasn't working for me or feeling right. He is very experienced so it's not like he didn't know what he was doing and needed feedback. Rather he wanted to tailor the therapy to me. So after I got comfortable I was able to point out some things and our relationship improved when it was already pretty good.

1. I would change Ts.
2. I would change Ts. I had a therapist like that for two years, did me no good. If I'd been older and wiser (was a teenager then) I would have switched.
3. My T just changed in this regard. Took a heck of a lot of effort on my part though.

In this case, you are not trying to change your T's personality, but asking her to modify her behavior in relationship to those things that make you uncomfortable. If a T cannot do that then I don't think they are very good at what they do.

No, not at all. We see a T by our own choice because WE want to change something in ourselves or in our behavior. They are trained professionals who have the expertise to teach us the skills in order to function at our highest level. But their job is not to judge us or to do this for us. They actually can't do much of anything if we are not the one who wants change.

If your T is not willing to diagnose you or teach you any skills, then she is not a good T or at least not the kind you are looking for. Hugs are subjective, some won't give them, others will. But you should not have to put in this much work...it sounds like your T is not a good fit for you.

My pdoc once told me that there are more bad T's out there than good ones. That you are better off with no therapy than therapy with a bad T, because they can do a lot more harm.

Right that's why I don't believe that confrontational approaches work. they seem in fact to be potentially harmful. I have seen videos where some softer forms of confrontation really did work out okay but I personally would like it or respond to it well. And as a therapist in training I wouldn't dare use it.

After I'm sure that I have really been clear about what I want from T or anybody else-- because often it is my failure to communicate rather than the other person's failure to hear-- I am willing to accept her choice not to give me what I want. I used to tantrum that she wasn't giving me what I expected or what I wanted, and she would agree, she was not or would not. Eventually I came to understand that no one *has* to give me something, just because I ask and just because they can. They are a free person with the freedom to do what they want or what they think is best for themselves in that situation. I stopped wanting to be the puppetmaster in my world. Sometimes, if I was willing to accept no (as opposed to insist on a yes), I got what I wanted. Other times, I found I did just fine not getting what I wanted from that person, and accepted what she was willing to give me rather than being a homing pigeon for what she wouldn't.

Sometimes, it makes sense to move on from a relationship where you don't get what you want to a relationship where you can, or might. It's a tough call to know when to move on and when to accept that you can't get what you want, but the relationship is otherwise valuable.

In the three "concrete examples", only the third one has the potential to bother me. The first one is not really realistic because my insurance company requires a diagnosis for payment and authorization of continued services. So if my T "refused" to give me a diagnosis, it would really be a refusal to TELL me a diagnosis, and that's just a power game that I can't imagine her or any other T I'd find acceptable engaging in. I choose my T's because they are not power mongers and because they allow me to control my own therapy.

I don't think that #3 is so terribly "concrete", because "skills" can cover just about anything. I would presume that if my T refused to teach me certain skills that I particularly asked for (as opposed to just me making some generic request), it's for some legitimate reason. Maybe she didn't know which skills would be useful or maybe she thought that the "skills" were a distraction from talking about the real issues or any number of reasons based on her assessment of what might be helpful to me. I trust that my T would only do anything if she thought it was best for me-- I wouldn't want her to cave in and give me what I ask for if she thought if was not going to help me. Same with any professional I seek out assistance-- part of what I'm paying them for is to give me their professional opinion of what's going to be helpful for me. I don't want unnecessary surgery just because I think it would cure whatever's wrong with my health, and I don't want certain kinds of therapy if it's not going to be productive for me.

Seeing two of them does help me with this sort of thing. The one refuses to explain but the second one is great at it. It used to frustrate me about the first one until I realized the way around it was just to see another one. The first one is not useful to me in that way and will not try. The second one is. I am now much less frustrated and the first one did not win - I get an explanation - just not from her.

1. Are they qualified to diagnose?
2. Boundaries are there for a reason. Discussion about why you want one and how it feels not to be able to have one would probably be useful! I think that if it is something you really want, it could be hard to work through a "no", but I think that you really have to respect the boundaries your therapist sets. It doesn't mean it shouldn't be up for discussion, though.
3. Is skill building part of your therapy style choice? That is more of a CBT/DBT part of therapy more than say, psychoanalysis. Is she refusing as in telling you, no I won't teach you, or as in that she doesn't have the skills to teach to you?