How much do you need to have in common with a T

I couldn't do therapy with somebody who took a lot of religion or politics into the room. Or someone who had had a very straightforward run at life, who never had to overcome steep challenges. In terms of shared values, I want a therapist who puts a high value on kindness and respect and seeing all human beings as being of equal worth. Apart from that, I'm game for giving any differences between us a go.

My first T had very strong conservative views, whereas I am more moderate.

This former T would make generalized statements about "the Democrats," and about "liberals," and it really put me off. This T was also not a reader and made a life choice to not read books, (proudly communicated to me,) and lived off of instinct. This T had a PhD!

Once, I made a well-known Shakespeare reference as a joke, and T was stumped. Had never heard of Macbeth or Hamlet.

Needless to say, this didn't work out after T abandoned me. The last straw for us was that compatibility broke down because T didn't know how to recognize a trauma victim victim and was apologetic about my abuser, making excuses for his behavior.

I think that T lacked some basic curiosity and understanding about the human condition.

New T is very well read and intuitive and more liberal than I am. I can forgive her super liberal viewpoints (which don't make good economic sense) because T is competent at helping me overcome trauma.

A male T looking at porn would bother me if I knew about it. But like, it's just so private that I wouldn't even want to KNOW about it or think about it. Any kind of hyper-sexualization in a T would be upsetting to me.

The idea of a T perhaps putting me in a fantasy scenario, in his private moments, would drive me up a wall. I don't care if anyone else does that, but not my T!

Edited to add: You might wonder why or how politics and religion comes up in my therapy. 1) I like big ideas and so I can't resist bringing up those things. And 2) my job touches upon many controversial subjects in US society, so topics come up.

This would be the beginning of the end for me too!

Oh, no. Not a chance that would work for me. Eeep.

I briefly saw a very Christian T because I couldn't find anyone in my area on short notice. When I tried to recommend some books about a non-traditional aspect of my lifestyle, he said that even reading about that would make his wife mad. He was very fired.

Why even become a therapist if you are that way? Shocking!

I knew my T had siblings (I had 4) and that was helpful to me. Turns out, I just recently found out she has/had NINE :-) A sort of similar family structure is what I would need. I had some trouble because she was non-native to the US so did not have my US references growing up, my slang and high school experience possibilities, etc. That was a little hard if I thought too much about it. I can not think about lots of things I did that when I thought she was not very "mechanical" like I am. Turns out I was wrong and it took me only 25 years to learn that :-(

Oh, I'm actually pretty upset that my therapist isn't vegetarian, but it's not a deal breaker to me (even though he's talked about his love of a meat-based food and I once happened to witness him ordering meat for lunch). This would be a deal breaker for me in a romantic relationship, but I can deal with a T who's not vegetarian.

I need my therapist to be relational and to believe that human relationships are important, even in a professional setting. I need a T who has the same views about the therapeutic process as I do (not necessarily the same school of thought, just the general stuff). I couldn't work with someone who needs every single word he says to me to be backed up by a ton of research, even though ideally s/he should know about that research. Nor would I ever agree to work with a "blank slate" psychoanalyst. So, I need commonality in the professional sense.

Now you bring this up, I really don't have much else in common with my therapist. He likes sports a lot, I like poetry a lot. Not so much the other way around. I like sewing, he likes dancing. He is religious, I am agnostic - very close to being an atheist. He doesn't know things which are important to me, such as books and TV shows which have had a great impact on me.

I guess we have in common the fact that we both speak English well (it's a foreign language to us), we're both therapists, and we're both terrible at math (or so we both say). We're both in therapy. We almost share a birthday. But most importantly, we have in common our communication, the level of personal soulful involvement in what we do personally and professionally, the loyalty and caring. These may be vague but I think they're some of the most important things to have in common.

It has probably been most helpful that my T's have all been family people. Our common experience with parenting has been important. I would really not be able to listen to a therapist about parenting, marriage, etc., if they had not been through it themselves. Religious faith has become more important to me as I have gotten older, so a fair amount of commonality has also been important although not a prerequisite.

My T and I do share the above, but we are very different in other areas. He is all outdoorsy and physical in his interests and activities which interests me in absolutely no way whatsoever. In fact, it is probably more of a repulsion for me (long story behind that). So when he gets on a kick about exercise, etc., I tell him what to do with his suggestions. He doesn't understand my interest and vocation to music either, so when I talk about it his learning curve is pretty low. He doesn't get my love of music any more than I understand his love of sports/exercise, etc. We know that about it other and do our best not to throw things at each other when our interests come up.