[CantExplain]

Hi guys.

What do you do when you know your T is lying to you?

And if you've said outright, "You're lying", how did they respond?

[HazelGirl]

Why would your T lie? What are they avoiding or hiding? I think that would change how I responded.

If it was about their personal life and I had no business knowing if they didn't want to share, I wouldn't bring it up. But if it impacted what happened in therapy, I would definitely call them on it.

[Yoda]

I asked the same Q 2 or 3 times to my pdoc and she gave different answers. I told her I could no longer trust her and fired her.

Trust and respect are the basis of any relationship.

[Leah123]

I have not ever suspected her of lying to me about facts, she comes across as unusually sincere and transparent 99% of the time. The closest I've ever been to truly feeling (instead of projecting) that I was deceived was when she became angry at me and tried to say she was tired. Tired was why she probably let the anger show, accidentally, but she was definitely feeling angry.

I did bring it up with her, and we spoke about it perhaps.... three or four times, until I felt satisfied about the context and where our relationship was.

If I believed she was lying to me about anything, yes, I would feel obligated to ask her. I don't tolerate lying from anyone at any time, especially not someone I'm paying for the privilege of having a uniquely open and honest relationship with.

Always better for the therapist to decline to answer a question than to lie.

P.S. I do get afraid she'll lie to me, or... soft pedal... so I do proactively say "be honest" or "don't lie to me" when asking important questions, but.... she is quite sincere, almost in an old-fashioned sort of way.

[scorpiosis37]

I do not believe that my T has ever lied to me.

[tooski]

I would bring it up. I wouldn't just blurt out "You're lying!" but I would say that's how I was perceiving it. Very often in my therapy I have misinterpreted what T says, and bringing it up gives him a chance to clarify. It's also shown me how often I misinterpret and it's something I'm working on.

It doesn't exactly build trust if a T is lying, so if this is your perception you need to bring it up. Why would he lie to you?

[elaygee]

I don't think my T has ever lied. But she has withheld truths from me and then I found out some things later. In a recent experience I've told her "What we talked about has me feeling uneasy, it's unsettling, and I feel like you brought up X for a reason, and that you're hiding something from me..." Then we talked about it.

[unaluna]

Originally Posted by CantExplain

Hi guys. What do you do when you know your T is lying to you? And if you've said outright, "You're lying", how did they respond?

Two situations - one was when i was convinced my t was in love with me. This came up a lot. He would deng it, but then say something that seemed to prove me right. After a while, i got the nerve to say, right when it happened, "okay, how about that remark?" The remarks really were pretty innocuous on his part; i would say the problem was more on my part, that i made the majority of such remarks. Ultimately it was about my family of origin having unclear boundaries about such things, so it was just transference all over the place.

2nd situation was when i received the errant sexy email from him. This led to a discussion of spam in general, and he said something about getting all these "horrible horrible" emails. Something about the way he said that stuck in my mind. Maybe a year later i confronted him about it. I was like, "why were you going on so dramatically about these horrible horrible emails? Im not a prude, youre not a prude, was that an act or what??" He just kinda hemmed and hawed. One of the things im working on in therapy is that i dont always have to nail a person to the wall about something - let them save face. In this case, i felt all i needed to do was to let him know that in order to do his job effectively with me, he didnt have to pretend to be so outraged. Maybe he was kidding and i missed that; that could be. In which case it was kind of him not to point that out to me.

I have no reason to think that he has, or that he would. I have all kinds of more or less horrible "what if" scenarios playing in my head, but not that one, and I see no reason to ponder that unless it happened.

I am pretty confident that my T has never lied to me. He is quite comfortable beingstraight forward and blunt with me.

[nottrustin]

She has never lied that I know of!!

[stopdog]

I have pointed it out when the woman has tried.

My ex t lied, when I told her I knew she lied, then she blamed me for misinterpreting her words but I know the truth

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[RTerroni]

Well I know that a Group Therapist did once, honestly if they did and I found out I would feel very upset at them. Which is why I have told my new Therapist that if they are going to be at the same event that I am that it is best to tell me because if they don't and I see them there than I will be very mad at them.

[RTerroni]

Originally Posted by monalisasmile

My ex t lied, when I told her I knew she lied, then she blamed me for misinterpreting her words but I know the truth

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WOW I definitely wouldn't want to see a Therapist who talks to me like that.

[pinkbutterfly]

Mine has never lied to me. She's very honest and straightforward with me.
I can't see her ever doing that.

coooooommmmeeeee ON, CE! Spill! We all want to know.

Anyway, yeah, my T has lied to me and let it go. It was about a personal matter between the two of us, and I figured it was self protective on his part.

[Mactastic]

Just yesterday I was lamenting that Unconditional Positive Regard was just training put into practice and some days I really had a hard time believing he genuinely cared, even though every part of me whats to believe it's real. I said something about T's being excellent liars. He told me matter-of-factly that he's never once been dishonest and he didn't intend to start. He's a PsyD so he often brings up studies and he said that studies have shown that a T's honesty in therapy is a huge component in the healing process. His statement felt sincere to me.

[Petra5ed]

I once felt quite strongly that my T was lying to me. It was about something a bit trivial, nothing that was personal to me. It bothered me for a couple of days and I thought about bringing it up, but then I realized that I only did because I put him in ridiculously high regard, and in reality he's just some guy living a normal life who happens to talk to people all day for a living. But in this case, the lie (if it was a lie) was trivial, and I could see a lot of people lying the same way if that makes sense.

[RTerroni]

Originally Posted by Petra5ed

I once felt quite strongly that my T was lying to me. It was about something a bit trivial, nothing that was personal to me. It bothered me for a couple of days and I thought about bringing it up, but then I realized that I only did because I put him in ridiculously high regard, and in reality he's just some guy living a normal life who happens to talk to people all day for a living. But in this case, the lie (if it was a lie) was trivial, and I could see a lot of people lying the same way if that makes sense.

I guess it all depends on the type of person you are, I am someone who can't stand lying to at all, particularly by a Therapist.

My T lied to me over and over again. I confronted her but then she just denied everything and THAT was just more lies. I was amazed that someone I was so close to had the nerve to lie right to my face like she did. I'm still in shock....not seeing her anymore was the result.

[CantExplain]

Originally Posted by My kids are cool

coooooommmmeeeee ON, CE! Spill! We all want to know.

This isn't something that happened to me. At least, that's not where this question comes from.

Another poster on another thread said something like, "I can tell when T is lying". I wanted to explore that, and rather than hijack the original thread I thought I would start a new one.

I can imagine calling out a T but if they insisted they were telling the truth, I don't know what I would do next. Because I'm not so sure I can tell when people are lying. And the really dangerous lie is when T is lying to herself. I certainly suspected Madame T of doing that, but as I said, I can't prove it.

[Salmon77]

I'm new to therapy, but so far my therapist doesn't really tell me anything. I can't imagine what he'd lie about. I mean, maybe he's not really all that curious why I said X, but does it matter?

What is a lie anyway? Is it false based on my truth or your truth?

I've been through a very interesting experience over the past few months. My t and I had a major rupture 3 years ago, and we just spent 3 months talking about it now. Each week we talked about the same topic, but through a different prism of different aspects of the same event.

This rupture was both her fault and my fault. There are differences in her memory and mine. We both were as open and honest as we could be. But - the many times the layer we were discussing each session had truths that were directly opposite of the truths in previous weeks. What then?

Sometimes the truth is complex and more of an "and" than a black/white true/false "or".

The truth I ended up with after 3 months discussing of all of these true opposites is that we are both truly trying, and that goes a long way. What mattered is that we both made room for each other's experience, vulnerabilities, and pain -- whether it was true, or the opposite truth, or whatever.

Turtle

[granite1]

I caught my T in lie once. it did bother me for a bit .I shared it here and all but decided not to ask about it . I don't know if this was because I was scared out of my mind to confront her or not . but I did think about the situation .I decided that the lie was not harmful to me at all . what she lied about was the reason she was late to my session. she made up the time she missed at the end of the session and I decided it was really not my business why she was late if I still got the time I was suppose to .