Telling your T you google them

The more I think about it the less I feel bad for ever Googling my T. It helped me to trust. Sure it was obsessive and a way to disassociate at times, but maybe I just needed to disassociate at that moment? I also needed to know what kind of person I was working with, and since T's are so slow to share personal info I took care of due diligence on my own.

Whether we like it or not the internet is not going anywhere and the reality is this information is out there in the public domain. I am a professional, and as such I maintain a professional "image." And by maintaining an image I mean that I don't post party pictures to Facebook, I don't leave my social profiles public for all to see, I don't write nasty things in emails or online under my name, I don't get in political debates online under my name, I don't have a criminal record, and I expect that having one would destroy my career. Anyways, professionals are held to standards for a reason. Doctors, shrinks, therapists, are bound to the same professional standards as everyone else. I expect my clients, my employer, acquaintances and even friends will and do Google me.

When I Googled my T the first time I was able to see fairly quickly that he was a "good" professional. There is almost nothing online about him, because he takes time to maintain his professional image. This made me happy. His Facebook is set to private, he does not friend clients, there are no bad photos to unearth, no offensive blog posts... To be a therapist and leave your Facebook public would be negligent in a severe way. I would question the ethics of those therapists who do this, since I'm sure they are 100% aware clients will find and be compelled to then "stalk" their profile.

The way I view it therapists are selling trust. Without trust there is no therapeutic relationship, and IMO with this being the case therapists are responsible for making sure what can be found on Google they wouldn't mind being found. If my therapist couldn't do this then I wouldn't be able to do therapy with him, that simple.

Yes exactly!

A therapist is selling his or her time and is selling reliability and trust.

In the case of therapy, the product is the person. We all research products to make prudent buying decisions.

Therapy is just weird because there's nothing like it to compare to for a perfect analogy.

The "magic" in the unfolding of our therapeutic relationship came from T's surprising and comforting reactions to my disclosures and a delightful shared sense of humor. This is stuff I couldn't find on the Internet.

And that relationship wouldn't have been possible if I didn't feel secure.

(With my first therapist, I didn't search enough quite honestly. If I had, I could've avoided the magical surprise of therapist abandonment. But that's another story.)

...When I return home from out of town, I search the whole house and look in all the closets. Then, having found nothing suspicious, I relax into home and enjoy being there. Same with T.

I find it interesting that those of you who defend personal Googling seem to see it as a matter of building trust. I don't find digging for personal info to be particularly expressive of trustworthiness, but that is my morality and to each his own. What amazes me is that anyone feels satisfied that such searching "proves" a T can be trusted. All it "proves" to me is a T who either has a minimal on-line footprint, or is very good at keeping their lives private. It would not give me any confidence that their life conduct actually was trustworthy. To me, it's an illusion.

The professional persona, on the other hand, is reliable: credentials, sanctions, etc.

I had a good session. I was able to confess to much of the obsessing and pain I experience between sessions. I'm still dumbfounded by my honesty. I wasn't able to say I found his house, though. When I got home the guilt was still there so I emailed him my 'confession,' which included telling him I'd seen photos of the inside of his home. His response was came quickly and he was neither judgmental nor angry. He told me it's a natural curiosity and simply a means to align my intense feelings for him with some kind of tangible reality. I'm glad I told him and I don't get the sense at all I damaged our relationship. I feel like I can breathe again.

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It does not prove trustworthiness. It can only disprove trustworthiness, if something negative is found. The search is simply performing due diligence.

I'm hyper - vigilant, not without morals.

Do you think googling is wrong and immoral? It seems like you are trying to shame people who do google. I guess I don't really understand your point.

Put another way, if you were a property owner, wouldn't you perform due diligence before engaging in a business relationship with a renter?

You'd check the person's credit history and call a previous landlord.

I don't care about my therapist's credit score. But I am going to perform due diligence before allowing her to take up residency in my psyche.

Searching online for basic social circle and other information is faster and cheaper than going to weekly sessions for a year and hoping it all works out and nothing strange pops up.

It is wrong to shame people for protecting themselves by doing something legal and available.

I have googled T. The reason was to see if there were any reviews, lawsuits, etc. I found her facebook page only because she uses the same email address for facebook as the one she gave me to email her with so it came up as a recommended friend...her son also comes up as a recommended friend as her son and my step-niece were friends in high school and so we have her as a mutual friend. Also, she sent me a request for her linked in account. I know where she lives because she has appointments at her on occasion.

That being said I could never imagine looking up things like tax records, credit history etc IMO that goes beyond getting to know a person and building trust.

There is so much out there on the net that we do not have control over. About years ago I ran a search on my address and found that trulia.com had old real estate listing of my house. It included a video with an agent walking through the house and explaining in pretty good detail my home....

I'm not shaming anyone. I said that it is a moral issue for me, but to each his own--others are free to define their own moral codes for themselves. Due diligence is checking for sanctions and credentials--both of which can be accomplished in the US through a state's dept of health web-site, a professional assoc web-site, or maybe through an insurance provider. Such info is in the public interest.

But checking tax records, home value, FB, etc, has nothing to do with due diligence for treatment purposes. Beyond that, I think any info one gleans, especially about personal social life, is out of context, and so doesn't speak to trustworthiness. I think if someone has a concern of some sort, they should simply ask about it directly.

For me, therapy is about relationship. And this particular relationship allows for a level of directness and honesty not often possible in other relationships, and that is valuable. In many ways, trust in such a relationship goes both ways. I think it is a subversion of that trust to seek information of a personal nature behind the person's back. I would feel the same way about a T who behaves this way toward a client. Generally T's understand the behavior because they see it as reflective of other issues to be addressed; that doesn't mean they wouldn't prefer the behavior not occur.

Thank you for walking in with some common sense! (((((hugs))))))

I am so very glad you got the courage to be so open with your T. BTW, I believe this will strengthen your RS.

Therapy is not about the relationship to me. I have been there, done that. I'm just looking for ways to cope with the traumas and issues in my life. Not a relationship with someone that is just fake and won't last. Trust is not an issue at all. I don't and won't trust anyone ever.

There is very little on a state department's website that is of any value whatsoever. I have found that to be true.