Confessing to therapist that you looked at his FB and know private information?

I know I haven't posted for awhile, but I'm feeling somewhat distressed. I'm at the point where I feel that I'm going to reveal to my therapist that I've known about his FB (or mostly his girlfriends, as his is locked). She posts all the time about him, everything they do together, pictures, how romantic he is, etc. I know that he is dating someone four years older than me (I am 28, he is 69). He's always said it's baffling that someone as young as me would have feelings for him, because he is "old enough to be my grandfather."

I've always thought that was such an odd thing for him to say, especially knowing what i know. Anyway, I also see another therapist, who is psychodynamic/Jungian, and he is encouraging me to tell my main therapist the truth, if only to explain my blowing up at him over text all those months ago and seeming angry and bitter for no reason. It would help clear things up, but at the same time, my therapist doesn't follow a lot of boundaries (ie two hour sessions, gets angry at me sometimes). He is a wild card. There is no saying WHAT might happen once I reveal I have intruded on his personal life. It wasn't hard to find, and it's not like I stalk him or even look at it all the time. mostly, when I do look, it's just to compare myself to her and make myself masochistically feel like absolute garbage. I just sit there and cry.

I figure since our therapy has been at a stalemate for so long, maybe I should just tell him. I recently divulged last session that I had been seeing the other therapist since July. He reacted totally fine with it. He said he just wanted me to be happy. I thought he would be furious with me for keeping the secret for so long. But again, this involves his PRIVATE life.

What do you guys think? Should I go for it tonight and just tell him? It's caused me so much distress knowing, because that means the blank slate has been obliterated. i feel like he deserves to know, but in doing so will destroy almost anything we've ever done. He'll hate me forever and tell me to kick rocks and get the hell out of his office, I just know it. Honesty feels so good lately, but I wonder what good will come of this.

I don't understand the need to tell, but if you are willing to accept whtever comes along, then perhaps it will help you. I find confession over-rated in general and completely so in relation the looking up publicly available information, so I would not bother with it if it were me.

You did not intrude on his life, and did not come across any "private" information. You looked at his PUBLIC Facebook account, that he KNOWS he has publicly put information on. Unless you hacked into his Facebook account, or lied about your identity to become his friend, you did nothing wrong.

Well he has a fake Facebook name. I only found it because I wanted to hear some of the songs from his old band from forty years ago. I googled, found some articles, and looked up some of the band members on Facebook just to see what they were up to. I saw a picture with what appeared to be my therapist at like 28 years old with the rest of the band...and it was tagged his fake "name." I clicked, and his was locked, but there was a picture of him tagged that was public with some girl. His girlfriend. Hers was public, and had all this information about him, their relationship, etc.

I really didn't do it with the intent of trying to hurt him or anyone. I was just curious. And it's like now I can't unSEE what I saw. The last time I looked at her page was yesterday, after not looking for months, because I knew it would be unhealthy for me. And I was devastated by what I saw. I just want to tell because holding this **** in for so long kills me...especially knowing that he is and would be open to dating someone my age. She's beautiful. Makes me feel like a complete dog. And he's gonna be angry most likely because he's old and doesn't understand that in this day and age, it's not hard to find information on people.

Your looking at his girlfriend's publicly available information did not harm him in any way.

I did a bit of googling on my therapist. I found out where she lives, her facebook (she used her maiden name), her daughters' facebooks, and her husband's. Her one daughter's website and her husband's website. The books her husband has published. I wanted to know her more so I could trust her and because I was curious. But honestly, none of that crap I found out was about her at all. All it told me about her is that her family seems very kind and successful. I thought about telling her because I felt kind of bad but I decided for now not to. I am not stalking her, nor would I bother driving an hour to her house to be a creep. I feel kind of like a creep because she obviously tried to block some of her info online, but I am pretty good at googling.
I feel like it would just make her mad on some level, whether consciously or unconsciously. And I don't think telling her would make me feel better. So long story short, I don't think I will tell my therapist.

While I don't think every casual FB or google search is a big deal, this seems to be something that's really bothering you, so it does seem like you're better off telling him. You can't predict his reaction, of course--he might be angry as you say, but he might not. But if the therapy is currently at a standstill, maybe getting this on the table would move things forward in a useful way.

In addition, it would probably be useful for him to know what kind of information about him is available. He might want to ask his girlfriend not to post that stuff publicly. I know I wouldn't want my love life out there for anyone to read.

i feel like he deserves to know

Why?

I think you should discuss it if you think it would be helpful to you. He deserves his hourly fee not any specific disclosure from you.

Not sure why your therapist would get mad. Even with a fake Facebook name, he knows people can still find his profile. He also knows that his girlfriend's profile is public (or at least some of it). If you want to discuss this matter with him, I think that is a good idea IF you are doing so for the right reasons -- not out of manipulation or spite.

I understand your need to confess and have been in a similar situation with my pdoc about seeing what I though was a "private" online profile. I felt an overwhelming urge to tell him for the longest time and chose not on the advice of people on PC and my T friend. My T friend emphasized I should think about what it would accomplish for me to tell him. I thought it was fair to him but I now understand it had nothing to do with him (and he knew anyway as the site shows who looks at profiles). It was, for me a way I thought I could connect with him on a personal level by talking about it. I'm glad I didn't tell him because that likely wouldn't have happened and he would have probably tried to minimize it as much as possible.

So I'm just wondering if there is another reason behind your urge to confess- like a way to connect with him? If that's it I wouldn't say anything. You didn't do anything wrong, the profile is public. Even though he uses an alias, he's disclosed personal information that made it easy fr you to figure out. My take on the googling and Facebook snooping is that Ts are more aware of their online presence. If they choose to create profiles they are aware clients will see them and don't think much of it. Or If you want to see if he'll get angry about it (which he shouldn't) to shake up the dynamic of your relationship then I might go ahead and tell him.

I think it might be that the op is reacting to the fact that her t is a lot older than she is but that t's girlfriend is only 4 years older than op. Can't be talked about because t doesn't know op knows.

That's true, although I think the same idea may apply here. It depends on the underlying reason to tell the T. Yeah it would have been better for you to have stayed away from the girlfriend's page, but you didn't do any harm. You're really the one in distress since there seems to be a white elephant in the room with you in session. If you'd feel better getting it off your chest, regardless of his reaction, then it might be the best thing to do.

I would talk to your other T more and figure the benefit of telling him would be.

Not convinced that there is any value in telling a therapist this stuff. I personally have absolutely no intention of letting mine know that I surf her husband's profile to see if he has put any public pictures up of vacations or whatever, or that I know names of family members, or that I know which photographer they use for family photos. I want that information to stay accessible to me so I won't give her the head-start of knowing. And hope that none of her other clients are as snoopy as me and decide to tell her and she ends up shutting that operation down. Man, I'd be pissed.

The obvious detriment here is that it sounds like you're miserable holding what you perceive as this big egregious secret that will be responsible for the end of your therapeutic relationship? You're not guilty of doing anything except having curiosity and whoever says they haven't done any facebook stalking is either lying or selling something.

If it's the feelings of inadequacy that need addressing, maybe thats something that can be worked on with your second therapist. If it's the above mentioned misery of knowing something he doesn't know you know, then I guess the only closure you'll get from that is letting him know, or freeing yourself of some of the guilt with the knowledge that it's normal to want to know about the people in your life.

Honestly, unless you feel you need to work through something, then I wouldn't say anything. It's not private. It's public. This is the generation of googling people you know and Facebook 'stalking' them (a phrase even my actual friends on FB say and they get my info in their newsfeed). I wonder, if you could resolve the guilt you feel, if you wouldn't feel the need to look him or his girlfriend up all the time.

On the other hand, a conversation might be good in the sense of, "Hey dude, you may want to talk to your girlfriend about tightening security on her profile." I'm of the mindset that teachers and other similar professions need to be on top of privacy settings and that it's *their* responsibility, not mine.

I've found my T's dissertation. He knows I've googled/FB stalked him - it all came up casually. He laughed and was like, "Find anything good?" He works with adolescents though too, his wife is close to my age and he's not that much older than me so my guess is that he knows it's happening and doesn't really care.

I guess for me, when I've decided that something isn't "bad" but normal, then that feeling inside that I'm keeping a secret goes away and I'm like, "Eh. If it comes up then I'll mention it for kicks to see what he says." In my mind, I didn't care what his reaction was. It's public info accessed from my personal computer. It's not like I went through his garbage :P

So you didnt terminate? I remember your last threads time ago where ouy talked about going to last sessions...

I'm suprised about your T's age...

I don't know what to say about his facebook profile, if it tortures you, maybe t's worth to say and explain it.
I think Ts think that clients use to stalk them, for example, when I asked my T his email he said- I thought that it's available on internet.
And also- I don;t remember context but I said that i didn;t know how does he look and he was wondering that I didn't find any picture of him on internet. His comments made me want to search for him on internet esspecially if he was sure that there are pictures of him.

This idea - that something "can't" be talked about in t - is a hump over which one must get, if one is to get anywhere in t. Imo. It's like the only place to talk about what can't be talked about that exists. It's like the only reason FOR its existence. Simply feeling that something can't be talked about is probably the cause of more problems than whatever it is that can't be talked about. It's not our embarrassment that started this cycle - it's how we were taught to stifle.

It sounds as though you need to discuss it with him, to get it out there.

What I would say, is that he's the one who gave you personal info about his old band... without that, you wouldn't have found out the other stuff. Also, you say he's too old to understand how accessible info is on the internet and yet, he's using a pseudonym and has locked down his FB account - which suggests he's reasonably internet savvy.

Sounds as though you are torturing yourself a bit, with this. Hope you are able to talk openly and I hope he's responsive. I'm glad you have your other T.

Winenot- I would definitely tell him about this if for one reason--that you believe it's behind the anger you are feeling. Unaddressed anger can get really toxic and really keep you stuck in it; worse, it turns into depression after so long. If he reacts negatively, it says more about him than it says about you. If he handles it well, then it will really be super helpful to you and the relationship imo.

I've disclosed to T things I've found about him online thru google. I felt worried and guilty about finding things about his personal life (because I assumed he did not want to share his personal life with me) but he reassured me that I have as much of a right to this information as anyone else does because it is publicly available. Talking about it with him has led to a more 'real' relationship, with more intimacy and connectedness. Now we talk about his family dynamics, his interests, his feelings about things. This has really changed our relationship in the most positive way. I know some of this is different than your situation..

This could be affecting your trust. You may be doubting whether or not he is who he portrays himself to be. Maybe there are also fears of abandonment going on here. Regardless, if he handles it well, it could really allow your relationship to grow.

I hope you do tell him so that you have the opportunity to work through these issues. I think you might be endlessly stuck if you don't. But it's a risk, and I can appreciate that. Glad you have the other T to help you with this. Take care.

I googled my t a long time ago and I told her about it and that I found nothing other than her online profile, and she said it was because of her line of work she is vigilant about her online presence and there is nothing out there other than her t profile. I had no idea anyone in this day and age could keep themselves pretty much completely off the internet!!

Except for the online dating profile of my psychiatrist, he and my T are relatively anonymous online. He has no social media presence - no Facebook page or anything like that. My T has one but only keeps the pics of her daughter available to the public (she shares them with me in session when she had new ones anyway). The rest of her profile is private. There is zero to indicate anything about her life other than she has a dog and a child. I know a couple of lawyers who do Facebook but under pseudonyms and no public pics of themselves, family. I find it interesting that so many professionals who might benefit from the privacy allow so much of their personal life to be shown on social media sites. I think Ts can be so clueless about the impact this information can have on their clients. It takes some effort but is not difficult to keep your privacy and share what you think is appropriate but if you're internet savvy enough you can remain fairly invisible.

I think that mian siorai is on to something. How accurate do you find the following:

You have feelings for him. First he seemed to minimize them by pointing to the age difference. Next you come to find out that pointing to the age difference isn't just dismissive, it is actually disingenuous. No wonder you are angry! No wonder therapy is stuck.

What if you approached him in anger and indignation, rather than apologetically? On this approach, you would want to find out why he decided to mislead you rather than to explore the feelings as professionalism would require.

I found my T on facebook and she looks gorgeous in her wedding dress. Even my husband said "wow!" I don't think it takes away from therapy... I think making a big deal about it is what the problem is, not the actual looking it up and everything. It's natural to want to research your doctors. The fact that you're making such a huge deal about it should be brought up in therapy to talk about why you're making it into a problem.

I think therapy would be the place to go ahead and do things for the wrong reasons (not that I actually believe there are right and wrong reasons in this sort of thing- just keeping the language used)