Is it ever appropriate to ask your therapist personal questions????

Life is viewed with goggles. Our perspective of life and issues are determined by our life experiences. Most often than not people want somebody who has a similar background as them because they feel most comfortable talking to someone that views life similar as they do.

where I work for instance we have a lot of families that are new immigrants. They almost always want to talk with someone that is from the same or similar 'home country' as them. They are talking about issues with a perspective that a 9th generation, white american that was raised in a affluent suburban neighborhood and went to all private school would simply NEVER understand no matter how many books he might have read.

That is the extreme end.

More often than not it is smaller things that they are looking for to connect. A middle-aged mother of 4 sees the world differently than a 25 year old straight out of school and still living at home while she pays off student loans. The mother might ask personal questions such as, "do you have children" as a way to see how much she can relate to her therapist.

My sister is a veteran and adamantly REFUSES to see anyone that have not served. This is common among veterans.

As for me if my therapist didn't open up to me I probably would not see him. He answers all my questions--including some very personal ones such as if he experienced what i did--and he was very honest and authentic and respectful every single time that I answered.

As for my clients. I answer every single questions honestly. I am always so grateful when they ask me questions about myself because I know how difficult that it is especially since so many been shun out by former therapists that did not want to discuss.

read the book The Body Keeps Score

I have never heard that before.

What research are you referring to? I have never come across such research in any of the psychology journals I have read.

In my experience, T's without medical training or doctorates do not typically use "patient."

I use client, and I would correct a T who tried to use "patient." I do not have a mental health diagnosis and I do not seek medical treatment for any mental health concerns. I see an LCSW because I find it beneficial to talk things out with her. I am her client; I am not her patient. She has no medical training, so I would find it very odd if she suddenly started calling me a "patient."

Why? How about you share the research the book has since you are the person who is making a claim about its research? I have no personal need to read the book, but i am interested in this body of research you are noting.

So you DO use client...

I didn't ask for reading recommendations.

I'm sure there are some cases where patient is the appropriate term. In my case, it is not.

Noticed that too. Alimak, in what capacity do you work in mental health?

That is where the research is quoted. I am sure it elsewhere as well but that is where I read it.

The one book you referenced was written by an M.D. and is about his method of treating trauma. It has nothing to do with the way non-M.D. Therapists work or whether they do or should refer to the people they see as clients or patients. It does not cite any body of research that speaks to what you are saying.

I am just wondering what happened to my original question?

Threads morph.

Well, I don't foresee the opportunity for me to read such a book.

Also, I prefer research that is more widely accepted, not just one book by one person.

On the issue of the word "client" versus "patient," I prefer "patient" along with many partly because the word's origin means "one who suffers," and so it is appropriate regardless of medical or not medical. My therapist is also a doctor but most of the people that are his peers and colleagues, that is other analysts, also use "patient" even if they are not doctors. There is a traditional reason as well as not liking "client" because it is refers to something more like a contractual or financial type of relationship, which therapy is since that is involved, but some prefer to emphasize the human rather than business side of things. It has taken me a long time as someone in training to get used to using "client" or other terms related to business because to my ears it sounds so capitalist and alienating, but I realize that connotation does not occur to many.

In terms of asking questions, I'm not sure why there would be a problem. The therapist does not have to answer anything they don't want to and most therapists have a pretty well developed sense of what they will and will not go into. Worrying about it seems to indicate that the asking itself is like a forceful act or something when it is just words. If a therapist cannot handle words, then there is a problem. If there is a fear that the therapist can't handle words, then maybe that is worth exploring.

Many therapists are trained not to be personal or to self-disclose. Others have principled reasons why some degree of personal information is beneficial. It really depends. My therapist put it right out there at the very beginning that nothing was off limits to talk about (meaning as long as just words, things are open, but it doesn't mean actions are okay). He in fact encouraged me to let him know if I was having any thoughts, feelings, questions, etc that were about him or the therapy. But this is part of his approach, which is a specific form of analysis that uses such things as important. And there is not just a principled account of why, but some research that suggests that it is effective to be more personal in certain situations. Again it depends. And it could vary not just among therapists but also for one therapist among clients.

Even if there is a willingness to answer a personal question, most therapists would probably explore what is going on with the need to ask. I think it is safe to say that is pretty standard, whether or not the question is answered. So I would be prepared for a question or two back. And also for no answer. Meanwhile you can explore why it is important for you to know or to ask or to be hesitant about asking. All of that could be rich with information.

I don't think of myself as one who suffers - certainly not in relation to a therapist. Plus words do shift over time in meaning. So although the origins of both client and patient meant one thing - over time they have come to mean something else.

Words have a range of meanings, some cultural and some personal. There is room for a variety of perspectives and one does not exclude the others. I actually don't really care what I am called or thought of because it rarely comes up in actual practice. Just as I don't care about what I am called in terms of title or name. When interacting these things are not really in the picture as central. I do notice when people have strong feelings about such things. If someone insists on being called by a formal title, for instance, I wonder.

I honestly don't care if my T called me a client or a patient. Doesn't matter to me, really. As far as the book mentioned, I have it, but haven't read it yet.....I want to get started on it though.

Maybe you could ask a mod to split the thread into the two questions?

For me the word patient has connotations of power. I think that medicine/ health care has taken a wrong term, instead of a doctor working with the bodys natural healing, the use of drugs now dominates, a lot of the evidence for the effectiveness is dubious. I find the doctor patient relationship to be hugely unbalanced in terms of power, I go for a consultation and have to accept their approach to healing usually based on using drugs. The doctor is the expert. I expect a relationship with a T to be more one where we are co-collaborators working together to understand me, though I also expect there to be an element of healing through the relationship (I've read the stuff about how a good relationship will actually change the neurology of your brain, though the research on that may be as dodgy as the research on drugs). In psychiatry I feel that there is a huge power issue with the doctor making some kind of dubious diagnosis, which can be kind of stating that the person is not acceptable as they are. Those diagnoses are being developed alongside the drugs to enable the testing of certain drugs on certain 'types', but actually people are all different and cannot be grouped together in that way. The whole thing kind of ignores a person's lived experience, and the fact that this society has developed in a terrible way so that the wealthy have opportunity and others are oppressed by them. When my T called me her patient I was massively pissed off.

I hope nobody minds that the topic has flowed away from the original question. I don't really know about that. My T doesn't self disclose much, it feels right at the moment.

The whole thing where mds think they are the expert on my body and believe they are in an authoritarian position over me and my decisions about my body- it is why I avoid western medicine almost completely.

Some people have views of doctors and psychiatrists perhaps in particular where there are these power issues. That is why many are trying to move things away from what is called the "medical model." But this is not universal. My experiences with doctors is positive. The ones I know are humble and genuinely involved with providing attentive care.

Back to the question about questions...I gave a long answer, but I guess the short answer is simply, it is alway fine to ask your therapist any question (ruling out abusive, insulting, and otherwise inappropriate types of things). But asking a question does not mean that an answer is going to result. There are ways that therapist handle this where they turn the issue into one about the very asking of the question so an answer one way or the other doesn't come up, at least not at first.

As much as a therapist can decide to not answer a question or not - so can a client. I would not answer questions about my income for example.

I think it's appropriate to ask a therapist personal questions if it relates to trust and/or a topic the individual is struggling with, and it would help to know how deeply the therapist understands.

For example, I semi-asked my therapist if she was a narrow minded ideological bigot (only using different terms) by saying that our values don't have to align perfectly, but that I would have a hard time if she were X, X and X. She assured me she was far from that personal profile.

Other than that, I tend to prefer she disclose things herself, trusting that she won't overdo it.

I have no problem asking my therapist questions, but I'm not one to pry for personal information from people. I figure if they want to share, they will; and my therapists have always appropriately shared enough about themselves that I haven't felt terribly compelled to need to know much more.

I also am not much of a personal question asker in general and I just don't care about the therapist. But if I did, I would see no harm in asking.