Therapist understands a client better than the client does?

Do you think the therapist understands or knows you better than you do yourself?

Sometimes, usually, yes. Once in a while, it's as though she just met me.

I think the therapist has the advantage of distance and perspective, and therefore the ability to spot patterns - like from an airplane? We, like the farmer of those plots of land, may feel we know the dirt more intimately than the commuter pilot traversing the same path month after month... hmm. I think im ready to vote now!

I voted sometimes and yes, it is positive. He has the advantage of objective perspective. He doesn't have to wade through the layers of denial and mistaken belief and emotion that muddies up and clouds my thinking and perspective. He doesn't have the depression or mania or psychosis I sometimes have to think through to gain perspective.

What Hankster said.
He knows the patterns better - like he says, I'm textbook, but only when it comes to my issues. I know me better.

No. That is creepy and weird to me.

Absolutely not. No one could possibly understand me as well as I understand myself. She has never walked in my shoes or seen the world through my eyes. She is limited to what I tell her and how she observes me during our one hour a week in her office. She has never seen me out in the real world, she has never met the people in my life, and she was not there when I was growing up. T can also never be completely objective-- she views me (and everything else) through the lens of her own experience and her own beliefs and biases. I think my T does a good job of relating with me and listening to my experienced, but she can neve understand me fully.

I think being in tune with myself is actually one of my strengths. I would find it disturbing if T thought she had the ability to understand me as well as I understand myself. In fact, if she made that kind of a claim, I would have to find another therapist-- one wit less of a god complex.

Sometimes my t can see things I'm doing that patterns across relationships or thought patterns that repeat in my life bc he has the benefit of distance, but in terms of knowing myself, I don't think anyone could know me better than I know myself.

Yes, certainly. I know myself pretty well, but she just understands me so much better. It is an eery feeling. but it is also very positive.

While on the whole I find the thought of her knowing me better than I know myself to be a bit creepy, I sometimes do wish she just got me more. Sometimes I feel surprised when she brings up something I told her a while ago because my general feeling is that she doesn't hold on to any of it. I wish that more often she'd put it all together for me and make this a little easier on me. Maybe I'm just lazy...

I think my T definitely understands me and maybe doesn't "know" me better than I know myself but, like others have said, she can notice patterns and things that I better than I can. She also has the added benefit of talking to a lot of other people with similar problems so I'm sure she notices things I do that her other clients do/have done and it allows her to pick up on it more quickly and understand me better.

I think there is a difference between "knowing" and "understanding" though.

ok... "Other." My therapist really does "get" me. She doesn't get everything though. It's been a process. I don't know that it's possible for anyone to wholly understand anyone else. I think it's all about communication. Starts on day 1. What my therapist definitely did is work to understand me.. understand what I was trying to tell her one way or another. There were moments when she said something that surprised me - something I hadn't realized that showed great insight into what was going on inside me. But the whole process of her "learning" me was very therapeutic - taught me a lot about how relationships should work. And there was one issue that ended up being a huge deal. Over her stupid cell phone. Chronic problem. Took a long time to get it resolved. So there were times early on in that thing that made me feel like she didn't get a single thing. But it turned out to be good that it was so difficult because I successfully used things I'd already learned in therapy to finally get her attention. I overcame my reluctance to keep pushing. I got ahold of a smidgen of "stopdog-power" and demanded that she pay attention to the problem I had with her stupid cell phone going off.

Turns out she worried that she'd forget to turn it back on. I finally told her that she needed to figure out another way to deal with that problem because her phone was not welcome in my session. She finally 'heard' me and I could really sense the sudden awareness she had and the shame she felt at how all that affected me. But she immediately took great care to make sure it was turned off whenever I was with her.

And that was all good, because it served to show me how I will actually not be annihilated by my complaint. That I won't be rejected and hated, and that it can actually work out well! So my voice is okay after all :-) I may not have figured that out if we had not had that problem. But ultimately, she did indeed understand.

So I think the whole "understanding" thing is fluid.

I voted rarely. I think that it's probably true that on rare occasion my T, and other people who know me well, know me better than I know myself. I rarely say never... (But I don't never say never... )

At first, I used to sometimes assume that my T understood me better than I did. She was quick to remind me that I am the expert on me, and that she did not have the power I was attributing to her. One of the many reasons why I'm thankful for my T.

She sounds like a good therapist who doesn't think of herself as some kind of god. It would be great if more of them were like that.

PrevT understood me better than I do...and it was helpful.

CurrentT understands a lot, but she does not understand me better than I do. I wish she did. I am trying to help her understand.

I've never had a therapist claim to understand me as well as I understand myself; none of my therapists have "god complexes." I'm not sure that is at all what the question was asking either, but I suppose it could be construed that way.

And no, I don't think they always understand everything about me better than I do myself; that would be silly because, as you say, they have not lived my life which is why I answered "sometimes."

I also answered "yes, and it is positive" though because I have learned over time that my therapists have understood things about me much sooner and more clearly than I was able to. I've reached a point now where I think I finally know myself better than anyone, but I spent years and years completely lost: lost in my misbeliefs inflicted on my by my abusers; lost in my depression that was like trying to think and function through quicksand; lost in my skewed sense of the world around me that I've realize now was a bit like looking through very distorted lenses.

My therapists were able to see more clearly what was going on with me, what was driving me down some very negative and dangerous paths, what was probably going to need to happen before I could ever find my way clear of the quicksand and depression and warped sense of reality. The hard part was getting to the point where I could finally see myself for who I really was.

Maybe some people have done that all their life, but I can honestly say, I only knew parts of myself and the rest was very confused and lost. Having that person who could see me more clearly when I definitely could not led me to this place right now where I finally can see myself very clearly and can function completely. Thank goodness I had someone who could help me see my way through.

I think, when I am clouded by my own issues, a T who knows me can "know" me better than I know myself, so I voted sometimes. I have had T's who understood me really well, and saw things that I was unable to see at the time.
I don't expect it though, nor do I think it happens often.

The major reason I decided not to interview other therapists after my initial session was that he already started articulating some of the unspoken stuff hanging out in the room. I'm paying a therapist to help me understand myself better and though I want to figure a lot of it out myself, I assume that to do help me do this he needs to have some idea of what's at least potentially there. On the flip side, if I thought my therapist thought they knew me better than I do and never checked things out with me I'd be out of there faster than you can say "arrogant". Been there, done that, got the T-shirt.

Shorter version: if my therapist only knew what I know I could just journal and keep the co-pays.

I haven't been going to my therapist that long but he listens and sometimes make connections that didn't occur to me so I think it's on track.

Ain't that the truth!

I voted sometimes. There have been a few times where she was completely wrong in something she thought, but there have been way more times where she's hit the nail on the head, saying things I didn't even realize until she did. An "ah ha" moment. Of course she can't know everything, and there are some things...she'd never even guess, and would probably be quite surprised about. Some things I'm just not ready to talk about. Of course, the other way around, there have been things I've said in therapy, where I answered my own questions. I just knew what she'd say. Do I know her better than she knows herself? Not by a longshot. But, I've just been with her long enough to know what she'd say. She surprised me my very first session....telling me I was feeling a way I was sure I wasn't feeling. Well, I kept that in the back of my mind....enough to pay more attention to myself... and sure enough, I recognized it. I'd been that way for YEARS...and never knew it consciously. But first meeting with her, and she pegged it. There have been other things too. Mostly though, things I DID know and agree with, that I just didn't talk about until it stared us straight in the eyes basically.

It was mentioned on another thread and so I thought Poll to see how others felt. I did not see the question as god complexy because I was more focusing on how the client saw the situation - not the therapist.

For me, the first one does not get me much at all or if she does, she hides it well. The only area I would say she understands what I am talking about is when I talk about the dog. She has said she is very attached to her own pet.
The second one is at least better at understanding what I am saying when I talk - she is better read and more academic. In a perverse twist - pets are a thing the second one does not get at all.

That's how I interpretted it too. Not sure what thread you are referring to since I've only been reading threads very sporadically today. I was replying to Scorpiosis who seemed to focus on T's who may see themselves as knowing a client better. I think the question is hard to poll because it can be interpretted very differently by different people.

The pollster's lot is not an easy one.

I voted "no, but I wish he did." I know that I don't understand myself all that well, that's why I want therapy. But my therapist seems to be missing the boat a lot too, so I can't really vote a "yes" here

Thanks for this poll, stopdog - I've seen people on here say their therapists understand them better than they do themselves and I've always felt uneasy about that idea. I voted Never and Other because my view is more nuanced, besides I don't think this is a horrible thought. I think a therapist knows more than the average client about psychology, mental health, emotions (not the client's emotions, but generally what emotions are and how they can get expressed) etc. I think a skilled therapist can help clients put into words and understand about themselves things the clients didn't understand before. I also think that an intuitive therapist can get an overall idea of what a client may be feeling or may need or may have experienced, sometimes before the client realizes it. But this is a kind of wondering-about and the therapist can be wrong just as well as s/he can be right, and a good therapist knows this and checks with the client. Now comes the reason why I said never - while I believe many therapy clients have some issue putting their feelings and experience into words or seeing personal patterns, I still believe that at an implicit level, the client knows before the therapist does. The therapist may actually never know. The client is the one with the first-hand experience. Sure, a therapist can understand correctly and that can be a very validating or insightful experience for many. But I don't think that is at all the same as understanding the client better than the client does. I think this concept takes away from the client's power - as if the therapist knew the client's life so much better, thus the therapist can fix it while the client can't. I think this line of thought is dangerous. For me, therapy needs to empower the client to understand and improve his/her own life.

I also believe that no one, therapist or not, no one can truly understand someone else's experience in its entirety and in its uniqueness. Only the one who has lived through it and who experiences it can know what it's like 100%. Others can only approximate and enquire.