Therapists asking for reports on how they're doing

Another thread put me in mind of this.

How common is it for a therapist to ask for feedback? Both of mine routinely ask (every few sessions or so on average), what kind of job they are doing as my therapist. How would I evaluate their performance, and can they do anything differently/better?

It's not the same as asking "how is therapy going for you?" (they don't ask that because I tell them, regularly) and it doesn't seem to be fishing for compliments, as I am not always complimentary in response but they keep doing it.

I am a little surprised they ask - it's not a question I've ever gotten from a doctor or a teacher, say, though you do fill out surveys on them - so I wondered how common it was?

During the first six months or so, mine asked on a regular basis. She didn't seem to be fishing for feedback on her skill, but more wanted to know if our relationship was 'working' for me. She particularly wanted to know negative stuff. The good thing about this was that over time, I was eventually able to tell her if I was having a problem with anything. She stressed that it was very important that she could 'trust me' to not hide any problems I was having with her or therapy. I'll never forget when she had again stressed the importance of me telling her if there was a problem, and then said "I expect there to be problems from time to time, and if you will tell me, then we can work it out together." It was really a genius thing to do. I got very comfortable telling her about things that bothered me about her or therapy, and I learned a ton of stuff from the whole thing of "working it out together."

No but I do routinely tell him when something is helpful and when something isn't, so perhaps he doesn't need to ask.

Never. I tell her how she screws up, but not because the woman asks.

No, but that is probably because we keep a pretty open dialogue and I let him know if I don't agree with or understand something he is saying or doing, so the need for him to ask just isn't there because we already just naturally do this.

No, but I think they should ask.

I wish! I've never been asked. I've asked, innocently enough and after considerable time has passed, how my therapist thought the therapy was going, and one male therapist of mine practically blushed.. and was always more nervous around me after that. Sorry!

For an important project, it's always good to have a plan, right? Including intervals for discussing goals and progress, if you want to get somewhere specific. It can be heartbreaking to find out once already pretty far downstream, if you're only meandering.

Mine never asks for feedback about how she's doing, but I give it to her anyways.

Well, now I definitely think they should ask too. I am shocked at the poll results so far, and I don't think it's due to everyone being fortunate enough to have a relationship with her therapist like lolagrace does. When I teach, I know I will get evaluations from a university survey at the end of the semester, but when I am teaching a topic for the first time or a class seems to be struggling, I will ask them directly or set up a survey on Survey Monkey for feedback.

I assumed mine were doing something they had been trained to do.

It seems like such a simple question to ask. And such an important area to ask it in.

That sounds like a wonderful idea. I don't think my T cared. Even after telling him problems, I felt he just didn't want to hear me. Asking would open a door to vulnerability and my T was a control freak & very self-righteous. I doubt it would work for him.

I have never been asked by either therapists I have worked with.

So far in my training this is one of the things they recommend you routinely do as a T, and most of the interns I am in supervision with do this every few sessions or so.

I would not like being asked this. If my therapist doesn't know how she's doing, I'd want to find one who does. I think there has only been one time in the past year where I had to point out where she was off base or not (in my opinion) tuned in.

I had to fill out a form for every pdoc appt, though, and lied each time because I didn't want retaliation.

I'm not saying it should be required, and yes, some clients might not want such a question, and some therapists might be sufficiently attuned to their clients to have no need of asking it. I was a little thrown by it myself.

However, I think asking indicates that they're actually thinking about how to do their job as well as possible for each client (I'm guessing mine ask every client they see); they may well have a sense of how they're doing, but double-checking with the person most affected by their job performance seems reasonable to me.

They never needed to, I'm pretty upfront about how I feel about how they're doing. If I don't like something I'll tell them, not in anger you or snarky way. I'll say I don't like it when you do that or conversely I'll say I liked what you did when this or that happened. Then we've usually discussed the whys and wherefores whether or not it's working.

This is how my relationship is as well.

About 2 or 3 times a year my T will ask how I think things are going and how things could be improved.

I guess I would not want to see one that's not self aware enough to notice how their work is affecting someone.

It looks like well over half of those who have commented say they either have those conversations naturally so the therapist hasn't needed to ask directly or they feel completely comfortable discussing such things with their therapist. Another respondent said it is routinely taught as something that therapists should be doing. So apparently, many therapists and clients are having these conversations.

Unfortunately the poll didn't have a choice of "No, my therapist doesn't bring this up because I do" or "No, my therapist doesn't bring this up because we have these conversations as a natural course of our sessions," so the flat "no" answer is a bit unclear and unqualified. I answered "other" because he doesn't ask, but that is because he hasn't needed to. Other people may have answered "no" for the same reason, but it makes it look like the vast majority of therapists/clients never have these discussions when the comments seem to reflect that they do BEFORE the therapist has to directly ask. I suspect if those kinds of answer choices were available on the poll, the absolute "no" choice percentage would go down and those other qualified "no" answers would balance out with the "yes" answers. It's probably a bit more balanced than what the poll is showing right now.

I think it is different for the client to bring it up rather than the therapist. I think it shows a different mindset from the therapist to ask for feedback rather than if the client does it anyway. Plus the therapist can still be wrong if they think they know without asking directly. The one I see gets it wrong constantly -and this is despite me telling her all the time. She simply does not pay attention. It has never been something any of the 4 I have for more than one appointment - has asked. And I don't believe their failure to do so was because we were already discussing it. I believe it is not a common practice amongst them.

And polls are hard to make please everyone.

I've had two good therapists and several bad ones. One of the good ones checked in regularly. My current one and I have a great relationship - he doesn't check in, which is ok because we work really well together, but I'm not sure he would. I have no idea how he deals with things when they are going awry.

None of the bad therapists ever brought up any of those issues. I suspect from my own experience that it is actually not all that common for therapists to do so. I was very unhappy with several of these therapeutic relationships, but the therapists didn't make a whole lot of space to talk about it. Several of them really didn't seem all that aware of what was going on in the room.

They never ask, but I think they should so they get to know if they're doing a good job or not. I would be interested in that if I was a therapist

I absolutely agree with that. Who would? But I know from teaching that it's sometimes clear that something is affecting a student and I have no idea what - me, the class, life? So I ask if the situation warrants it.

I am really glad that you don't feel the need to discuss it with your therapist, that suggests a good level of attunement between you.

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She doesn't, but I tell her when I disagree with something she says/proposes or when she's going on and on about a subject I don't think is important enough to go on and on about. And this summer she once made a big mistake. I emailed her after session, said I understood it couldn't be easy for her to do it right, but it was still unacceptable how it turned out.

This is all true - polls are flawed. Still, so many more people answer the polls on PC than comment on them that I am not sure whether the polls or the comments are more reflective of an accurate "answer."

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