Is your T genuine?

What difference does it make as long as the client can reasonably abide being in the office with the therapist for 50 minutes a week?

For me, I choose not to spend much time around people who come off as less than genuine. I don't find it all that particularly difficult to tell the difference.

Genuine is not something I particularly concern myself with in general. I think most people are within reasonable limits or at least enough that whatever they are doing does not bother or concern or have any effect on me. I don't wonder if the dentist is genuine or lawyers or the plumber etc. I find that most professionals are engaging with me as their role and I am fine with that. If they cannot manage to appear not completely incompetent for the amount of time I engage with them, that is a problem for me, but genuine is not.

Mine is genuine enough, more than most I've seen anyway, but I have no way of knowing what she withholds. I have no doubt she is not being fully forthcoming as far as her thoughts about me, but I'm basically fine with how she presents. And I do think there is a persona for therapists, just like most professionals. It can be congruent with the non-work self, but not as complete. The problem is where their therapist persona is not congruent with their non-work self. Those are the ones that scare me. They can really mess people up.

What are we defining as genuine? Genuine, in my understanding, is simply being the person you are. It's not knowing everything about them or knowing who they are as a person deep down. I can be genuine and share very little about myself because my reactions or my statements simply are things I would say in that particular set of circumstances at that particular time to that particular person.

I'm the same person when I'm at a formal dinner as I am when I'm at home. I might behave differently in terms of what's social norm, but I don't consider myself "fake" just because I choose not to pass gas at the dinner table while I totally would let 'er rip if I were watching Netflix.

So when I say my T is genuine, I'm just saying he is being true to his personality under a certain set of circumstances.

I often read posts on here but rarely reply, but felt I had to for this one.
If I were having CBT, I wouldn't feel that sincerity or otherwise was an issue, but their competence would be important.
As I'm having psychodynamic therapy, where the relationship is crucial, then how genuine she is does matter. I'm dealing with several long term complex issues and it's the only method which is working.
I understand what ATAT says re a persona, but for me the difference is the emotional exchange. I don't share my innermost childhood horrors in a lecture theatre with students. But I do in therapy.
But then I go to learn more about my feelings, experiences and how to process them - and she is genuine in our sessions, which has helped.

I think it depends on who one defines genuine.

I think T very genuine. Being genuine does not mean one doesn't keep differences of opinions to themselves or that they act differently in the different roles of her lives.

I have friends and coworkers who do things that drive me crazy but not enough to make me want to end our relationship. I keep it to myself because it isn't a big deal and I wouldn't want people in my life to be all the same.

The person my coworkers and clients see is different from the person than my family or T see. I don't tell clients about my personal life and struggles as it is not their business no concern. When I am home I can be depressed, angry etc. At work I keep a professional face so in a sense it is an act. I don't think i am fake for but rather professional.

After working with T for so long I believe she is the same way.

Yes^ (ruh-roh). The issue of congruence is far more important to me than the appearance of genuineness as it's generally being discussed. I accept the professional's role as a good thing: I am not interested in spending my time, emotional self, and money to be the receptacle for whatever T thoughts flow unchecked from mind to mouth to action. Jane's experience is a good example of that. It's my T's job to take great care with his words and actions in relation to me. The difference between a T and a plumber, however, is that one of the tools of the T's trade is the emotional self. If that emotional self is out of balance and at odds with the professional role, that incongruence opens the door to incompetence and possible ethical and moral violations. I want to minimize that risk. The degree to which I can believe in and use my T's interventions (what I think is being referred to as genuineness) is related to the degree I can perceive such congruence.

I think she is. She is very honest about what she thinks.not afraid to tell me if she is mat at me or if shes annoyed, or proud, or happy, or concerned.she is very blunt. It is very helpful.

hi walking,
my therapist is very trustworthy with me .she would never say anything negative about me at all. she doesn't judge and she never looks down on me or disrespect me as her client. though she would take on the role as a devil's advocate once in a great while in counseling , she is trying to get me to be honest with her . at the same token I want her to be honest as possible with me as my counselor.







Diagnosis: Anxiety and depression
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I do agree that I can't know what my therapist is thinking. Heck, she doesn't know what I'm thinking quite often. I do expect her to act professionally and keep her personal, non-professional opinions to herself. We all have those thoughts and most professionals and non-professionals know that there are certain things better not shared.

As many of you know, I've been on the "inside" of the professional therapeutic community and what is sometimes said about clients, things I know none of the therapists would ever DARE say to the client's face, is horrible. It's very similar to the "gallows humor" you hear in hospital settings (in my former career, I was an R.N.). I don't like when professionals engage in that kind of degrading, judgmental talk, but it happens. Not all professionals engage in it, and I would certainly hope that I've evaluated my therapist correctly in that she isn't the type of person to join in with others when clients are bashed or talked about in a way that is derogatory. But the reality is, I can never know for sure because unless I can shrink myself down to the size of a fly and hang out with her without her knowing, I won't know. Truthfully, I can't know if my boss, my friends or my family aren't engaging in that kind of behavior when it comes to how they really feel about me, but I would sure hope they're not.

I'm going through asking myself if my T is being honest/genuine w/me now. I care what my T thinks of me, which might be my personality, or it could be I'm forming an attachment. I've never been terribly concerned about what people thought of me before, but it seems important to me now. I think if I can't trust my T to be honest with me, s/he will not be doing all of their job. If one's T isn't honest w/them, what's the point of trying to work through one's issues w/them? I used to have two friends who told me they couldn't tell me if they were angry w/me because of something I did or said (I'd asked them...) - they said they thought telling me would ruin the friendship. Not telling me ruined the friendship. But, like I said, I need for my T to be honest and genuine w/me; seems part of the therapy agreement for me. Maybe my T thought something I did wasn't a good decision. I'm not so concerned that my T thought what I did wasn't a good decision, but I want to know *why* T thought I'd made a bad decision.

Yes, and i didn't think that I cared about that stuff, or more likely, should care about that stuff, but with my last T, i could never tell what she thought about me, and was serious and very blank slate-y. All I did was project that she was a step away from firing me, and with this T, i do still have those fears every once in awhle, but she is so open and genuine-seeming that I worry much less.

This is something I have thought about from time to time and it sometimes scares me. You will never know what anyone is really thinking because you can't get inside of there head. You have to hope that a persons words and actions match what they are thinking.

Yes, I believe he is. He has told me hard things and shows what I believe is genuine emotion. Moreover, I believe that he is a good man who is not deceptive by nature. I have had other therapists I have not felt this way about.

I feel like my current T is pretty genuine. Even though I pay her to listen to me I still feel like she is genuine.

How would you know whether the personality the person shows as a therapist is theirs or their therapist persona? I don't see that it matters, but I don't think people are as good as knowing as some seem to think.
Genuine in what way? They certainly work to be perceived a certain way, like most other professionals or even people in their non professional lives, but I don't think it is easy to tell and I give them credit for being very wily at clients. I hear descriptions of therapists who I know in real life from their clients- and the client usually is fairly off base in the situations I know about. Both in the way Jaybird described and just in how the therapist friends have described their job as a form of acting.

I agree that people CAN act very different in their professional versus personal lives, but that is real work to make yourself seem a different person depending on who you are portraying yourself to. Maybe that makes it seem a bigger deal than it is, but I am a preschool teacher and clearly 2 year olds see a very soft, gentle person who only raises her voice when it is necessary. Obviously they don't see me as a person who swears like it is a second job, or has massive road rage, or cuts herself...etc...I guess someone could see that as me being two different people, but really, my job brings out the best in me in some ways. I am "forced" to be kind and gentle because these are little, tiny things, but I am not acting non-genuine either.

There is no way I could be a preschool teacher without actually caring about toddlers. For T's who truly care about their job and are "genuine" in the room, they probably portray the best of themselves as I do, but that doesn't also mean it is false. We see a very specific side of them, but I think that is ok. Though I will say my T easily points out her faults. I just sent her an e-mail last week because I was scared she thought I was a terrible teacher because last week I just had HAD IT with the kids in the afternoon, and "yelled" at them to go to the carpet, and had to have a serious talk about not shouting and banging trucks around. I told my T that i didn't yell so much as raise my voice against the din and used my "firm" voice at the children.

She wrote back that it was totally normal, and I should hear how she yells at her kids. That made me feel better, because I constantly am striving to be a calm, zen teacher around 13 two-year olds, and it is HARD sometimes.

Sorry, a bit off tangent!

I know I NEEDED to believe my T cared, I needed to believe she was a genuine person. I thought I couldn't be hurt if she cared, I thought that I wanted my story to be heard, really heard by someone who would soothe som e of the wounds with caring about how I felt. When I read posts on here that suggested otherwise I would feel very panicked because to trust my T and relax that I was safe I had to believe.

Well she hurt me anyway, very badly, and so now I know that caring and being genuine doesn't protect you BUT I also think it was worth trying it and that one day I may even risk trusting again. I also don't worry if new T is genuine as long as I can count on her to be a T then I'm ok.

I really don't mean to scare anyone. I look at it this way--in life, there are always people who will be false in their presentation. They know how to act or behave in order to get what they need out of life, and they know how to hide or put on a persona that is "acceptable". People like that are in all walks of life, in all professions. Psychotherapists are no different than others--there are good, genuine, caring and compassionate therapists and there are false ones. Sometimes we know which is which, and sometimes not.

I figure that if my therapist is good at her job, if she's compassionate and caring and if she doesn't make snide, judgmental remarks to my face, then I can use her skills to help myself deal with my life more effectively. What I don't need or want to do is tie myself up in knots trying to read her mind or interpret every word, inflection or expression she uses in an attempt to determine whether or not she's being truthful and genuine. That would drive me over the emotional cliff! What counts for me is how she behaves when she's with me. People who aren't genuine usually give themselves away over time . . .or at least they do in my experience. I have no problem walking away from someone--therapist or friend--who proves that the trust I put in them was misplaced.

That was a great post, Velcro. It reminds me of an incident with one of my colleagues. I really really respected her and early in my career, I learned a lot from her on how to work effectively with children with severe emotional and behavioral problems. She was just so darn calm, compassionate and gentle with the kids. She had great boundaries, but the kids just loved hanging out in her office because she was so respectful of them. I remember telling her once how much I respected her and she laughed and said, "You should have seen me running up the stairs after my daughter (teenager) last night yelling and telling her she was grounded. You wouldn't have been so impressed with me then!" What that taught me is that she could have that tenderness and compassion in the professional setting, and she had it in her personal life, but sometimes, in real life, she wasn't able to hang onto that persona--in other words, she was human. I think it is easier to step into a clinical setting, put on one's therapeutic persona and be the caring, empathetic and non-judgmental person the client expects and needs for their session time.

When I say genuine, I don't mean doing or saying anything that comes to mind at that instant. You can be polite and professional and still be genuine.

I think it's really important to be genuine. I don't like acting. I want to know the person I am with, and I want them to know me. It's that simple. Acting gets in the way. We don't have to say everything, but what we say should be true.

I realize that some people are used to acting all the time.

I actually prefer it that the ones I see are acting. They are not real to me and I am not to them - they are in a role to me as I am to them. For me, it is the thing that allows it to happen at all.
I don't consider acting a bad thing in a professional. I am not saying they are all awful people as therapists or in real life and acting does not imply they are. Their job is to play a part - that is all I mean.

JaneTennison1, That's exactly what I need. I really need someone to hear me, and care about me in some way. I understand my therapist can't give me everything I need, but if she is really personally there for me in a professional capacity, it's huge.

This is what I was thinking as I read through the thread. I know a couple of therapists as acquaintances who are in a couple of groups I'm in. Neither of them act with much integrity. I know someone who sees one of them as a T and loves her. I question in my head how that can be true, because I know the woman and she's not very kind or genuine! I also think about my professional self. My colleagues and others who know me see me as a successful, master teacher who coaches new teachers and has high impact in the classroom. They have no idea that the past six months I can barely put one foot in front of the next and half the time wish I was dead. Our Ts could be putting on their professional facade when in the office and we really might not know anything but that part of who they are.