Would you rather be called a patient or a client by your therapist?

Client. Patient makes me feel like someone sick in the hospital.

Sure...though some therapists do seem to expect obedience from clients. Either way, there's still a sense to the word of needing a patron, just as a client needs a lawyer or an accountant. Otherwise it would just be a synonym for customer. Which I am now determined to try out on a therapist sometime.

I'm not sure.

I go to a hospital as an outpatient, and take psychiatric medication. The clinic staff to my psychologist and my psychiatrist refer to me as a patient.

T likes "client" or "some people" because she feels it's more equalising compared to patient.

I lean towards patient.

I prefer client. And even though T is a Dr., he uses client as well.

I'm fine with patient with Pdoc, though, as i see her for meds.

So it's not the word. It's people's understanding of the word that is the issue? Therapy can help with that lol

Definitely client. He is not a Dr and isn't qualified to call me a patient. I would find it laughable if he did.
I have no problem with the term client. To me it doesn't suggest a power imbalance, it denotes somebody paying somebody else for a professional service, which is completely accurate.

Client feels less medical, T isn't a dr.

I've never really noticed what T calls me.

It really doesn't matter to me when she call's me one or the other. Yet I have noticed, when referring to my therapist to other people I describe the relationship that I am a 'client' of hers.

You make a good point.

I think there are some situations where one or the other more definitely fits. One one end of the spectrum, a schizophrenic inpatient or someone receiving therapy for mental illness from a psychiatrist, patient is pretty appropriate. On the other end, there are people are not in fact mentally ill but seeking therapy for other reasons. ie marital counseling....I think calling the couple patients could be offensive.

My therapist was a psychiatrist. She didn't use the terminology one way or another most of the time. when she did it was usually "patient". It didn't bother me. As I work in medicine too, patient is a familiar term/relationship and it wasn't demeaning or offensive to me in anyway. It didn't feel like she was being overly paternal or anything.

I would not be ok with that one either.

My friend works for a charity supporting people with learning disabilities, and they call the people who use the charity "people we support".

I know its not quite the same situation, but that do you think of that term? For a T to call you "a person I support". It's a bit of a mouthful, but a T does (or should) support us, so I think it could work.

I don't see them as people who support me. I cannot fathom how a therapist could support someone who hires them.

Supportees?

Counselee? It's actually a word - meaning one who is being counseled.

In psychoanalysis the one hiring is called analysand.

At the residential program I was in they called people "residents". They thought patient was dehumanizing. You also couldn't tell the staff apart from the residents as there was no formal dress code or name tags. They are a pretty progressive treatment facility.

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Therapisand is apparently an actual word that is used as a synonym for client.

The word makes it look like therapy is being done in a sandbox, but I do like the word.

My therapist is a psychiatrist so it makes sense to me that he refers to his patients as such. That being said, he never addresses or refers to me at all, or calls me anything to my face, because there's never anybody else present in the room so there is no need for that - my language works differently from English in that respect, and even when we do speak English, that rule holds. (I have never called him anything to his face either.) But he has occasionally said things about "other patients", so that seems to be his preferred term.

A T I saw previously worked for an organisation where they referred to the clients/patients with a word that means, roughly, "somebody who tells you things in confidence". There is no exact equivalent in English. That word is more commonly used in a religious context, such as pastoral care (not confession, though) which made me feel a little uneasy, but other than that it's a pretty good term, I think.

It would be great if she started to refer to me as her husband

I prefer client because it makes me feel more adult and equal. Patient makes me feel like a victim.

I'm a patient of my psychiatrist but a client of my counselor. I prefer client because it doesn't carry the implied weight that something is wrong with me, I'm sick, etc. It feels more equal and now I understand why my T prefers it, too.

I don't like the word 'patient' in the psychotherapy context. I don't see myself as sick. On the other hand, if I were in the care of a psychiatrist and was taking meds she prescribed, then I would definitely be her patient.

I like 'client'. My therapist helps me like my accountant helps me with my financial accounts and like my attorney helps me with legal issues. So, my therapist helps me with emotional challenges.

My t isn't a doctor, so she refers to hose she treats as clients. My pdoc calls us patients. He's a doctor and that doesn't bother me. It would bother me if my t called me a patient.