Do you feel that your T is vulnerable in your sessions?

I don't sense any vulnerability from my T. She is blank slate, she says virtually nothing that is not directly related to me. My ex-T was different, and I used to feel that she was vulnerable too in the room, and that this was helpful to me. Now I write this, I wonder if it was actually helpful, as she was also defensiveness and I think maybe felt attacked when I gave innocent reflections on things in our relationship. Maybe she was too vulnerable? It seemed helpful as it meant I wasn't the only one who was vulnerable. I wish my T would show me more of herself, and be a bit vulnerable? But maybe she wouldn't be able to be so steady if she was? Maybe therapy would be more precarious for me if she was? But maybe I'd feel closer to her, and the relationship would be more meaningful?

Anyone got any thoughts on this?

No. I can't hurt a therapist.

My first T was like your first T, vulnerable and also defensive.
I don't find my current T particularly vulnerable, and I have been quite critical of him at times. If I have ever hurt his feelings he certainly hasn't let me know, and he's taken that and dealt with it himself or in supervision. I'm very glad I don't see his vulnerabilities, because I don't want to be inhibited out of fear of hurting his feelings.

I think my old T was a little vulnerable I think I made her nervous too, in a weird way. My new T displays a little bit but really not much, she is steady and I think that this is good for me. The level of attachment is lower, which I think is good, and she just comes across as solid. Tough to explain. We played a little game the other day which involved talking about ourselves. At first it was just an example and she was trying to act as someone else, not her but that got pretty confusing so we switched to talking about ourselves and I could actually sense her nervousness at sharing things about herself. interesting.

I think my T was vulnerable with me in the sense that the things I was talking about would make her cry, I can count on one hand the amount of times that happened. She would share things about her past that were relevant to myself and my therapy too.
I was grateful for her showing emotion and sharing things, made me feel safe that I could too!

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My t is pretty vulnerable and I highly appreciate it because that is exactly what helped develop the meaningful connection we have now, which is helping to heal. It created trust and taught me to open my heart. There have also been some minor negative effects to t being vulnerable but ultimately it's been very positive. T's vulnerability is something that I need to make my therapy work. I need that enhanced relationship. Sounds like you might need it too? Or is it a want?

I think they might be emotionally vulnerable at times, if a client's story triggers them. But I don't think a client can hurt them - if something a client does, short of a physical attack, hurts them, they need to work on their own stuff more.

I also don't think empathy is the same as vulnerability, but could easily be mistaken as such.

PrevT: not at all. Not that she was like a robot, but she didn't seem vulnerable to me. She didn't share feelings or emotions. I had two sessions with PrevT and current T and we talked about difficult topics and current T said that she could see compassion on my PrevT's face and that it's a shame I could see that because when it get hard I avoid eye contact.
But I don't know.
It would have been good for me to see her having emotions, if she had them. There have been sessions in which I felt terrible and I CRIED and she didn't seem different from when I was just calm. She maybe showed a little bit more caring/chariness in her face and voice. But this made me feel like she didn't really care.

I think current T might be a little bit vulnerable, but confindent and in control. She's more human, she's more open.

I agree with this.

That's really interesting to me, that people might see them as similar, because I see showing vulnerability and showing empathy as worlds apart from the therapist. I find my T very empathic, he is sometimes visibly affected by things I tell him, but it's always in a tremendously calm way. If he were to be more demonstrative (like T1 was) I would consider that lacking in empathy because he would be acting from his own feelings rather than focussing on mine. I saw a T recently when I was looking for a supervisor, and when I mentioned my mother's death she had this ridiculous OTT expression on her face. If she thinks that's empathy then I'm glad she's not my T.

I DEFINITELY don't want an over-sensitive, insecure, defensive or otherwise vulnerable therapist. If the T isn't secure, solid and adaptive, then how the hell can they teach me to be?

I don't see either of them as teachers, but I don't want to have to deal with their emotions. I pay them to keep that away from me.

Echos and Water bear, It's interesting that you both feel that you had a big attachment to your previous T's who were more vulnerable. I also felt that I had a greater attachment to my previous T, though it was a difficult attachment, and a difficult relationship. I feel a less powerful attachment to my current T, and the attachment that I have has grown gradually, and is usually easier to manage.

ItJustis, I feel that if my T shared more I too would feel that I could tell her things, I think I'd feel more secure.

Allheart, I don't know if it is a need or a want. I want it, but I wonder if she shared more if I would develop a more painful attachment, which I don't want.

Stopdog and AKAT, I don't really understand why you think a T can't be hurt. Can't we all be hurt at work or in personal relationships? Do you think that they keep a distance or have a protective stance so they can't?

Chummy, your previous T sounds like a T that it was hard to be close to.

All depends on what one needs from therapy, I guess. For me, not only do I NOT want T to express vulnerability, I actually need to believe he IS fairly robust. And then, as well as that inherent robust-ness I want him to refrain from fulfilling his own needs - which effectively means not spending time on his emotions during my session.

However it seems some here benefit from therapists being more expressive and appearing more vulnerable so whatever works -

That was very much my experience too. The attachment to current T has taken a lot longer to build. I don't know that it's less intense, but it's certainly more secure, and I don't have the anxiety about the relationship that I had with T1. Easier to manage is a good way to describe it.

I wouldn't use the word vulnerable, but sometimes letting me see her emotions has been helpful to me in working with my T. She does this on purpose and not because she cannot control her emotions. It helps me to have someone model how to deal with emotions without becoming overwhelmed by them.

My T does that too, but in a controlled way and I don't see it as being vulnerable. For me it is her helping me understand what they are, what they look like and that it is safe and OK for emotions to be felt and expressed. It has been useful I think but a long road and we are just at the beginning.

I have my seen therapists vulnerable when I have done something that is hard for out of my comfort zone or talking about loss or when they would share something from their life that has been difficult to go through. not always but on occasion.

I can't speak for SD, but what comes to mind is:

- to be hurt by someone you must care about them and their opinion of you. Not to depress anyone, but I don't think clients are that important to therapists - they play a far bigger role in our lives than we do in theirs. Hence a client can be hurt, much less likely the therapist. It's like doctors - they emotionally distance themselves from patients to survive.

- if a therapist can in fact be hurt or can't refrain from showing that they are hurt, they need to work on something. They need to be a stable base for the client, not someone whose feelings the client has to worry about.

A couple of days ago I told No. 3 that something she did and said was mocking, obnoxious, condescending, and passive-aggressive. She looked taken aback, but she showed no hurt feelings whatsoever in her responses. I suppose it's possible she was hurt, but I doubt it. She was able to keep my feelings about what she'd done separate from her own sense of self.

I did briefly see a therapist in college who claimed to be hurt by something I said (I don't remember what). We were already close to ending due to my graduating, but had I been seeing her longterm, I would have stopped then and there. To tell someone they hurt you in the therapeutic context is to me manipulative and removes a client's sense of safety.

In the time I've taken to write this SD has probably answered with a pithy one-liner...

I said it because I think there is a general tendency to confuse emotional expressions such as sadness at a client's story with emotional vulnerability. Showing emotions is not the same as being able to be hurt because you showed them.

I would say my T was empathetic and authentic, but not vulnerable (and I'm very grateful for the emotional freedom that accorded me.) Post therapy, I have seen him be vulnerable about his life, not about mine, though still in a boundaried sort of way. It's fine because the relationship is different now, but that vulnerability comes with inherent potential demands that I am comfortable with now, but would not have been comfortable with then.

I needed to rely on his ego strength to "prop up" my own. I didn't need a companion in misery which to me is more expressive of sympathy than empathy. I experienced a T like that in a group, and it ended very badly as she completely lost her objectivity and her vulnerability and its needs greatly destabilized the group.

ETA: re @t@t: I think there's a difference between being hurtful to and hurting. I don't see it as related to the genuineness of care that the T feels, but rather the functional strength of the T's defenses. The acceptance of what the client says may be hurtful, but if the T feels hurt, that's the T's weakness. And if a T then acts from that hurt feeling, it's a big problem.

I don't know if I would use the word vulnerable, but my t has told me about a time in his life when he felt shame. There was another time when we were working through something very difficult (he set a boundary he knew would hurt, but he felt was necessary) and he said he was upset that I angry because he has issues being perceived as "the bad guy." I've also seen him display genuine feelings when talking to me or about his family. When we talk about times I feel hurt, he takes accountability and has told me when I've said things that have hurt him. I don't think he is vulnerable to me hurting him if I lashed out at him or deliberately tried to hurt him, but he is real in our sessions--as much as therapy allows, which is a type of vulnerability.

My T is very empathic in a very genuine way but I'm not sure if I would say she is vulnerable. She doesn't share anything about herself but she will admit when she doesn't know something and will also share her feelings in relation to me such as "I feel your hopelessness" which I guess is empathy. I like that my T is stable and reliable it helps me to trust her and to feel safe because I know she will respond in a predictable way.

When you say vunrable, so you mean human? Than T is human in the room. But she's also in the role of T which makes it different to any outside human relationship. I see T's chest take deep breathes at times when I describe certain things. I'm not sure if you mean this or if I were to tell T I hare her and her collapse? Do you mean that by vunrabilty? Because anything that goes on in the room is therapy. About me ams my feelings. Which are also symptoms of my past. It's not for T to gather those for herself? There's a relationship between us. I can decipher between 'us' and the work. I think I'm confused when people talk about T and vunrabilty. I think that's all part of the work.

I too got confused by it Mouse. I read vulnerability as bring putting yourself in a position which could lead to harm or hurt or sadness or pain, which as a client I do regularly in my mind, because of the way I have been responded to in the past. Whenever I say anything I am expecting a negative response if that makes sense, though I do not get it this time round, with my T.

I dont think My T really puts herself in that position with me, because she is much surer of her position maybe. But it is a very internal feeling so I guess we can't really answer this question properly for our Ts. She has once said she felt vulnerable and that was when she showed me the new room before it was ready and it would tie in with my thinking above. She opened herself to negative criticism from me at that point. When she displays her emotions for me she does so in a teaching manner, but I guess maybe there could be vulnerability there.

With my Old T though, she was much more open than this T. She shared things about her life, her family and herself and visibly she was affected by me in some way. Mostly this was to help me as a client but I did feel like sometimes it was just because we had a relationship. I guess this led me to believe that I had some sort of 'control' over her maybe? That if I responded to her in a certain way she would feel hurt or sadness or a need to have me in her life? I don't know, it is confusing to me too. I know at one point she said that even if she could have continued to work with me she didn't know if she was the best person. I do sometimes wonder if this was because I affected her in this way. I mean it was like she got clumsy when I was around, its hard yo explain. In that way I think she was vulnerable, because I could affect her, and I think this did increase the level of attachment in a not so good way. Old T was great though in 95% of situations, just this tiny thing that got me thinking sometimes.

With current T, I don't think I have that affect on her. I think she is a lot more steady in herself when around me and I think that is what I need right now. Sure I would love to have what I had with Old T but deep down I don't think it was that healthy to be honest. This seems far more healthy to me to be honest.

I don't know if I made any sense there, even to myself!!