What is a connection between therapist and client?

What is a connection between therapist and client? What does that mean or look like to you?
I do not believe I have one to the therapists I hire - I am not certain how such a thing would be possible to have with a stranger like the therapist. I don't know why such a thing would even be desirable. It certainly did not happen when I let the woman talk - that was actively repellent. Now that the woman does not talk and I only use her for two topics completely unrelated to why I went to see a therapist in the first place, I still don't see how any part of it could be described as having a connection with someone who is sitting there acting a role.

So just thought I would ask what others mean when they say they think they are connected.

This is actually hard for me to define. I think different people would describe it differently. For me I feel like connection is close to love. Or at least genuine concern from the therapist. Feeling like they really listen to you. I think anything I would name would be the opposite of what you are looking for.

Basically, a T understanding what I'm saying -- both the verbal and non-verbal parts -- and responding accordingly, is what I'd call a connection.

Of course, there isn't perfect understanding but good enough etc.

With former T, it felt like I was always explaining myself in excruciating detail -- might as well have brought in a whiteboard and markers and drawn actual diagrams and still failed to make myself understood by her.

With current T, she basically 'gets it' so quickly and to such an extent (and basically sometimes riffs on stuff I'm saying in a rather pitch-perfect way [E.g. In the last session, it was awesomely hilarious as she riffed on some super creepy behavior from family that's often tied me up in knots]), that I almost have to stop and just slow down. Even when I've had to correct her understanding of stuff -- most often with regards to cultural nuances -- she understands so quickly and so accurately that it's a bit spooky (or maybe my standards are low after having dealt with former T for so long).

And, for what it's worth, she's not remotely warm / fuzzy in any obvious way -- no touch, doesn't disclose any personal stuff, rather understated expressions and doesn't really offer any out of session contact (maybe brief texting to schedule an additional session but that's it) etc. So, the connection such as it is, is entirely based on how she responds to stuff I say (or don't say) in session.

I guess in general, I don't define connection with a T any different from a connection with other people in my life -- with some folks, there is some sort of a quick understanding and with others, the whole enterprise of understanding and being understood feels more like sinking in quicksand.

". I think anything I would name would be the opposite of what you are looking for."

I am just trying to understand what people are talking about

Sorry stopdog I didn't mean to derail the original question. And no judgement meant here on my side

It is fine - I am not trying to be argumentative - I really don't know what people mean - I don't know how one gets such a thing with a therapist. I don't know if I am defining it differently or what.

I think awkwardly put it very well. Today on dr phil they had a mother daughter combo, and early on in the show dr phil asked the daughter what she wanted from the mother. The daughter pretty clearly said, for her to love me, to know she loves me. The rest of the hour, the mother was argumentative as heck.

At the end of the show, dr phil goes, well daughter, thats a reasonable thing to want, but it just might not be in your life plan that you get that. He goes, like you might want me to give you your car keys, but i dont have your car keys. I cant give you what i dont have. Your mother cant give you what she doesnt have.

That to me corresponds to the sinking in quicksand.

I dont understand why you repeated the question, or explained yourself, or whatever, in post #4. I dont have as low an opinion of ts as you do, at least as regards my current one, so i do value having a connection and dont regard him as a stranger. I wouldnt feel good about myself constantly hanging around a person i felt so negatively about - i already gave at home and the office, as the old joke goes.

Being comfortable talking to that person about personal things.

I did believe I had some sort of genuine connection with the one T, that had nothing to do with therapy or came about despite therapy. But it was distorted by therapy and the role playing (as you say) and by all her evasions and manipulations, so that I still don't know the nature of it or how much was real. It was such a confusing mess I can't even describe it coherently. In general i see therapy as too contrived for much real connection. It's connection-for-hire.

Una
I did not have the type of relationship with my parents that you describe having with yours.

I am not challenging anyone and telling them they are wrong - I am trying to get what is meant by the idea. I am not trying to fight with you.

Perhaps that is a difference. The woman being other/stranger is useful to me for the things I choose to tell her.

I am concerned the woman thinks she has one with me.

feeling he is here for me, on my side, rooting me on, cares about me, plays with me, laughing together, being serious together, opening up to him and being vulnerable, and his response to that. knowing he is going to consistently be there and consistently be himself. i do not see my therapist as a stranger

Good points. I often thought going to a therapist was like buying a friend to listen to me.

Neither am i, regarding just about everything you said there. Its like saying, is the glass half empty or half full?

I say having a connection with a t makes my glass half full, because before t, my glass was empty.

I get the impression you came to the table with a full glass, then the t (or life) jostled your arm, and now its half empty.

This is why i really should start my own church!

i think it is totally possible to have a connection with a total stranger. Like when you both observe something humorous/odd, etc., you catch each other's eye, and you both laugh or something. (I've gotten some excellent dates this way.)

With therapists...I am not sure the connection exists in the process of therapy itself. Rather it exists in your interaction with the therapists. If you share a joke. If you discover you both vacationed in Kennebunkport as kids. If you went to the same college. Etc.

I would not be surprised if some clients didn't feel a connection with their therapist and that works for them. I actually don't feel a very strong one with No. 2 - we're mostly all business (which would not be for everyone). But I think this is also the problem with blank-slate therapy: the client is desperately looking for some way to hook onto the therapist and there just isn't one.

I think the glass is pretty full = I could not go so far as to say half empty on a regular basis. It can go down when my person is worse or having actively bad days. I can hold my own with the therapist.

Connection, for me, is just a comfortable rapport with that other person. I can find connection with total strangers standing in the grocery line (seriously), so finding it with a therapist (who I do not at all consider a stranger - not, at least, the ones I saw long-term) was really very easy. We were comfortable with each other. They "got" me and I "got" them, very quickly actually or I wouldn't have continued to see them beyond a few sessions. I refused to waste time trying to connect; for me, it's either there or it's not.

I don't see connection necessarily as a strong emotional attachment; that's something different although I had that with those same therapists as we got to know each other better and as I shared more about myself (and they about themselves). It's just a sense that we can comfortably communicate with each other and recognize something in each other that we kind of instinctively understand.

Well then I definitely don't have comfortable rapport with the first. And often not with the second.

Feeling truly heard and mostly understood by another human being.

Oh - if your glass is full, theres no room for a connection.

Why do you ask these questions?!

I am trying to understand what others do or understand that I do not.

I am never asking these questions to be told what people think I should do. I am not asking for advice or to be analyzed.

It's a thankless job, but somebody has to do it.

SD, you've spoken before about being playful with people in your life, just not the therapist. I would say my "connection" with the therapist is a playful one. We joke, we laugh, it seems genuine enough (most of the time). Sometimes he's clearly "phoning in," sometimes his responses seem awkward and stilted and like they were ripped out of a counseling textbook, which is how I remember that he is a paid professional and not my friend -- but other times we talk, and I joke about something, and it pulls from him a spontaneous smile or laugh or (mildly paternalistic) look of fondness which, for a moment, rises above the contrived artifice of the relationship. And that, for me, is the "connection."

I see SD as the Nellie Bly or Ida Tarbell of therapy.