Should a therapist....?

We have never been able to cry tears about our own pain in the presence of another person. But when face to face with another human being experiencing genuine pain I cannot stop my own tears.
My ex T was known to tear up when witnessing our struggles. At times she had tears rolling down over her cheeks. I didn't mind. Because I too cry for others, her tears simply felt very 'human' to me.

Did someone do a study that found that surgeons or lawyers are demonstrably, provably, scientifically more heartless than your average person? How is heartlessness being defined? Is this maybe a popular stereotype based not on actual heartlessness, but the appearance of heartlessness? Which could well mask heartedness, as SD might put it? And couldn't heartedness itself be a pose, masking the heartlessness of a supposedly hearted therapist? (Of whom there are a number of examples in the PC Hall of Shame.)



Listen, the only reason I'm awake to write this is because I'm pacing the floors (the downstairs neighbors love me) to get out some anger at a couple mental health professionals who posed as hearted (one of them the one who teared up on me) and turned out not to be.

Trial lawyers act heartless at the opposing party. The trial lawyers I know actually often have quite a bit of heartedness for their own clients and/or side they represent.
I don't agree therapy is a career that definitely almost anything. Whether a therapist believes they are hearted or heartless does not matter-their ability to appear such may.

I personally often think that crying is overrated. I definitely don't think it is the best, or most genuine, indication of being emotional or empathic... it is just one type of response.

Is anyone really heartless (lacking emotions), even a sociopath? Is that possible? I'm not sure.

My therapist has teared up at times when it felt so random because I didn't think I was talking about anything that sad. A couple of times I'm sure it was about me and what I was talking about... it made me realize what I was discussing deserved an expression of grief. That was a good thing.

There is one time, I know it wasn't about me at all it because it was literally just as I sat down, which makes me think she was carrying something over from that morning. I was her first appointment that day (I had to wait for her to open the office.) Because she didn't show any other emotion - just a tear or two from her eyes— I just assumed it was her contacts acting up and ignored it.

I recently found out she doesn't wear contacts (though I remember that she wore glasses once). So... she was crying about something that occurred before she came to the office and amazingly, I don't recall it getting in the way of our discussion at all.

I appreciate that she is a 'cryer'. I admire people who can cry easily. I consider it an emotional strength.

What I meant by heartlessness was a lack of empathy, and there are studies on that, many of them ("physician empathy" pulls up 3,242 studies on PubMed). The overall results are clear: when patients perceive that their physician is more empathetic they not only have less anxiety, better self-care, more satisfaction, etc but also have better clinical outcomes. This is even true of trauma surgeons, as in this study or this follow-up study. (You wonder why they did those studies, then recommended education of surgeons toward expressing more empathy, if no one had suspected a possible problem in the first place.)

My background is in public health and I just took it as a given that higher empathy in care-givers is generally associated with better outcomes because this is the case in physical medicine, and if anything, would have seemed even more true for mental health care providers. But regardless, therapy is a very individualized thing, and to each his or her own.

I think ATAT and stopdog are essentially arguing that one's capacity for empathy has nothing to do with one's expression of it (whether voluntary or involuntary). But there's research now emerging that genes found in about 15-20% of people are associated with both frequent crying and greater activation of areas of the brain associated with empathy. It would be more difficult to be a trial lawyer or ER physician if you were in the 15-20%.

All this is way off track now which is largely my fault.

I think that tearing up or getting misty-eyed is totally controllable and not what I would consider crying. And I do think that full on crying can be involuntary for some people. Here's a football player who cried from a concussion. To this day, he says he has no idea why he cried. He wasn't in control of it.

Maybe those of us who can't control crying are just brain damaged.

I know the instances where my therapists teared up were times when something I was going through triggered their own memories. They told me as much, and I appreciated that they really did have some sense of the pain I was going through.

For instance, the day before my sister died, I went into session having just found out that it was just a matter of time (a very short time), and I was crying non-stop. I remember I cried for several days practically with no break; the grief was so terribly overwhelming. My therapist sat with me that day. He didn't say much; he just let me grieve. But at one point I realized he was brushing away his own tears. He talked to me then about how witnessing my grief and pain brought up memory of his own pain of losing his cousin (who was like a brother/best friend to him) suddenly in a plane crash many years before. It was helpful and assuring to know that in that moment he really did understand my pain and knew there was nothing he could do but be with me.

Crying isn't something they did often. In fact, I can only think of 3 instances of tearing up on the parts of my therapists in the some 15 years of sessions. It is okay for them to feel and perfectly natural for them to have very normal reactions at times. I prefer their humanity over constant self-control -- too much control over natural emotion just isn't normal. I've always prefered my therapists to be pretty normal, even occasionally emotional individuals.

Personally, I never saw a T cry in my presence. I can understand if maybe it happened once if I noticed one beginning to tear up since they are human too, but if it isn't an isolated incident, then I would question whether this T is good for me, since maybe their own personal stuff can potentially interfere with my own treatment. Plus, it is uncomfortable to witness this.

I do believe Therapists need to have a level of control, or maybe that T needs to take a break from their profession for a while and deal with their own personal problems before returning, because it starts crossing that line where it interferes with their patients. Yes, T's are people too with their own problems. Some have their own mental health issues, but when their issues become visible, it's detrimental to the people that they treat.

If it happened more than once, maybe I'd straight up ask the Therapist if my issues are affecting them. I'd look for a new T if I noticed a pattern, since it would probably cause me to feel that they cannot handle me discussing deep issues, and that defeats the purpose of therapy.

I had one tear up a few times. I had no particular judgement about it. And I don't hold it against her. S**t happens.

Some part of me went totally bananas as a result though and i fell into complete obsession with her. Each subsequent time, the enmeshment and obsession grew stronger. I guess my godforsaken little child who didnt get enough attunement from mommy woke up. Or adult me thought I'd find soulmate. Wish it had never happened.

I just figure that it's their business if they feel like crying. It doesn't affect me one way or another. Except to feel sorry for them for whatever made them cry.

I'm not really a cryer and it was really funny when the therapist who did my intake nudged a tissue box over to me at one point. I managed not to laugh, though. I am way too dead inside to cry just from talking about my past and there's a part of me that finds that extremely funny. It was nice of her, though.

my T looks very sad sometimes, and has tears in his eyes sometimes... ive never seen him actually crying though, but i dont look at him often when im in distress