[*Laurie*]

I began seeing a therapist today. She's probably about 32 years of age, about my daughter's age. I am 54. I like her, she's very sweet and extremely empathetic. Seems to understand the issues I'd like to tackle in therapy. I feel somewhat caretaking of her, though, because she's so young. I also wonder if she has sufficient life experience to be my therapist. Anyone here have a therapist who is many years younger than you are? Opinions?

I can understand how having a much younger therapist could seem like a not so good fit (I have felt this way when given much older therapists). I'd say give it a shot and see if her therapy style meshes well with you, and try not to focus too much on age. Who knows? She might be awesome! Hope it works out well.

[lucozader]

I think if you feel good about her - you feel she is empathetic and understands your issues, that's the important thing. Some young people have a lot of life experience, and some old people don't have much.

I'm 30 myself and soon to qualify as a therapist - one of my fears is that older clients will object to my age and refuse to work with me because of it.

[catnip123]

My current T is about 15 years younger than me. I've been seeing her for a year and it has worked out well so far

I'm 25, so I don't think I'm qualified to give you the answer you're looking for, but...

Do you believe that some "life experience" can be obtained through reading books or undergoing training? If so, is it possible that she has the same or more "life experience" than you?

It's okay to say no, but I just thought I would offer it.

[growlycat]

I've always seen therapists that are older than me by at least 10-20 yrs. my current t is only seven years older I would personally find it hard to see a t a decade or more younger than I am.

[DoggieDad]

My therapist is 13 years younger. Only problem I have is that I like to reference trivia from long ago. She doesn't always understand.

[Out There]

My EMDR T is 9-10 years younger that me but does have the skills I need. I feel if it's working age doesn't really matter - some people are wise beyond their years.

[*Laurie*]

Thanks for all the input

[*Laurie*]

Originally Posted by bluebicycle

I'm 25, so I don't think I'm qualified to give you the answer you're looking for, but...

Do you believe that some "life experience" can be obtained through reading books or undergoing training? If so, is it possible that she has the same or more "life experience" than you?

It's okay to say no, but I just thought I would offer it.

I believe that a lot of experience can be obtained from education and professional training. In my experience, however, life experience is mostly something that has to be, well, experienced. For example, milestones...such as losing many loved ones. Being married for over three decades, and all the 'stuff' that comes with a long-term marriage. Having empty nest syndrome. Facing mid-life to senior issues.

I think I need to know this therapist a little better. At first glance she seemed like someone who presents as quite young and naive. She did mention that she is a cancer survivor...now that is something I consider major life experience.

I am seeing a therapist primarily for grief and loss issues. If the therapist has never in her life experienced the loss of a loved one (and that definitely includes a pet), there could be a problem for me. I mean, one has to feel loss...reading about loss or hearing about someone else's loss isn't quite the same as going through it first-hand.

[scorpiosis37]

Originally Posted by *Laurie*

I believe that a lot of experience can be obtained from education and professional training. In my experience, however, life experience is mostly something that has to be, well, experienced. For example, milestones...such as losing many loved ones. Being married for over three decades, and all the 'stuff' that comes with a long-term marriage. Having empty nest syndrome. Facing mid-life to senior issues.

I think I need to know this therapist a little better. At first glance she seemed like someone who presents as quite young and naive. She did mention that she is a cancer survivor...now that is something I consider major life experience.

I am seeing a therapist primarily for grief and loss issues. If the therapist has never in her life experienced the loss of a loved one (and that definitely includes a pet), there could be a problem for me. I mean, one has to feel loss...reading about loss or hearing about someone else's loss isn't quite the same as going through it first-hand.

I agree completely. "Life" experience comes from...well...living life. It's not something you can gain from reading books or obtaining academic training. Life experience doesn't necessarily correlate with age. Someone who has lived a comfortable life, in their hometown, and hasn't endured too many struggles may have far less life experience than someone who had to grow up and be self-sufficient at a young age, immigrated to a new country, put themselves through school, had to take care of an ailing parent, and so forth. Those are just random examples but you get the point.

If you want to know if your new T has experienced loss, simply ask her. I agree with you that if she hasn't experienced loss, she probably can't understand. I realized in my own therapy that i needed a T who could relate to the experience of growing up without a mom-- or at least an insufficient mom. I couldn't take any more clueless Ts saying things that demonstrated just how sheltered and naive they were, and how they just didn't understand my experience. It wasn't about age, but it was about life experience and maturity.

i temporarily saw a therapist who was much younger than i am. it was impossible for me to listen to her advice. i could tell it was all what she read in a book , and not from any life experience. lasted about 4 weeks and i gave up on her. all i could do was see her as a kid.

[rainboots87]

Well, I'm turning 30 this year and my T is about 25 and had been licensed less than a year when I started with her. I was hesitant at first, but she's actually amazing. Previously, all my Ts were at least 10 years older. I'm glad I gave this one a chance though, but not all young Ts will be great. Then again, not all old Ts will be great either. I've seen several much older Ts who didn't really help me.

[stopdog]

I am in my 50s and the two therapists I hire are both in their 70s.

I am your age, and my therapists have always been about 10-15 years older than me. I prefer it that way. I don't think I could feel very comfortable talking to a therapist too much younger than me. It's that life experience thing. That sense of shared experience and the understanding that comes from having actually lived it is important to me.

[satsuma]

I do hear what everyone is saying about life experience, and I think I agree. But I did also want to add that no matter how experienced a T may be, they cannot possibly have experienced everything that each of their clients has experienced in life. They may be of a different ethnicity, or be in a different sort of relationship (e.g. married/not married), or they may have been divorced where their client has not and vice versa. That's without getting into all the more complex issues clients may bring to therapy: addictions, eating disorders, traumas etc. I'm sure we wouldn't want for T to have actually lived through every one of those difficult issues, personally.
I think there can be another kind of experience, as well as living through things yourself. on a personal level, where you think to yourself that you have a friend or family member who has been through or is going through something similar. And on a professional level, where T remembers that they have worked with other clients with similar issues before, and also perhaps that they have learned a lot from a mentor or supervisor who has worked with many people in a similar situation.

I see both sides of the coin on this one. I'm a similar age to your T and I'm a T in training. I do have quite a range of life experience and haven't felt any issues working with clients of a variety of ages and backgrounds. Conversely, a fellow trainee in her late 40s expressed concern about her lack of life experience, in that she has no children, has worked the same job for years and hasn't really had any major life troubles. So I don't think age is the be all and end all.
That said, my therapist is 30 years older than me and I am happy with that age gap. Part of that is due to his professional experience (which makes him a lot more secure about holding my attachment) and part is due to having some parental transference to work through. I had an older therapist before who was recently qualified, and I found it was the professional experience, not the life experience that made the difference for me.

[Merecat]

There are different kinds of loss though and you don't know what her life has been like. In saying that, I want my T to be with me, understand how I feel in my situation not be thinking "this is what it was like for me". Basically, empathy is being able to see your situation from your standpoint, not about whether my experience of X was like yours. So, if the relationship is ok and she has the right skills there's no reason why she couldn't offer you what you need.

My T is a good 20 years older than me because I wanted someone with a or of professional experience and I could see she had been in the profession for a long time with a lot of varied experience. I'd be equally happy seeing someone closer to my age if they had the same degree of professional experience.

[*Laurie*]

Thanks to each one of you for your thoughtful replies. I appreciate your experiences and thoughts.

I believe that a lot of experience can be obtained from education and professional training. In my experience, however, life experience is mostly something that has to be, well, experienced. For example, milestones...such as losing many loved ones. Being married for over three decades, and all the 'stuff' that comes with a long-term marriage. Having empty nest syndrome. Facing mid-life to senior issues.

I think I need to know this therapist a little better. At first glance she seemed like someone who presents as quite young and naive. She did mention that she is a cancer survivor...now that is something I consider major life experience.

I am seeing a therapist primarily for grief and loss issues. If the therapist has never in her life experienced the loss of a loved one (and that definitely includes a pet), there could be a problem for me. I mean, one has to feel loss...reading about loss or hearing about someone else's loss isn't quite the same as going through it first-hand.

Life experience is a big factor for me too. I've been through a lot in my life, and I don't think I'd be interested in working with someone who is not able to relate to me.

But as someone with a trauma background, it it's less about relating and more about safety for me.

I think wisdom in application of clinical education and emotional competency matter more than life experience. In terms of emotional competency-I've said before-I've known some 16 year olds who are more mature than some 40 year olds, for example, but it really does take at least 10 years to be a 'seasoned' professional. This is true of many career fields. 'Data' collected by a worker over the years are inputs into decision-making, especially day to day micro decisions that you don't even realize your brain is doing. School is only supposed to be a base from which to build wisdom, it's not supposed to substitute things like critical thinking, autonomous application of concepts, exercising judgment (that may contradict what was learned in school), and developing your own methods that complement your strengths and benefit client populations (that also may contradict what you learned in school); especially applying new research and all the things you did not learn in school because programs can only include so many topics, and they may not be diverse as is true with many university programs that seem to be increasingly more dichotomous, especially because more information exists each year. The increase of information flowing into society actually means that we know less about what we don't know.

I think people who don't question their education (and instead take it is truth) and who don't continually educate themselves will be lacking in comparison with someone who exposes themselves to other experiences. Unfortunately, that usually takes time/years to build that knowledge. And as someone who worked in several career fields before going to college, I found university professors who did not have work experience in the field in which they are teaching to be lacking in understanding and appropriate knowledge. Experience is critical.

Businesses don't put someone who just graduated in charge of a highly important or complex project because of the risk. Why shouldn't I apply that same concept to mitigate risk to my psyche? Senior positions often require 10 years experience. Everyone has to go through this for the most part-gaining experience to build competency. It takes trial and error and making mistakes and learning from them to be a good decision-maker, as some therapists who are honest about this will tell you. Also, Having at least a decade of experience will help weed out those who won't be good at the job, who will hopefully be diverted to other positions (eg research). After 10 years, a therapist may have experienced more client issues, and harm done could be revealed.

The good thing for therapists is that it's one of the few career fields that age is seen as an asset rather than a liability, so therapists shouldn't experience as much age discrimination when older. Unlike many of us, who with the change of more extensions to the minimum retirement age and decrease in social security benefits, will be job seeking at age 60-70 and discriminated against. Which will be worse as in the US currently policies are being made to promote forcing Medicare recipients work, which will raise the unemployment rate and make it harder for older job seekers to get a job. Age discrimination in other career fields is very common.

[*Laurie*]

Basically, I want to avoid a situation in which I am 'mothering' my therapist. It's easy and natural for me to caretake and I believe it would be especially easy to caretake a young woman who is 20+ years younger than I am. I already caretake plenty of people in my life and I don't want to spend my time in therapy boosting my therapist's ego and comforting her losses. Some of that already went on during the first session yesterday. So, we'll see....

[lucozader]

Originally Posted by *Laurie*

Basically, I want to avoid a situation in which I am 'mothering' my therapist. It's easy and natural for me to caretake and I believe it would be especially easy to caretake a young woman who is 20+ years younger than I am. I already caretake plenty of people in my life and I don't want to spend my time in therapy boosting my therapist's ego and comforting her losses. Some of that already went on during the first session yesterday. So, we'll see....

Talk to her about this! It's not really about her, is it? It's about you and your patterns of relating - and that's good stuff to address in therapy. It could be really reparative for you to build a different relationship with her despite your urges to 'caretake'.

[BudFox]

I'm not clear what it means to work through grief and loss in therapy. It's one of those things everyone suggests, but what exactly is the service the therapist is supposed to provide? Are they just supposed to listen? If so seems age is not all that important. If they are expected to give some sort of advice or life lesson, then maybe they need to be older, though I cant imagine wanting that sort of advice from a stranger.

[slowandgentle]

Hi Laurie, I have just started seeing a t who, I think, is 15-20 years younger than me. I have told him point blank I won't be engaging emotionally, thank you very much, as it just feels...weird. We'll see how that goes.

But honestly, he's technically the best T I have ever had. I've learned more in the last few weeks from him than in years with others who are my age or older than me. He is a true trauma specialist, as opposed to the generalists I have always seen who say they know trauma. They really, really don't.

I'd give it some time and see. The female and my-age Ts I had didn't have a clue about breast cancer & mastectomies and whatever when I was going through that. I was much younger than most dealing with it all.

Regardless of age, they hadn't been there. They were no more or less help than my male T who just got that it was major and scary and another traumatic thing to add to the heap of traumatic things.

Oh, and the Ta of my age & stages who went through the same big-scale trauma I did...were not really a huge help, because we were all there. It just sort of got normalised..in an unhelpful way. And I sort of found myself comparing my messy self to their apparently together one.

I guess what I am saying is, it doesn't take carbon-copy life experience to get good therapy, and sometimes a bit of difference and distance can create a helpful and fresh perspective
.

[rainbow8]

My T is about 15 years younger than I am but we have children who aren't so far apart in age so it hasn't been a problem in my therapy. I think middle age and older is not such a difference as being in your 50s and having a T in her 30s.

My T has experienced loss in her own life, and at an earlier age than I have. I don't think it matters, though. A good T is a good T no matter what!

I agree that you should see how it goes, and tell her your concerns about being a caretaker. As my T likes to say, that's grist for the mill.