Does a therapist need to be able to trust a client?

I hear you, I live in gun friendly Florida. I'm originally from NY ( westchester county). I find it to be a great stress reliever to go to the range and target practice. In many ways my therapist is very awesome. She throws me off with her one minute she's warm and the next she's all business.

ATAT -- I've been thinking about your question vis-a-vis CW.

I don't know if I would say that trust is necessarily at play here?

To me, an uncharitable reading of CW's response is that it is smacking of manipulation and a perhaps, more charitable reading is that it was rather unskilled.

Basically, because, as a client, you have every right to file a complaint against her (if you so choose to, no matter how baseless it might be in reality).

If she is seriously sitting in some la-la land and thinking that pretty much no client who walks in through the door is going to file a complaint against her ever (unless apparently, they've already done so against someone else), I'd wonder if she's lost her marbles. Or, if she deals with people whose most serious problems are, I dunno, road rage or something?

For her to then get into the business of trying to manage her anxiety about a potential complaint (from any client) by throwing it on the client is kinda nuts.

But, in terms of your question -- sans any CW context -- yeah, I think trust at some level trust that goes both ways is perhaps needed (for any sort of in-depth therapy). More than that though, I'd say that for the T to act as if they trust the client is maybe more important (regardless of how they actually feel).

As in, for example, I know that current T wasn't terribly trusting of me (she told me so) in terms of sticking around in therapy (and likely still isn't) when I cancelled sessions randomly, asked for indefinite breaks, came right back, and well, lather, rinse, repeat. But, she acted as if she trusted me (and, I wouldn't have known better if I hadn't questioned her) by just responding to my stated intentions (canceling? okay; coming back? okay, as well; etc) and leaving it at that.

The thing about CW is she has had a complaint filed about her before (which was dismissed). She does not know I know this; I found out by Googling her name and reviews before our first appointment; the information comes up in the form of the hearing board's minutes. I suspect if I go back, this will be a topic (and I'll lay even odds she'll accuse me of stalking her). Because it suggests it's more about her than it is me...something I doubt she would admit to herself.

But, to me that is still a trust issue if not solely a trust issue for the reasons you state. She can't trust me because of a previous client - though she's putting that on me, as you say.

ETA: and, theoretically, if she's been burned once, she should be twice shy - so she should feel this way about ALL her clients. But I asked her about that specifically and she said no, it was just me. I'm special to my therapist!

My T trusts me to take my meds, to keep turning up, and to reach out if I'm in crisis. He also trusted me with his number and not to ring it except in an emergency.

I think there needs to be a level of trust in the client from the T. My T needs to trust that I'm not withholding important information from him so that he can help me in a way that's appropriate. Also, for me specifically, T needs to know that if I'm doing things I ought not (SH, ideating, etc) that I would tell him.

The thing is - clients don't know what is or is not important information and those assholes are not forthcoming

I suppose I'm biased in that regard, so your point is valid. Stepmom is a psychologist, so I grew up knowing what is or is not important to discuss.

Then you may be more kindly disposed toward them - I have never found reason to be.

I personally never had the impression that my therapists knew or even that they had a good idea what information is good/useful to discuss in therapy and what is useless filler/distraction. Both of them pretty much encouraged me to jump all over the map, hoping that will eventually point to the real issues and problem areas or roots of issues. It did not really worked well that way for me and mostly just got me frustrated with what I felt was aimless wandering, until I decided to plan and do it in a goal-directed manner and not let them distract too much. I understand how the free floating can be helpful for some but I always wanted to address specific things and have a tendency on my own to get into distractions, so better to handle that myself. Plus, and some people might find this cynical, I think many therapists welcome the unfocused approach because it can keep clients with them longer. "We'll figure it out together..." Others get uneasy about lack of goals. Anyhow, now I am rambling here... just wanted to say that my Ts never seemed to know what's really useful info for me. I think it's very individual, what's useful for me may not be for others, vice versa, and so on.

Let me give an example of what I mean.



So it's not to say that I always 100% know what's important, but I'm not withholding anything either if I feel like it's important. I'm guilty of this on the forum as well, so I'm not trying to call any one person out, but clients have a tendency to not always talk about the things that they feel like they "need to." If it's something you wonder if you should tell T or not, the answer is most likely "yes."

I hope that makes more sense.

I've never felt like there's anything I needed to talk about. I have needed to know what sorts of things would be useful to talk about in order to achieve X.

The woman having been useless on that by refusing to explain, I simply went on to use her in other ways. I considered it more things I want to talk about without having to take into consideration anything about the listener.

Is it healthy to actually ever trust anyone completely? Not sure I can even trust myself sometimes.

I don't think that the T personally has a "need" to trust the client, in the same way as a client may "need" to be able to trust their T - depending on the client and the reason they are in therapy and so on. What I mean is that the point of the therapy is to meet the needs of the client. It's not for meeting the needs of the T in any specific way within the session. (Of course maybe the fact of being employed as a t meets their need to earn money and to feel they are employed and doing a useful thing or stuff like that).
On the other hand, I think a fair amount of trust is needed both ways in order for there to be a good therapeutic relationship between the therapist and the client, and many believe - and lots of studies have shown - that the quality of the therapeutic relationship is the most important factor, more than type of therapy or length of therapy etc., in predicting how much therapy will help the client. So in that sense, if the T is able to trust the client - at least insofar as they are not constantly wary and never able to relax with the client in the room, or never able to say anything at all that hasn't been scrupulously scripted etc. - then this will lead to a better quality of therapy that will help meet the clients needs.

It was interesting for me to think about that question but I'm not sure if this answer will make sense to anyone else - apologies if it seems like a nonsensical ramble!!

Yes, I think trust works both ways. Sometimes ts are left in a vulnerable place because we have to trust what clients tells us as truth and if it's not the truth that can be very dangerous to both t and client. I think as clients we play all kinds of necessary games to check our ts can be trusted and are going to be trustworthy.
I don't think it's every therapeutic for a t to tell a client that they don't trust them. It can be very damaging and how you build a relationship if there is no trust, it's impossible.
I can understand your ts predicament but how is this helpful for you, it's more about her and her safety.
My t told me she didn't trust me one night because she didn't know what I was saying about her behind her back. She apologised afterwards but it was too late my trust in her had been completely severed by this statement because I have no clue what she is saying about me either. It made me wonder Ewell what is she saying and why would she even think of this, she said it's what I do make out I am the victim all the time but that's completely her stuff not mine.