Curious Ts view of the workplace

Thought about this in another thread and realized that the majority of my ts have been in private practice. I wonder how much they are attuned to the realities of the workforce?

I don't necessarily think that one has to have had x experience to understand or help, but I'm not sure Ts in private practice understand the realities of the workplace and how 'getting in touch with emotions' can adversely affect career.

Not thinking of part-time high school jobs here. But if-

4% of the population have are sociopathic and want to "ruin" a person
5% narcissistic PD
etc

...anyone will encounter coworkers who can be triggering, or who sense your vulnerabilities and though perhaps unconsciously, may exploit them, especially for those of us with past traumas related to certain personality traits.

My T gave me advice to tell my boss something, and I thought about it and thought no way--taking his advice would have likely caused me harm. Work isn't a major topic for me, so I let it go and don't generally look to his advice for such things.

But I wonder...Does your T understand how exploring intense emotions can bleed out in professional life? How might they help you indirectly with this with the constraint of such limited time 45-50 mins per week?

I can totally relate to this. My current t has actually worked a "cubicle" job so I think he gets it, but my long term t never did and boy was he clueless about the workplace. I think he would ask me to relate to bosses and coworkers as if they were fair and reasonable people. My boss at the time was the greatest narcissist I've ever known and possibly a sociopath. His advice would have ruined me. Those ts that go right into the profession from school miss a few life lessons.

I couldn't pinpoint the problem but you summed it up right there. That's exactly the issue!

Not sure what the percentage of the population is/was in therapy, but I realized the hard way that relational stuff learned in therapy can't necessarily be applied to most outside of therapy.
And people with certain personality traits can be more successful in the workplace, creating more challenges.

Added a poll for fun.

I don't have a traditional work environment (academia) and I rarely need to discuss my colleagues in therapy.

But the issues I go to therapy for, not therapy itself or a therapist's bad advice, do sometimes spill over into the workplace for me insofar as they make me tense or edgy. Not what you asked, of course, but I think therapists think of clients and workplaces in the sense of how the client relates to people, not how the other people are relating to the client. This does mean they don't stop to consider maybe the other people have problems too.

I went to a T specifically as a reality check to deal with a boss who was being abusive to me. He was in private practice but did "get it" about my employment situation. I do hate it when they suggest changing jobs, as if it's that easy.

That's an interesrimg observation, about relating to others but not how others relate to you.

I rarely discuss work but think it may have been helpful for advice in a pst situation. Am more curious about this topic than anything.

Your other point was one of the questions in the poll. Not sure if the language was clear.

Sorry to hear that!

I normally get along well with bosses but never hesitated to change jobs in the past for simply being unsatisfied. It can be hard when choices are limited for whatever reason. My stamina is limited and can't just up and change areas of my life at rhis point so couldn't imagine being trapped in a similar situation. Good to hear your T could get it.

While it would be *nice* to have a therapist who can directly relate to working 9am-5pm in a cubicle, I think I would be wasting my time trying to find a therapist who has. (I'm not saying you were suggesting this... I'm just speaking in general.) So the best I'm going to do is find a therapist who has done her homework and has *maybe* gone to one or more conferences about work/career issues. Even finding a therapist with that specific experience/knowledge is hard to come by IMO. So that's something we have to take into consideration here. We're 99% of the time starting off with a T who is inexperienced with respect to cubicles.

That aside, I don't think a T needs to have direct experience working in a typical white collar work setting in order to give solid work/career advice. Will your average "non-cubicle" T be able to give solid advice? I agree that we don't know.

Sometimes my T admits when she is not sure about work/career stuff, but then she'll offer a textbook answer so that I can possibly help guide myself. Meh. I suppose it's better than nothing. At least she admits when she can't help. I think admitting is the key. Plus, she knows a lot about human interaction in general (well, duh... she's a therapist!), so I think some of that knowledge can be very useful.

But back to my main point: Since we have basically a 1% chance of finding a "cubicle" T, we can't expect the T to be attuned to the workforce at all. It would be nice, but I don't think we should expect. As such, going to therapy for a work/career issue is a real gamble and I personally wouldn't rely on my T's advice.

Perhaps she is in tune with the workplace but she doesn't seem to know much about being self-employed, which I am.

Well, my situation may be a bit different. My T is in part-time private practice but also teaches full-time at the same university where I work. There are no boundary crossings because we never see each other BUT we both work under the same administration so he knows the environment.

My former T was pretty solid about professional stuff when I was seeing her -- but that's entirely because I was in grad school then and she'd been through a grad program herself and basically knew exactly what I was talking about (it was one of the few areas where we had near total understanding).

When I started working, I switched therapists as well. Current T is awfully clueless -- I tried telling her some of the stuff that had happened in grad school (stuff I'd told my former T as well) and she gave me such clueless responses that I barely managed to not snort. With my present work stuff, I have a bunch of things -- the rare few times I've tried talking to her about it, she's tried to be super supportive and validating but her cluelessness just screams out loud.

So yeah, she's really really bad at helping me with that sort of stuff -- I have a couple of people I can sometimes rely on to help me think strategically about work stuff and so, I'm sorta covered. But, man yeah, if I just had to rely on my current therapist for dealing with work stuff, I might as well call it quits.

To make matters worse, a lot of my work issues are sort of culture-related (as in ethnicity / culture sort of stuff) and my current therapist is even more clueless about that sort of stuff -- I mean her cluelessness is really laughably ridiculous in this regard. So, unless I have the patience to break it down into little baby-sized-bites for her to digest and potentially say something useful (by which time, I might as well figure it out myself), all I can do is watch her flounder and get even more frustrated.

This is another area in which I really miss my former therapist -- she was super duper sharp in knowing when someone was screwing with me (work-wise or even family / relationship-wise) because of cultural norms versus just plain old douche-bag-i-ness. And, she had no hesitation about pointing it out to me.

Current T on the other hand, does some weird, bungling, bumbling, nonsensically naive thing whenever I bring up any of that cultural stuff and I kinda want to bang my head against the wall.

I'd say therapy has helped me to function better in the workplace, because it helps me to be more assertive and productive in general. My T doesn't try to give me specific advice on how to handle any particular situation or deal with other people, I don't really see that as his role.

While T solely works in private practice now. For about 25 years she worked full time in a hospital and had a private practice also. So she understands the politics and such of the worforce.

T and I frequently discuss my work because there can be triggers. T is the one person who gets what it is like working in healthcare. My husband is the one who says just find a new job. She also understands when I stress out and can't just take the day of because I feel like it. Hubby has a job where he can decide 5 minutes before his shift he doesn't want to work that day.

I think that the majority* of Ts start not in private practice because of the need for supervision to be fully licensed. Now I will admit that part of what drew me to roboT was the fact that he started his career in special education. He understands some of the unique job stressors that I face. It's also really nice to be able to discuss some children on my caseload without having to worry about confidentiality.

*I wanted to say all, but I know that can't be accurate.

I think some can be completely clueless about the dynamics of the workplace in terms of addressing them in a way that will enhance a career. I think many can diagnose the dynamic, but they just don't have a clue what it takes to survive it.

My former T had a private practice, but also was a director of a large workforce in a Univ health center, as well as involvement in state and national governing boards, so he had a lot of organizational experience. We talked about a number of issues because of difficulties I had encountered in an institutional position. You'd think having employees/colleagues who are all practicing Ts would lead to a more functional work environment--think again!

I imagine it's helpful that you have people to talk with about the work stuff. I have a best friend who is good at understanding certain experiences, but she can be judgemental and doesn't have the experiential knowledge of organizations outside of her own. Something you said sparked a thought-your last T who you miss, had street smarts. Not your words, but that's my take on it and something that I would find useful too. Too bad it's something that you don't have access to anymore.

I want my T to understand, though, partly because it's part of me. It's not that he's out of touch that bothers me; more likely it provokes certain feelings because it seems to increase the distance between us, which provokes certain childhood emotional memories.

Is there something specifically that rubs you the wrong way at the lack of relating, or is it general annoyance? Curious; if you want to share. Of course these things can be irritating, upsetting...or whatever, due to merits of their own.

I don't know about you, but the being out of touch eventually reminds me of feelings of being different, which is something I struggled with but hid for a long time. Different in a bad sense; feeling that originate from childhood. Feelings like I'm from another planet. The being naive seems to provoke negative feelings in me, but I think that's because of issues with my mother, observing her repetitive victimization behavior around my father. There are also fears related to people who are naive or clueless yet in positions that can impact the safety of others. I can write 10 pages about this one issue.

Well, overall, this doesn't seem to be a major issue here (or my polls are just incredibly unpopular--or both), but it can be impactful to some. Aside from the underlying feelings I just explored here, from a practical perspective, there was someone at work with strong sociopathic traits (eg, glorified violence) who triggered my PTSD in a pretty bad way. In the throes of those emotions, I think it would be helpful for someone to understand workplace dynamics. EAPs are sort of a token resource when it comes to this sort of thing. It was a huge struggle to get through and I felt alone and scared and had no one to help. It wasn't a minor 'riff' sort of thing that I needed to simply whine about. I tend to stay away from talking about others with coworkers as that can turn into a gossip fest no matter how well intended. So yeah, it helps to have someone who is in the know.

Anywayz, thanks for the chat.

(Mostly just FYI) I left my former T because it was a rather bad fit in other ways -- yeah, I guess you could say she was street-smart or just really pragmatic.

I think for me it's incredibly frustrating mostly because I don't know how to explain certain things to her without having her somehow regress into stances that I find rather painful to watch. So, when she's not sure of something that I'm talking about, she'll default to a general validating / reassuring stance -- that sort of stuff irritates me by itself and worse still when it's clear that we aren't able to understand each other very well.

You're right about that feeling of distance and the sort of childhood experience that it evokes -- and yes, similar to what you described, it can yet again bring up a feeling of not being protected because someone who is supposed to do that is way too weak themselves, really.

For me, it also brings up a rather familiar (and painful) sense of not-belonging (in a very deeply interpersonal sense i.e., there is no 'real' [I put that in quotes because it's therapy but I've also felt that in other relationships] me-and-her or that someone like me could never find a 'real' place in her emotional world, if that makes sense). And, again, somehow that relates to the idea that this person is unable to make space for me in a real sense in their emotional world -- and acknowledge all of me -- because they don't have much knowledge or control over things.

The usual way I deal with it is that I don't talk to her about any of it if I don't think I can handle what I think her response will be. But, then it also becomes a case of her not knowing a whole lot about me (which becomes weirdly unidimensional). I then tend to correct for that and try to talk about it in ways that she could relate to / make sense of but in doing that, I'm really aware that I'm sorta kinda pandering and it just leaves me feeling worse.

So yeah, I'm not sure I have an answer -- all I'm able to do is bring stuff up when I'm okay with any ensuing frustration.

ETA: I wouldn't take the responses on the poll as any indication of popularity (as stopdog can tell you!). I believe it's largely a function of who's logged on and their interests etc -- it can be fairly idiosyncratic.

Work issues don't often seep into my therapy, but they have recently and T's advice has been very helpful. He's been able to suggest ways for me to react to things that are emotionally healthy for me and still professional and aligned with workplace expectations. And it's stuff it never would have occurred to me to do or say.

I ve brought my therapist to work with me a couple of times so she can see what I do, she enjoyed seeing all the behind the scenes things and meeting all the people. It helped her understand my job a lot more. I think she had fun meeting some of the people I work with. I feel like she understands my job better.

My T was a professor for quite a while. He helped set up the PsyD program at the local university. So he has some ideas about office personalities and politics.

However, I'm not working anymore so it isn't really as necessary as it used to be.

My T is clueless about the workplace. His ideas are based on a fantasy.

I think it depends on the T and the workplace environment. The possibilitites are endless and Ts that excel in one work enviornment might be clueless in another.

Reminds me of "take your child to work day" at the office. You may have started a new trend "take your T to work day". Cute. Thanks for sharing.

In terms of understanding the office environment my Ts haven't been too bad. I think attention to detail makes a difference. For instance, my work gets subjected to a lot of auditing and oversight, so sometimes I have issues with clowns on other teams justifying their own existence by making problems up, but never with anyone on my team (in fact they are amazing). It's fairly standard in a lot of industries but the amount of people that misunderstand and think it's people on my own team I hate and/or that I'm having a miserable time (both untrue) is phenomenal. It's more an irritation.

My main area of concern is if Ts understand the career aspect of it. Because my undergrad degree is used in a number of industries people often naively think I can just waltz into another industry no bother if things go wrong. In reality what I do is so specialist that switching careers is much, much harder these days. Several times I've been in tough situations in my career where a T has gone 'well you can just do X' where X is some naive pretend solution - I've been in my industry for 15+ years and seen what works and doesn't. My last T knew enough to not give career advice PLUS seemed to realise my career isn't as straightforward as people seem to think - breath of fresh air.