Curious about the other patients

I get so curious when I see the other people walk out of my T's office. What are they talking about? Is their situation worse or better than mine? Is my T behaving differently with them in some ways?
I also get a bit jealous sometimes. I forget that I'm not the only patient she has to focus on. Does she like them better than me, do they have a better connection? ...

As curious as I am about the others, I want to know nothing about my T outside of the sessions. What she's like when not working and so on. The smallest thing I would get to know about her could become a problem in the relationship, I think. So I really want to know nothing at all.

The woman has told me other clients like her better than I do. I said I could not imagine why they would.
That was sort of the end of that.

I'm also curious about my T's other patients. I wonder if they are easier to deal with than I am. I don't usually feel jealous. The only times I've felt a tiny bit of jealous is if he has another patient right before me and they run over. And then I'm like, why is he still with them when I'm out here waiting?! I know it's silly. He runs over with me too sometimes.

Ah, and I want to know everything about my therapist! I don't need to idealize him. I want him to be real. His realness and imperfections make me feel closer to him.

" His realness and imperfections make me feel closer to him." completely agree and when mine told me he sees a T too, I thought it made him seem more human, which I liked.

Only problem, I am strongly attached already so this wont be easy to end someday.

The end will be difficult, no doubt about that.

I wonder about this stuff all of the time. I often joke with him if I'm his favorite. He says yes but in a way where I don't really believe him. I think he has a few people he is very attached to. He once said that yes he gets very attached to his patients and it affects s him when something happens to them. That part I believe but the part about being his favorite? Maybe not.

I don't want to know. I'm curious about them, but I rather not know ANYTHING about them.

I don't like to think about it. I am pretty sure she has a lot more interesting clients than me.

I have held forth -- in excruciating detail -- to her on what exactly I think she thinks about her other clients (both in general terms and about specific other clients) vis-a-vis me (based on what I saw her doing for them vs. me).

To the point that it became a sore topic -- for her (not me -- I could go on about it until kingdom come).

The whole thing blew up when she ended up telling me the clinical reason for her behavior towards other client(s) -- I don't think she told me the truth though. Think she mostly told me that to shut me up.

She has attributed my going on about it (rightly, I'll say) to my long-standing -- and as yet, unresolved -- mommy issues.

I have a sneaking suspicion that she has made (at least temporary, if not permanent-ish) certain changes to her schedule so that I'll quit holding forth about it (or more specifically, I don't run into certain other clients of hers) but like I said, since it became a sore topic, we haven't discussed it.

I am rather tempted to bring it up -- my whole point was that I didn't need her to change her behavior in any way (towards me or other people) but that I needed her to honestly discuss the whys and wherefores. But, after going round and round over it rather endlessly, she couldn't seem to do it or even understand what I was getting at and I just got even more frustrated.

At some point, after I sort of threw in the towel, she came up with this bizarre thing of having heard on the radio about implicit bias but not implicit bias as one typically understands it (in terms of being biased about race, sexuality etc) -- however, that's another long story and I shan't get into it mostly coz, thinking about her reasoning (or what seemed like the utter and total lack of it) still makes my head spin.

ETA: Oh, I forgot to add -- I truly couldn't care less if other clients have more pressing issues or she's more fascinated by them etc. What I would like for her to do (as I've endlessly explained to her) is for her to be really really really really honest about what she feels about me (including all the ugly stuff) -- something it seems she's totally unwilling to do. And, my insistence that she clearly has a complex set of feelings towards me based on her behavior towards me vs. other clients, didn't seem to make a dent on her. At all. Oh well.

This is something I wonder about too, and sometimes get jealous of. I've only even seen two other patients--one before me when I had to come on a different day, and the guy after me whom I always describe to my husband as Mr Depressed Irainian man. ( Mr Depressed Irianian man seems lately to be down to every other week, which means on his off weeks we run over especially long.) I'm the first patient of the day at 5pm, I think my therapist mainly keeps just evening hours. So I like to believe that makes me more special with being the first person that day, I tell myself my therapist thinks of me and prepares for our session on the drive in. I go through periods of jealousy and get possessive of my therapist--he's mine, no one else can have him! But I also know the man has to make a living, I get it, we both have families. So I tell myself little lies, that maybe I'm the only female he sees, and that I'm definitely the one who works the hardest in therapy. But I also know one truth in this situation which usually helps me the most when I feel jealous--I realize that no one else gets that 60 minutes, it's my time, and no one gets to intrude or take that away, and in that hour, I'm definitely the most interesting patient ;-)

Now I am so curious (genuinely!).... how would one know how the therapist is with other clients? My therapist doesn't say much about any of her other clients or how they feel about her or anything really, other than an occasional "I had a client who (general non-identifying story that's related to what we're discussing)..."

I am a little idly curious about others because I am curious about people in general, but then I think...I wouldn't welcome their curiosity about me and my sessions.

My T doesn't talk about other clients, and I think if she did I wouldn't like it as I'd then start worrying if she was using me as an example to others!
However i do get curious, I wonder who else she sees, how their relationship is, is it better/worse than ours, am I her least enjoyable one etc.. and yes that makes jealousy rest its ugly head. I think for me the more I knew the worse I'd become with jealousy, my own thoughts and imagines are bad enough. So I hope she continues to tell me nothing!

I've have been thinking about his other clients recently. If they're "easier"or better than me. He only mentioned another client once when we were talking about rescheduling.

I'm curious and I'm jealous. Sometimes I think I'm his favorite, but it can't be true

I Have to confess that my fears are a little more selfish. I never thought about what relationship they have with my Pdoc. I look around and wonder what is going on with them, why are THEY there. Did they check YES to that little box on the form that asks if they have thoughts of harming themselves or others

I never was particularly curious about other patients. I saw them leave before me or arrive as I was leaving, but I never gave them much thought. I even knew a few of them, but it wasn't a big deal.

One of the people I knew was actually one of my students. I don't remember whether it was me or the student who brought it to his attention, but T shared with me that the student just said "I would guess lots of people, even teachers, need someone to talk to." And that was the end of any discussion about it. T said he discussed the need for confidentiality with the student and that was it.

I think my student's observation was spot on and very astute. Essentially it was the idea that we all have needs that are worthy of a listening ear and support and we can just accept and respect that.

Yes tend to be curious about other clients and never had any issues when I ran into others at the T office. Never felt jealous except once a little, but not really over the other patient, more because I would have liked to have more time with my T that day and saw the other client that was about to start his session, on my way out. But I am most curious about myself when I go to therapy and would not spend much of my time thinking about others or discussing others with my T.

I'm curious mainly about what kinds of problems his other clients talk to him about. I've wondered if he has other clients who he sees more than once a week. I've wondered if he has other clients who are suicidal. I've seen a few of his other clients, but never felt jealousy or anything like that towards them.

I'm curious about other clients - good to hear I'm not the only one, OP

I think I have always been curious, because I felt like it would give me some context and therefore some clues about how my T sees me. E.g. am I the one with the most difficult history? Or the one who keeps everything together compared to everyone else? Etc.

I have realised I am never going to get this information out of T! This is a good thing of course. He's scrupulous about protecting people's confidentiality. But he has asked me why I want to know, and we have discussed this. Basically there are a couple of things for me I think that were the questions underneath - did really bad things happen to me, worse than the kinds of things that happen to most people? And am I doing well, or badly now compared to other people? The second is a kind of competitive question which basically comes from the question, am I a bad person?
T thinks that no matter what I found out about other clients, it could be somehow twisted to show that I am bad or there is something wrong with me. So he thinks it wouldn't help me. (Even if he was prepared to tell, which he isn't.) Instead we focus on being able to believe that I'm not a bad person.

That's interesting and probably very true. Better not to know everything that's for sure. Curiosity killed the cat..

I've never been curios about other clients with any of my therapist. I was momentarily jealous once when my therapist started family therapy with a good friend of mine, but it went away as soon after I processed it with therapist.

I have a friend who is a t. She said that after a session is over, she moves on mentally and emotionally to the next scheduled client. Except on rare instances, she said she does not think about her clients between sessions because she has a life outside work. I can accept her reasoning.