Therapists having seen and heard it all

Therapists have seen and heard it all. Right. I don't believe that. Everything has to be the T's first time. Maybe it's with you.
Currrent T's has seen/heard a lot. She told me she has worked in a closed psych ward or something. There were probably worse cases than she sees at this practise.
I think/suspected that my PrevT hasn't seen/heard lot. When I started seeing her, she had only been a T for a year maybe. And how she dealt with my suicide thoughts made me think she didn't had much experience with clients with such thoughts. And I also don't think she has had a client that had become so attached to her. I've never asked her about it and she never said anything about her experiences with it, so it are just suspections based on what I've seen/heard from her.

I know my T1 was unsure of how to handle something with me, even though she'd been seeing clients for about 40 years. When I told her about my transference for my marriage counselor, she wasn't sure how I should address it with him and said she wanted to consult (anonymously) with a couple other therapists (not him, obviously). That suggested to me she hadn't dealt with a client with transference for a marriage counselor before. She later said that my transference for MC "is as intense as it gets," which made it seem like she hadn't seen someone with transference of my intensity before.

She's also said other things that suggest she hasn't heard some things I've told her from other clients. Like she's saaid how it's unusual that I have OCD yet have a messy house (you'd think she'd know it could manifest itself in many different ways!) And that I'm the first person she knew to have panic attacks from exercising.

All of these things made me feel sort of like a weirdo. It felt a bit pathologizing, particularly the transference part.

MC is one who's told us (in this case when we were anxious talking about sex) how "I'm a psychologist, I've heard everything!" Which was rather comforting compared to T1's characterization of some things. Though I suspect I may be the only client who figured out that his wife was sick and, later, that she'd passed away, and he seemed unsure to handle that at times...actually saying things like, "I'm not sure how to handle this," regarding my concerns about her and wanting more info than he was willing to give (he's generally quite open about personal stuff, disclosing quite a lot). So...I guess that was an area he hadn't dealt with before maybe, but it was kind of specific and a difficult topic anyway...

T2 has been pretty normalizing--he hasn't so far said anything like "I've seen everything." But he said how transference is very common, including for marriage counselors. If anything I've told him so far has surprised or shocked him, he's done a good job of hiding it (and I've shared quite a bit in the past few months that I've been seeing him...) I appreciate that about him.

Though I will say, regarding T1, I like that when she was unsure how to handle something with me, she consulted others (and was open about doing that). If something like that comes up with T2, I'd certainly rather he consult if he's unsure instead of trying to muddle through. (Not that consulting would make them immune from screwing up, of course...)

Maybe the best thing for them to say would be something like, "I've seen a lot of things since I've been practicing, but clients do still surprise me sometimes."

I really don't see it as a comforting statement. I see it as self-aggrandizing and patronizing. But I never found anything the woman said to be comforting. Whenever she said or wrote anything, it was like putting my arm into a blender because of how obvious it was that she did not have a clue, not even a tiny rudimentary understanding, about what I was saying.

My experiences are pretty unique (medical torture - especially not to the extent it happened to me - doesn't happen a lot I think, especially not at my age), so no, I don't think so.

Well, I've also had two (experienced) physical therapists (one of them being highly experienced and educated, and regarded as an expert in her field) who had never heard of cross-dominance and insisted I had to be either left- or righthanded. (For those who don't know what it is: very short version: cross-dominance is basically writing with your left hand and using scissors with your right, or similar things. It's not the same as ambidexterity, which means you're able to write with both hands)

Just remembered.. last week on my blood work I had such a weird cell in my blood (a deformed red blood cell or something), the person working in the lab had to consult with the hematologist to find out what it was and when they faxed the blood work report to my pdoc, he also had to call the hematologist to ask what cell that was because he'd never heard of it. xD And more stuff like that. My body is.. unique.

I've had a lot of therapists and my pdoc who hadn't heard what I said before, or how my thought processes work, or what happened to me, or even what weird thing my body is doing this time (I have like three organs that work correctly.. well that's a bit of an exaggaration but you get the point.. and none of the incorrectly-working things work incorrectly in the usual way, if you get what I mean), but they've never made me feel like a freak about it. They just listen, occasionally do some research or consult with colleagues, and help to the best of their abilities.

My T makes lots of things I say sound like they are pretty normal and as if he has heard them lots of times before.

There are a few times however that I have said something and he has annoyingly either laughed or winched.

Last month I told him something and it was evident from his facial expression that he was very surprised which indicated to me that he hadn't heard someone say that before or perhaps hadn't thought such a thing would happen to me.

I find it somewhat comforting when a T says 'they have heard it all before' as it makes me feel like nothing I will say will shock them. On the other hand, like another poster said I also find it very annoying as it makes me feel somewhat insignificant and as if none of my problems are unique and I am the same as everyone else.

One therapist told me she had not seen such an intensity of "transference" before. But I am less bothered by how therapists reacted to what i said, than by the thought of them sitting there voyeuristically consuming the details of my personal life.

My Ts never told me that. The second one said numerous times how unique, special, different etc I was... I was not impressed as I was told those things by people in my whole life, and I believe everyone is a unique combination just as much as there are characteristic, common patterns in human nature and suffering. I did not like the comment also because my T tended to use it when he was clueless and had nothing useful to say. I do believe that life experience can take us to a stage where we are not easily (or at all) shocked, one does not need to be a therapist for that, just open to experience and the variety around. It does not mean that one has seen every version of issues, combinations and severity.