How do you and your therapist connect?

Have you ever explored your wish to connect to your current and also your fear of connecting because of your experience with your last t?
I know it’s hard to separate the two experiences but they could be very different. Perhaps current t senses your fear and is playing it safe.
A lot of ts believe that the therapists use of self is the most valuable asset we have but often it’s hard to know if it is appropriate with every client.
I think that if you were to connect to that spontaneous and creative side the work would be so much deeper.
My t uses herself a lot sometimes it works and other times it doesn’t but I think that’s more to do with her personality than anything and how she delivers her sayings.
I have found that I connect more with people when they are being true to themselves and authentic.

I just felt the connection grew over time I spent with her. Like bit by bit I started to open up and bring the walls down, and her consistency has secured me enough to actually form the connection and the feeling of safety and understanding. I agree with some of the other people that sitting on the floor on tough sessions also makes me firstly feel more at ease and secondly closer and more connected!

I have seen my T for 8 years and I am in my early 50's and he is in his early 60's. Sometimes we connect around how awful the online world is -- I don't do Facebook or other media and he says that half the disputes people talk about in therapy as couples are about Facebook or texts. We discuss how out of step we are with using technology although I pretty much run out and get the newest version of i phone when it comes out.

But even though we don't use technology like a lot of people do, both of us are reasonably competent with being able to use it and savvy about what's going on in the younger persons' world. He sees a lot of younger clients and I have a teenager going off to college in a bit more than a year.

We connect around some lifestyle issues, about taking time to yourself and staying away from people that make you crazy, being straight with people while trying to be as kind of possible. And the difficulty of dealing with the relentlessly entitled people who cross our paths. The importance of creativity and being true to yourself and your experience.

Maybe! I've met career change counselling students who are very sheltered and ignorant and judgmental. And they were in their 20s to 30+ years old.

I connected alright with my LGBTQ counsellor and he's older than what I'd prefer (like 40? I'm approaching 30, T is 30).

And yet he's really in touch with current affairs, works with LGBTQ people from a wide age range including teens and senior folks, very much a social worker connecting with me on systemic issues of society...and he knew the latest lingo haha!

Probably helps that he's gay and that I was seeing him about specific LGBTQ stuff.

With current T, we connect when I'm present in the room, rather than when I'm in my head.

Mine is just a few years older than I am. When we are together we go for walks, hold hands, eat together, text each other, sit next to each other.

My T is 10 years older than me so she understands things like sexuality and gender issues, which is important to me. She also understands the pressures of college, whereas an older therapist (like 50s or 60s+) probably wouldn't since college was much different for them than it is for me.
As for how we connect, we are both very funny and have similar senses of humor. We spend most of our sessions being goofy and laughing, which sounds counterproductive or odd for therapy sessions about serious topics, but it works well for me

My T is roughly twice my age. I actually find it easier to connect with people who are much older than me. That sounds a bit pompous, like I'm trying to make myself out to be super mature or something. I think I just feel more inhibited around my own peer group. As for what we specifically connect over, I guess it's little things, like loving our dogs. T has given me a few personal tidbits of information (nothing groundbreaking, just little facts that make her feel more human) that help me feel more connected to her.

My T is about 10 years younger than me. I don't know that I "connect" with her. I feel like I "use" her. I don't get or expect or want "support" from her. I do expect her to listen and hold what I tell her without being judgmental. I also expect her to have expertise and skills in the things I need her to have them in and apply them as needed. I like her enough and she does her job to an acceptable degree. That's all I expect of her.
But I don't feel an emotional connection with her. When I or any part of me is dissociating I expect her to help us get grounded as much as she is able. Once time is up I leave. There are times when I am not grounded at leaving time and I sense she is torn about me going out into the world in that state. She appears to not be very comfortable with it and tries to get me to stay longer and get grounded. But at leaving time it is leaving time and there is nothing she could do or say that will change anything. I have depended on myself for this whole life. There is no reason why I should depend on another person to do it for me now.

With T we have connected over time. She also shares with me the successes of hee son (Like when he graduated from college, got married, etc). When struggle with parenting issues like when my son was bullied she told me About when he son was bullied and how they handled it. We also discuss the mental health crisis in our community.

With EMDR T this is a struggle as she has shared so little. I know that she is from out of state and that we are the same religion. Honestly the only connection is church and how much comfort and not we get out of going to mass.

The thing I find more unsettling is that the woman was so completely oblivious - she thought was was connecting with me - despite me constantly telling her she was not. Even at the end she gave twaddle about how she felt our relationship was solid (when I do not even believe there was a relationship) although she knows I did not trust her words (I never understood enough of what she said or meant to know whether it was trustworthy or not -mostly I could not figure out the point of it - I rarely got to trust or not - I was still on what the **** was going on).
It was like she was always saying stupid crap like the sky is blue - perhaps not untrue but completely irrelevant to everything.
I find those people mostly delusional about whatever it is they think they do.