T disclosure

My T tells me a LOT about her and I find it helps me a lot. My exT before her was such a blank slate therapist that it always left me longing to know more about her. This T...dang, I know about her 2 kids, their names, her parents, her brother, I know about what her college years were like to an extent, her 3 cats and her dog. She tells stories all of the time about her friends and family when they are relevant. I also know that she has been in therapy herself before, but has no mental health diagnosis. And today she finally told me how old she is haha...36, almost 37. I really like my relationship with her.

my therapist does, often. We talk about things in her life. She knows I worry.

When I first started working with my therapist she shared very little with me. Over the years she has gradually shared a few things like I know she enjoys boating, water sports, she finally told me that she has cats... it took forever for her to tell me if she had pets! Lol!! She doesn’t talk about her personal life too much but I’m almost certain that she has a partner, or a wife. She wears a ring. She’ll tell me about certain holistic remedies that she uses and recommends. Other than that it’s pretty much it. I don’t ask a lot because at this stage of our relationship I’m not overly interested, I don’t think about her as intensely as I used to. That’s not to say I don’t think about her but I’m just not as curious about her life outside of therapy

Most abusers aren't all bad all the time, that is how they get you. Most of you working things out sounds like it is you doing the work and changing somehow, this is from what you say so I apologise if i have the wrong idea.

My T discloses a little. I know some fairly generic things about her life (her husband is a pdoc in the same practice, she has kids and one just started college, etc.).

I know some more detailed/personal stuff to though. She spends a lot of time normalizing my thought process and while often she refers to "people" in a general sort of way, sometimes she supports her argument with a more specific example - everything from how poorly her practice manages their office/secretarial staff to her political leanings to admitting she can be pretty self-critical or have trouble advocating for herself with authority figures too.

What makes this type of disclosure okay, I think, is that it's never very detailed and it's never about her needs. It's merely an example that no one has it all together and everyone struggles or whatever.

my ex-T disclosed little. I knew probably a little bit more about her because her one daughter was signed up for a program that I worked at, but she was pretty blank slate.

My current T is much more laid back and open. She's shown me a video of her kids (I also am a preschool teacher, so it was relevant), and know one thing about her mental health in the past, and little tid bits here and there. It always is brought up because of whatever it is I am talking about. She used to go on tangents a bit more, but she quickly realized that I shut down at that, so she has reigned herself in

My T discloses almost nothing about herself. She is very blank slate. At times, I feel disconnected from her and wish I knew a bit more about her, but I know blank slate is best for me. If she told me things about her personal life (good or bad), I would spend time thinking about or worrying about her, when I should be focusing on myself and my problems.

It probably comes as no surprise to you all that my t discloses a LOT. The only thing that was problematic that he has since corrected was *****ing about other clients albeit vaguely I still found it distressing. What if he is talking crap about me to someone else?

But most of his disclosures are extremely helpful. Especially how he handles his own abuse history as an adult. That has been very helpful. It helps me keep a realistic view of who he is as a person. Yes I do get jealous of his family. But that is real life and I share people with other people and I need to learn how to deal with that.

Oh I don’t know how I would feel if a t told me about their abuse history. I can guess from some of what my t says that her life has been extremely difficult but I don’t know a lot of the what’s and when’s. How did you feel Growly when your t told you that?

I don’t like your ex t from what I am hearing. Sounds like he doesn’t practice what he preaches as you rightly pointed out. Has he done much of his own work because he is still very defensive when other people try to engage or challenge his views.
Somehow my t has been very good for me. I have learned so much about my relational patterns with others and especially in the here and now with her. We explore what happens when I shut down and try to support that when it happens again. T is far from perfect, she admits she has her flaws and that she working on a lot of her own processes such as trying not to control conversations. Which I remind her of when she interrupts.
I know it’s far from perfect therapy but for me that doesn’t exist because nobody is perfect, no t will ever be perfect. She is good enough for me.
She is owning her part in things a lot more and we are not as defensive with each other which helps when there is a misunderstanding.
I think in the past my t had tried to push me beyond my level of support but I have reinforced my boundaries and always tell her when she is going too far. We are both open to each other’s dynamics and this has been really helpful for me to stay and learn to express myself and not just leave with all of the hurt and pain to deal with alone. Also t has thought me to see how I am in relationship can sometimes evoke others to be in control more because I am so passive so I can see relationally that this has been extremely difficult to tolerate but so good for me in a lot of ways. I still think t tries to provoke me at times but that is her dynamic not mine and I can support myself enough to tell her I am not going there today.

I don't like my ex-T either, I guess it is obvious from my many posts about him across the forum As for how he has managed a practice for >30 years in a city where therapists of all kinds are very abundant, I cannot easily discern but what I imagine is that the people who accept, tolerate, or even appreciate him are people with similar backgrounds and issues to his, at least some, but also those that are willing to see him as an authority figure as he badly needs that. I image many of them are very emotionally traumatized and damaged - that much is actually clear from the cases he likes to discuss online. I even imagine him being helpful and the experience insightful for some of those, or at least I hope. The most interesting lesson I've learned from my experience with him, around the time when I was also very ***ed up and saw him for a while (a bit off and on), is a first hand experience how traumatic, unhealthy bonds and repetition compulsion are formed and then can become very persistent and emotionally blind. This is what we most typically associate with childhood, and of course my ex-T also tried to do that with me, but it never made sense, at least not in that simple, classic textbook form. For me it started way into adulthood, in my early 30's, alongside a substance addiction issue, both the substance and relationship problems ran through ~my 30's, and that T was the last bit of it and also the clearest. For me there are no roots to be found in earlier life, these two things just developed and co-existed with fluctuating severity in parallel over an ~8 year period of time in my adulthood, and definitely the substance addiction was the primary culprit. I was not prone to any of that when younger. Once I resolved that stably, my mind and default values became crystal clear again and even more with these lessons and no drive whatsoever to find similar people; what remains now is a desire to share the stories when I can do that safely, really as lessons. I believe I speak easily about these things as they did not happen during a very young, vulnerable, helpless period but in a phase of adulthood, prior to which my individual personality, motivations and values were already firmly established. I think this is also why the experience with the T (and other manipulative and unfair people) did not really traumatize me beyond some temporary annoyance, but it cemented some of my values, which I consider as useful outcome.

Based on your last post, mona, it sounds like you do find worthwhile and beneficial things in this therapy. I guess what confuses people here on the forum is that you tend to start posts about this T that highlight something very negative and then we dissect that. Of course, this is the nature and function of this forum, we tend to discuss troublesome experiences more. If the sum of the whole thing is beneficial as you just said, I guess it's more part of a rocky growth process than a destructive, mostly abusive experience then?

Not Growly obviously, but two of my T's have told me about an abuse history. It was done in a way like "this is a page in the book of my life, this happened to me (no gory details), I'm not ashamed to acknowledge it and you don't need to feel sorry for me or take care of me." No claims to being "healed," but I understood they were doing fine and had dealt with it in therapy.

Kind of like how I prefer people respond on the rare occasions that I admit my own CSA.

My T doesn't tell me much, so I remember every little crumb she does drop. Just little things, like that she was a fat child, her parents made her take piano, she has a dog who hogs the bed, stuff like that.

He told me fairly early on and surprisingly it helped me open up to him faster than I have with t’s in my past. I never went into abuse specifics with my last t in ca at all. My long my term t, it took me at least 7 years to even remotely get into it with him. I have told current t a lot fairly quickly because what he and I went through have a lot of parelells in terms of age it happened, the feelings of shame etc. I thought his self disclosure would feel intrusive but it did not.

Thank you for reminding me to mention that he always says I should never feel like I need to take care of him or worry about him. He says this often.

My T shares next to nothing about herself. She never volunteers personal information or anecdotes about her own experiences at all. I have asked her a handful of vague questions like how many children she has (no clue about their ages), what the weather was like where she grew up (she comes from Europe) and if she can play a musical instrument. She has next to no online presence so I don't know anything else about her.
I really like it this way. She is always consistent in every way in therapy (her presence, attitude, manner, emotional state, behavior) and is 100% focused on supporting me in each session. We don't have outside contact either, but the one time I did send an email (there were exceptional circumstances) she replied appropriately. My therapy is only about me and I find it really helpful, much more so than past experiences where I have been more involved with and invested in the therapist.
I feel like I can work smarter with this T.

Growly: do you think that you shared sooner was because of your previous relationship with your other T? That you WERE able to open up to him about it, led to you being able to be more open with Kashi?

I don't know, and I know your relationship with Kash is unique in its own ways. I have no idea if I would have been able to me more open with my current T if I hadn't already discussed some of it with my previous T. I suppose it is a chicken or egg scenario.

I am rambling, sorry.

Yes I imagine your ex attracts people who crave authority figures and almost beg him to tell them what to do. It’s almost like traumatic bonds are recreated with him and he feeds into this dynamic with his clients. He also reminds me of the karpman triangle where he is the victim, the perpetrator and the abuser. So glad you were aware of this and got away from him.
With my own t at this it has been very abusive and hard. I learnt the dynamics that I play can attract abuse. I think we all post more about our confusion, our hurt and our horror stories in therapy. Reading positive ones are just not that interesting. A lot of us are drawn to the negative.
My t can be destructive and abusive but I am drawn to that. She listens more and is more open to how I am experiencing her more. It’s not perfect and I will post about my troubles with her but I enjoy seeing her most of the time.

That sounds like it was handled in a very careful way.
I wouldn’t believe anyone who claimed to be healed of CSA because it is an ongoing process. I believe it becomes less important and less destructive and less important but it always there, always part of our history.

My former therapist told me things that were relevant to our discussions, she's told me she's been divorced twice, she has kids (showed me photos of two of them), though I don't have kids so I don't know how that was relevant to me. One of her granddaughters has the same name as me (weird as my home isn't super common), she recovered from bulimia, she was born and lived in Boston growing up, and some other things that I can't think of. My group therapist (well all of the group therapists I've had) were/are open with their lives. I don't think I could work with a blank slate except for psychiatrists, I don't care about their lives, I really don't care too much about the therapists lives either but do like relevant self disclosure.

I want to know: Do they have kids? Do they have (or have had) furry pets? Whether their religion (or, better, lack of) and politics mesh with mine. I don't want inspirational stories! And I certainly don't want to be expected to worry about them. (Which is not to say I won't ever but stopdog's therapist's expecting to be asked about her foot is ridiculous.)

Yes it is very much a chicken and egg scenario!! Bring abl to tell another t don’t d make it easier to do it once again. However I’ve known him less than two years and I do believe that his own disclosure made it easier. Both contributed to make no it easier

My T generally does not share about himself anything. I still know quite a lot about him because in earlier stages of my therapy I conducted very exhaustive google searches (and I'm very good at it). I figured out all his marriages and children, his general life history (where he went to school etc) and stuff like that. Some of those things came up in session and he was pretty much stunned how did figure out all these things.

He has shared over time some things upon my asking, like some opinions or facts from his life. For instance, once I asked whether he has any experience with psychosis and he told me that he has had one short psychotic episode. These are quite rare though because if he figures that I'm only asking to deflect things from myself then he does not answer.

He has never volunteered any information about himself and I regard that very highly. I have zero wish to take care about my therapist and thus I would not appreciate him sharing anything about his life difficulties.

He does share quite a bit about his thoughts and feelings about me though because I have great difficulties in being present and filling the space in sessions. By sharing his impressions about me and how he experiences me I think he hopes to help me to come forth more. This is something I appreciate a lot.

Self disclosure would only have momentary advantage in the session. Hearing others may have a shared experience doesnt effect internal change.
Only taking about ourselves and having that analysed has that effect.
So I don't see any therapeutic reason for self disclosure.
It may make the client feel special which the fantasy for self disclosure is driven by or it can be a hook for their codependency. Thsts why many skilled therapists don't.

I disagree of course. Knowing that t had the experience that felt as unbearable and as shameful as mine really helped me beieve he would not judge me or see me as disgusting. Sure he makes me feel special too but that is sort of a bonus, not the reason it makes it easier to talk.

My long term t as as skilled a t as you are going to find o. The US and he practiced a certain amount of self disclosure too. Not everyone wants or works well with a blank slate t.