T disclosure

Does your t disclose personal information, if so, what kind of things? Are they helpful/ relevant to you?

My t has always been very open about her own process and struggles, a lot of the time this has been helpful to me to know that what I am feeling is pretty common and that there is nothing wrong with me.
At other times, it’s been very distracting, mainly because I have an anxious ambivalent attachment. My t knows this but still tells me things, she then asks why I am worried about her. Sometimes it feels very confusing because I want to care about her but I want to be her friend but these are things that are not allowed.
T thinks that by worrying about her it’s a distraction from me and my own problems.

I know, it sucks, I never thought I'd have to "Edit" the compassionate side of me, it's a huge part of who I am a huge struggle for me in therapy... because I can't be that part. Sigh....

He shares a lot, more than most would be comfortable with. Not really any "off limits" things thus far.

T discloses very little about himself that doesn't relate to our therapy.

I know he's married. I know it's a second marriage.
I know he has 3 sons -- 2 from a previous marriage. I know his youngest son is still school-aged (a kid) but the other 2 are adults.
I know he does long-distance running as a hobby.
I know he has a dog. A border collie I think...

That's it

Oh wait - I noticed recently that he had a bandage on his nose, and I know they biopsied a mole there. I need to ask him if it's cancer.... because, you know... it'd just be awesome for him to have cancer too (since S has cancer) -.- /sarcasm.

If he has a noticeable injury, I ask, he says

Are you comfortable with his disclosures? Sounds like you struggle with them too. I have to edit my compassionate side too because I try to respect her boundaries but then if she shares I can’t just turn a blind eye- sigh, it’s very difficult.

I wish my t was more like this

The two recent ones disclosed more that I was interested in knowing. I never knew why the woman told me what she did about herself - I never found the information useful or even relevant to what I was talking about. She once got all pissy because I would not ask her about some leg/foot thing she had going on.
I figure if she had wanted me to know - she would tell me so I did not ask. She has a husband and sons and for all I know -even friends to deal with her personally. It was not my job. It had nothing to do with me at all. I did not wish her ill -but for me to act otherwise would have seemed to me to be intrusive on something that was not mine upon which to intrude.

Mostly, when they try to tell me about some struggle or whatever that they dealt with and how they handled it, my response is "it isn't like I think oh that woman did X so I should/can/ what ever." I don't find how therapists live to be awesome or try to emulate them or use them as a basis for choices I make. I don't hold them up as an ideal. I don't think they make better choices than I do nor do I look to them for advice on how to be.

Mine shared almost everything personal going on in his life. I was there to listen and give support when he was having similar feelings of negative self worth to mine that were driven by his (ex) wife. He used to tell me about incidents with other clients (no names) that he felt he mishandled. We both knew what each other's weekend plans were most of the time. We even swapped pictures of our kids.

In hindsight, I think that this set me up to get hurt because what happens when they change their mind and pull back and tell you they need space? I thought I was useful to him and that helped me trust him...now I feel worthless as far as he's concerned.

I don't think I will ever trust another T who lets me be a part of his life like that.

I love it, it has helped me build comfort and trust... I do struggle though because of having to edit who I am and because I badly want to be friends and know I can't, it makes me sad a lot but I just try to enjoy the short bit of time we do have every week.

My T discloses very little about herself. What she has disclosed has been more random tidbits about herself. They have helped in keeping her a person and not just the role. They give me a basis in separating her from me.

I don't think knowing about her struggles in life (no matter how minor) would be helpful for me because I would worry about her, I would turn my focus towards her, I would want to take care of her and solve the issues. So yeah, they would be a major distraction for me and add to my paradigm of who I am/should be in a relationship. My interactions with my T are the only time in my life that things are completely and solely focused on me. I hated that in the beginning. Now I count on it. I need everything that goes on between us to be seen, discussed, and processed complete as my experience. I have discounted, deferred, minimized, and invalidated my experiences too much in my life. It is taking a lot for me to accept that my experiences are just, valid, acceptable, and can be honored/respected. I'm still not there.

My T tells me bits and pieces, but generally mundane things. She is extremely cautious about sharing personal struggles. She is especially careful to not bring up anything that is currently emotionally raw for her because she doesn't want to put me in a position to take care of her. Sometimes she will answer things I ask about directly and sometimes she won't. It can be tricky because I have a keen spidey sense about something being "off" about her. (Thank you, insecure attachment and your keen hypervigilance!)

My understanding is that my T doesn't share anything if she doesn't see a clear reason why it would be helpful to me. She would never want me to worry about her, and if she put me in that position, she would consider it a mistake on her part. The only exception might be if whatever is going on would impact my therapy, for example if she had an illness that would require longer-term treatment they would affect her ability to work. Even then I think she would make sure she had adequate support for herself and try to be as matter-of-fact about the situation as possible.

Then why does she tell you about her own issues? Does not really compute to me except that she does it for herself and then wants you to deal with it on your own.

My last T talked about himself quite a lot, usually in the context of what I brought up and as a reflection to that, but sometimes it would go on all sorts of tangents and I had to stop him. It wasn't about his mental health though and never very detailed, probably the most abundant topic was related to his career and different experiences. He did share with me a chronic physical health issue and surgery due to that when I was not even seeing him in sessions anymore. Initially, and for a good while, I liked that he shared a lot of things and usually they were similar to my experiences. With time though, I realized it was his way of reacting and reflecting instead of following up my stuff and digging into that more deeply, so in this sense it interfered with my therapy. I liked the guy a lot and always felt like equals with him, but never really had a desire to care for him and his problems and told him so after a while. Then he tuned it down.

My first T uses the public internet to talk about himself a lot so I got to know a lot about him looking at that info.

I actually never wanted to actively hear much personal stuff about them in session and rarely asked personal questions, the info came mostly from passively listening to it and looking up online.

Mine has disclosed important things about her trauma and certain experiences that were similar to mine. It helped me create a bond and trust her. However, a few times she said things that were not related and made me worry about her. I'd prefer if she minimized further disclosures. She doesn't disclose often, though and never went into details which I appreciate.
Sometimes I wonder about details of her trauma but I'm afraid I would begin to compare us and I would feel terrible if I found out she recovered faster and easier than me. That would make me feel like a failure. So I'll never ask her about that.

I struggle with this too, I always think of someone wants to tell me about their illness/ injury they will. I try not to ask but people have accused me of not caring. It sucks.

He tells me if his wife is working on one of his workdays, since it means he has to watch his kids and can't work.

He also tells me things if the situation calls for it. For example when I asked what he would describe as being open when you first meet someone, he told me about someone he met a few weeks ago and what they shared with him immediately (not a patient).

Other than that, usually the session before a longer break is a bit lighter, and he might say things about his past like "I took some English classes in high school" or "I once took a class on computer programming". But he doesn't share anything about personal issues or tells me a lot about his life. I like it this way, I feel that I otherwise would very quickly become dependent.

I think she tells me because she is very lonely and knows she can trust me. She does do it for her own benefit and that hurts me cos when I get upset she doesn’t want to talk about the impact it has on me.
How do you feel about your t putting it online for everyone to see? I definitely wouldn’t like that.

Your t is a pretty appalling t. I am so sorry she continues to hurt you.

My t knows I have the impulse to take care of her and so hasn't disclosed anything. She has also made it clear she has good people in her life to take care of her.

I did not mind in a personal way at all, it was an easy way to get all the info and it helped me not to buy a lot of his BS. He tries to sell a T image that is very fake - it is not easy to see through it not knowing him, but very easy for me after the personal experience. He is obviously insecure and dogmatic, plus have low professional quality standards (relative to mine at least) - these come across boldly from the media. But even if he wasn't, I would never do it as a professional whose work involves maintaining a good professional structure and discipline and I don't think it is good marketing strategy either. Plus, I definitely don't think it is good for prospective, current or past clients who tend to have a lot of preoccupation with their T. It did help me to see a more complete picture of him and to move on though, meaning that it did not help him to keep a client like me who wants professionals to be... professional

My first therapist disclosed absolutely nothing about himself. It was a safe and clear relationship, albeit cold and removed. The latest one shared quite a lot, including details about her processes. It has turned into a painful and sad relationship which is riddled with transference.

I hear you, sounds exactly like my relationship with t. By any chance did you ever tell your t how painful it is?

Interesting perspective, I always wondered how much online presence there should be and what the consequences would be for prospective clients. I have a colleague who set up a website recently. She shared a lot about her own struggle with depression. I was conflicted about it. In one sense I admired her congruence but on the other I wondered what impact knowing that would have on her clients. For me as a client I would be looking for signs of a relapse in her and I would be minding her by trying not to upset her.

She is not all bad, I admit she is not the best t but somehow we work things out.

My T has told me a few basic things about her, like how she's married but doesn't have kids yet (she's still pretty young, 30s at most), she has younger siblings and we've talked about our dogs too

Sometimes if I seem like I don't have the motivation to work on certain things, she'll tell me about herself struggling with something similar, things are easier said than done and it's alright to fall back a bit as long as you keep going.

She's also mentioned that it can be hard for her to know exactly where to go with me (her tone was kind and genuine so I didn't feel blamed). I think for me it gave me enough of a "guilt-factor" to motivate me to work harder in session because there truly is only so much she can do and it can't be a one sided effort. It sort of snaps me out of a "rebellious/ resistant teen" mindset that I can revert to but doesn't make me feel bad either. I don't think she would say that to other clients, but I need the direct message for the point to get across.

I like that she's open about her own struggles, not too open that it makes me worry about her but open enough that I know she's human and isn't perfect or a miracle worker

I personally don't mind if someone shares their past struggles with something like depression, anxiety or other mental health-related issues. What bothers me is when I see from the larger palette of their presentations and interactions with others that they lack professional discipline, are all over the map, passive aggressive, and don't walk their talk. These latter things were the case with my T. It is also very alarming if a T seems so hooked on all kinds of social media that it gives a vibe of an unhealthy dependence/addiction, and when they cannot handle challenge in professional ways and become mean or discard whatever does not fit their own projections and wishes. It also bothers me when they put low quality, superficial, highly repetitive things on the web as their creations and "insights". We are not talking about one professional website here but putting those poorly managed things all over the web. My other Ts professional pages are more on the opposite end of the spectrum: very polished and transmit a vibe of a certain elitism, but I personally identify with that much more than poorly designed and managed presentation. I guess there is a lot of my personal preferences in how I perceive them and what works for me. If you think, mona, that your T with her whole baggage still provides useful things to you, then probably it is not negative to continue seeing her if you can tolerate the "side effects". I think it can be also quite meaningful to ponder why we put up with certain negative things at a given time, what it says about us and our struggles. For example, I can now ask myself, how and why on Earth did I engage with that unprofessional guy at all, given the apparent standards I claim for myself? Obviously during a good chunk of the time when I was seeing him, I wasn't in a good place and did not have good discipline either so a lot of my criticisms at the time were rather hypocritical. On some level, I identified with his poor professionalism, at least unconsciously, but it is very clear now. Eventually quitting and being over with him was actually very meaningful for me, meaning personal growth and advancement in an active, productive way.

I hate it when they share too much. A little superficial stuff is OK. "How was your vacation?" "Oh great, we had a good time in California." But don't spend too much time on it. I pay therapists so that we can talk about me, specifically my problems. And that's very different than the way I am with friends. I don't mind at all listening to friends complain or talk about their own stuff. In fact I enjoy listening. But in therapy I get to be selfish.

I know nothing about my T. She seems very very reserved and keeps all cards close to her chest. The only thing I do know ( whoops facestalked) is that she’s married and has two big dogs. She’s definitely a enigma..