What do you consider 'woo woo' in a T?

I find things like if they attribute things to colours like colurs reflect someones personality I am also wary of T with ambient music with forest and waterfall sounds in their waiting room. Things like that. My T knows this and will prefacee things with 'This might be a bit woo woo for you....'

Heh. My t's middle name is "woo woo"! But then again, so is mine, so... it works.

eta: we do energy work from time to time (although it's been awhile) and we're both shamanic practitioners, so she drums for me sometimes while I do a dream re-entry, etc.

edited again: saying that, there are also times when i want and need her to be in traditional-t mode, like recently when we have been talking about transference/love feelings/uncomfortable stuff.

Love this since I have a somewhat woo woo t.

Things that my t does that are woo..Any talk of spirituality, ghosts, anything about so called “fate”. He also has a low opinion of some tenets of psychodynamic like the idea of unconscious motivations. He did mention that I consider creating a mood board/intention board. Nope.

Things that he does not do that are woo- energy work, reiki, pushing a religion on me, tapping, I’m personally iffy on emdr. I abhor anything to do with bs like power of attraction. If he did any of the second group of things I would not see him

9 times out of 10, my therapist sticks to standard, scientifically backed therapeutic techniques, but every once in a while she'll suggest something "woo"-like such as reiki, and it honestly really irritates me. It mostly irritates me because I wish these types of things were more well-advertised about therapists instead of the current system where you typically just have access to a list of providers who take your insurance and have to hope that whomever you decide to schedule with practices the type of therapy you're seeking. If you schedule an appointment with a dentist or with a cardiologist, while there are certainly differences in things like bedside manner, examination style, and diagnostic skill, you are for the most part going to be treated with the same set of scientifically backed services. But when you go to see a "therapist" or a "counselor," you might be in for an hour of CBT techniques and breathing exercises, but you also might get to hear about the angels spreading their wings and gathering to protect you on your eternal healing journey. If I want to pay a woo-master, I will pay a woo-master. I want therapy when I go to see a therapist.

I think therapy itself is one of the woo-iest things going - so I consider that they decided to become a therapist is woowoo to begin with. I think meditation, yoga, tai chi and acupuncture have a lot more basis than therapy and have all helped me more than therapy ever did.

As much as some people think of yoga, meditation and acupuncture as woo I do not think of those things that way because they have research to back up some of the health claims.

Reiki is another matter for me but that’s my hangup

I don't think of acupuncture as 100% woo, but I also don't want to spend my therapy time that I paid for talking about my therapist's thoughts on it or related topics like chi flow. If I want to discuss acupuncture, I will go to an acupuncturist.

I will say that acupuncture never did anything at all for me. I attended about 7 sessions before giving it up. Those were some very expensive naps.

I found sacral cranial energy work to be much more useful for some ptsd symptoms than therapy was after my motorcycle accident.

I did immediately reject any therapist who had toys or stuffed animals.

I so much agree with this!

My T is "open" to everything, apparently. She told me a story when she was 9 months pregnant and was in so much back pain that she couldn't even stand up straight. After multiple doctors' appointments and nothing helping, she saw a Reiki instructor (i believe. this was early on in therapy, and i am all like "nooooo" to anything i can't see for myself), and apparently he did some Reiki magic and she walked out of there, standing straight and tall and wasn't crippled by pain.

I don't think she was lying, but also...not for me. Nor do I have any sort of pain/chronic pain.

She keeps suggesting yoga, and I keep telling her that the actual act of yoga: stretching and holding positions and general exercise, feel nice...it is the classes that I hate. All the deep breathing and finding your center and shite like that. NO THANKS.

She probably has more "woo woo" stuff up in her brain, but keeps it to herself, as she knows I will just roll my eyes at her and say no.

I so feel you on the yoga classes! I love the idea of learning how to do all of those neat stretches and poses, but I could not deal with that forceful breathing everyone did in actual yoga lessons I went to. It creeps me out when others do it and makes me dizzy when I do it. I don't get it. What is relaxing about breathing so forcefully that it looks and feels like you're trying to blow your brains out through your nose?!

My therapist tends to be drawn to things that "sound" scientific, but actually have very little empirical evidence. His latest thing (and our latest disagreement) was about "Neuro Linguistic Programming." I'm printing out the wikipedia article for him next session. Those guys claim they can cure nearsightedness, but yet my therapist is still wearing glasses. Nevertheless, he wants me to try this BS to fix my phobia, which I know can be fixed with exposure.

For me, it's when they tell you to talk to a person as if they're there, but they're not. Or rope playing. I guess I'm too serious?

It's a little woo woo, but I like the idea of it... gemstones attributes. The rock my T gave me is supposed to help with depression. And I just recently bought a fertility gemstone bracelet. Supposedly, you recharge the stones on a full moon.

Wow. My t is just a guy. He likes dogs, sports, and women. I think in that order, idk. I never really had a woo-woo t.

I go to therapy in a Buddhist meditation center containing a whole variety of integrative health practitioners so it’s all woo all the time over there! I enjoy some of it while a few things are a little too out there for me — I wouldn’t want hypnotherapy or Shiatsu, for example. My T never mentions any of it but if I bring it up, she will 100% support me.

If he talked about tarot cards, reading "vibes" from people and feeling energy when entering buildings. Telling me stuff would happen because he saw it in a dream or that emotions get trapped in the body.

But I do all of that to him. . R is very traditional and has never mentioned anything like that first.

My t is not woohoo at all. Sometimes I wish she was as she is very boring and conservative!
I wish she would be more woohoo, I remember going to a really batty t before her and she kinda scared and excited me- it was fun

I am a scientist at heart, and couldn't deal with anything spiritual, religious or similar. I don't mind that other people like these kind of things, but to me it would not help one bit to hear anything related to these topics. Also no music, no small fountains or similar relaxing objects. Luckily my T seems to be on the same level as me for that stuff.

On the face of it, I don't generally consider my T particularly woo woo. He doesn't seem to be, but he did say something about auras once and I thought "Oh there is woo in there somewhere, underneath the button down shirts and loafers".
I know who my T's T was and he is REALLY woo so I think he's probably more woo than he seems, or than he shows me.

Exactly. Once I mentioned to my T that I used to do reiki in the past and it caused me problems. I spoke several times about how I hate new age and I have no interest in it. I even drew a picture of my fears. I just briefly mentioned that on the surface reiki can feel pleasant and she suggested I try it again! That was extremely hurtful and frustrating because it felt she wasn't even listening to me at all! I got a genuine anxiety and it was a rupture that we solved and things are going well. However, I don't feel comfortable taking to her about spirituality again because she just doesn't understand.

I absolutely refuse to do affirmations and things like vision board and similar. I will not do meditation either because while it may help some people, I have issues with dissociation and derealisation and getting into meditation mode makes things worse.

She does a bit of woo-woo with a bunch of “I feel what you’re feeling” (E.g. sick, nauseous etc). And, generally just talks about how she sensed I was “off” etc even if my texts seem okay etc.

But, I think she uses this woo-woo-ness strategically — I don’t know if she outright lies but I do get the feeling that she lays it on thick to convince me of the “connection” between us (usually when I’m really mad at her).

I’m woo-woo myself in other ways — both with her and a whole lot of other people, I sometimes can sense if something is wrong even when they’re far away. With her, it turned out I was right (E.g. I didn’t know exactly what had happened but I knew something around X, Y, Z had gone wrong for her and later when we met in person, she mentioned it).

So, I’m not totally allergic to all kinds of woo-woo but in therapy, I don’t like to mix it with other things — I would absolutely not stand for it if a therapist tried to incorporate some watered-down nonsense of ancient Eastern practices. Mostly because I think it takes an incredible level of practice, self-awareness, growth, wisdom and a rock-solid total lack of desire for money / material stuff to really be able to impart those sorts of practices to others. Therapists by definition wouldn’t ever fit that description. Else, I believe, a lot more harm — invisible maybe but deep-rooted nonetheless— is done by people who really shouldn’t be messing around with that stuff.

My Pdoc refers to ALOT of things as "thAt hippy sht".
Like when he tried introducing me to mindfulness he said "you know I don't usually go in for that hippy sht, but some of this is worth taking a look at."

I have a very low tolerance for woowoo. When I mentioned my upcoming birthday to T last month his immediate response was "so you're an aries?" which suggests to me that he has some woo tendencies.

He's also training in EMDR and I expect him to keep that well away from me.

Mostly, though, he seems to be okay. He doesn't appear to have any training in anything really woo, or mention anything like that on his online profiles.

Ugh, I'm with you on the relaxing fountains, music, and stuff like that. I'm way too type A. Things like that make me want to jump out of my skin rather than making me feel relaxed. I had a therapist try and get me to do breathing exercises while she played relaxing music, and all I could think the whole time was, "Please let this be over soon. We've been doing this so long; surely that stupid track has to be nearing its end. Oh my god, it never ever ends." Sometimes I feel like therapists think they have to change who I am fundamentally as a person. My type A personality may predispose me to anxiety, but it's not pathological in itself. I will never be a peaceful, zen type who starts the day off with an hour of gratitude affirmations and meditation.

Don't do woo woo. Rather do poo poo