Friends seeing the same therapist

I had an interesting experience yesterday, where a friend was talking about trying to find a new therapist, and happened to mention my therapist as the main person he's currently trying to get an appointment with! I've never mentioned my therapist's name to this friend, though he knows I'm in therapy. So presumably my friend wasn't aware of the overlap unless he's pieced together who I see based on clues about specialty and location.

I wasn't totally shocked--my current therapist has some unusual expertise that's something my friend is looking for--but I'll admit this friend is someone I'm close enough with that I don't think it would be a good idea for us to see the same therapist. I have an acquaintance or two who have been seeing my therapist for longer than I have, but a close friend would definitely be a different story!

Having a close friend see my therapist would feel uncomfortable to me. Could you tell your friend your feelings? I would really hope they'd understand. I'm presuming there are probably several other local choices and they can't be too invested in a choice yet.

I live in a small enough area that this type of thing is pretty inevitable. What is your concern? That the therapist will share something with your friend? That you might see your friend in the waiting room? That you want to talk about your friend in therapy?

I can pretty much guarantee that there's no way that your therapist will tell your friend anything...even that you see him. Doing so would be a major breach of ethics and could easily cause him to lose his license. My guess is that he is pretty skilled at compartmentalizing multiple patients, so it probably wouldn't even occur to him.

For me it would be more awkward to explain to my friend why I didn't want him to see my therapist than to just go with it. But living in a small town, I'm quite used to quasi dual relationships and people showing up in places where I really wish they wouldn't.

Not planning on mentioning it to my friend--I suspect that while he'd be completely reasonable and understanding about it from a rational perspective, he'd also probably resent me for it on some level (which I wouldn't blame him for, for the record). It may be a moot point since I'm not sure my therapist is taking new patients right now. I'll probably check in with my therapist about it!

Hah, no, those are definitely not my concerns. If I thought my therapist were that unethical or foolish there's no way I'd still be seeing him! My friend does come up in therapy, like other important people in my life inevitably do.

But just like it's bad practice for two romantic partners to see the same person for individual therapy, or two close family members, etc., I think it's often clearly suboptimal for very close friends to have the same therapist--same logic and same ethical considerations apply.

A friend of mine sees the same therapist as me. She had a talk with us individually about not talking to each other about our therapy.

Personally I'm uncomfortable we see the same therapist because I've a bunch of personal jealousy issues around other clients. My baggage yeah.

I told T something majorly personal about that friend before or after we realised we see the same therapist...(timeline is unclear). Uncomfortable since T had to pretend she didn't know that major thing to her, and I lied for a year to my friend (so ashamed of myself) until I couldn't take it anymore and confessed to my friend that I'd told T.

Oof, that sounds really frustrating for all three of you! How did you come to realize that the two of you see the same therapist? Also curious what the therapist's logic was in telling you to not talk about therapy.

I only realised when my friend started talking about her therapist and mentioned her name. Wow it was a big surprise, and not pleasant because of my issues.

I informed my therapist and my therapist checked with my friend. It was a surprise to my therapist and that friend too as my social name is different from my legal name. (My therapist knows both of my names but friends usually don't know my legal name).

Her rationale is...I don't remember but it didn't make much sense. I didn't want to hear my friend talking about her therapy either way due to my own issues, but I don't recall my therapist giving clear reasons.

We had a rupture recently as I wanted to talk about my friends (including that friend) in MY therapy as it IS related to my issues but my therapist plain doesn't want me to talk about that friend. Probably because I was telling her a lot about that friend. All related to my issues, but I think my therapist felt uncomfortable. Though she would stress she compartmentalises different clients well, my friend kept worrying about The Major Thing since, I guess, my therapist isn't that great at pretending.

I was in a similar situation a few years ago. I had sought the help of a therapist who specialized in a certain area - a friend (who also saw her) found out that I was trying to make an appointment to see her doctor and had a fit. The therapist ultimately said she couldn’t see me due to the concerns of her patient.

I think the situation QM mentioned would be somewhat bothersome. If I needed to talk about people including my friends in therapy, I would not like to have restrictions who can I mention or talk about in therapy. But the other way around - I would not want my friend to talk about me to our shared therapist. So I think it is fair enough request going both ways and it would be ideal not to share same T. But if that friend is not an essential character in the things that brings one to therapy I think it is doable and not a major problem.

I actually referred a good friend to my therapist. I'm in the minority it seems but it doesn't bother me. We also talk a lot about our therapy sessions! We've overlapped for a year or so now and there's been no issues.

I could never do that, my jealously would be through the roof and probably not be friends anymore. I've enough issues with him getting "new clients" along the way... that I don't even know.

I don't think could do it. It would be awkward to think my friend was seeing the same T as me. I wouldn't say anything to my friend though. I would talk to T instead. I know would handle it in a way that didn't breech my confidentiality or put me in and uncomfortable situation.

Recently I found out a friend, not a close friend, but somebody who I talked to a lot, saw the same T I did. It is uncomfortable even though T is no longer alive and they stopped seeing each other a year and a half ago. One of the things we discussed a lot was my child being bullied. How one thing that played in my mind over and over was one little boy said the reason he teased my son was because my son was strong and could handle it. My son just stuffed everything until one day he made suicidal statements. The little boy who said that was the son of the friend who also saw T. I never told the friend what her son had said.

Ironically, one of the reasons she was seeing T was because her children switched schools and were really bullied. While if T put the two together I am sure she would have been very professional it would have been difficult because I saw t for years before T did and she saw how much my family struggled through it

It doesn't seem ideal for a therapist to see two clients that are close friends. I could see it causing potential problems. I mean as much as it shouldn't impact things it surely might affect their judgement of one of the friends if the other one kept talking about them in a negative light. Over time it might also be difficult for the therapist to remember what information they were told by client a about client b and what information client b actually shared themselves. The T may also find out information about the friend that the friend may not have chosen to share with them and isn't aware they know which is surely a breach of trust and potentially harm the therapeutic relationship.
The only way I see it not being harmful is if you chose not to talk about your friend with the T and vice versa but if you are very close that would be difficult.

This would bug me too, for all the reasons that have already been listed!

Starfishing, if I were in your place, I'd get in touch with my T right away (i.e. call or email, not wait until the next session) to let them know what's going on. If your T knows the situation, they *may* opt not to even schedule an initial appointment with your friend (which would be best, I think... why have your friend waste money if it ends up that your T can't see them because of the conflict of interest?)

You don't need to say a thing to your friend. Your T should be able to find a graceful way to avoid taking them on as a client that doesn't compromise your confidentiality.

I told my therapist that a friend was thinking about contacting him for therapy. In the end he took her name from me and said he would refer her on if she did get in contact. She was close enough that it would have been very problematic.

Why couldn't you just not talk about therapy? I never told people I was hiring a therapist, let alone what the name of the therapist was. I don't recall ever knowing the name of any of my friends' therapists. Does this really come up in normal conversation much?

I think it really depends on the friends. I have some real-life friends that I've discussed therapy with, and I've at some point mentioned my therapist's name, and they've mentioned theirs. Then with other people, I might just say "my therapist" without being specific (if I mentioned them at all to the other people).

To answer the original question, I wouldn't feel comfortable with my T seeing a close friend of mine. If a friend was talking about seeing him and I hadn't told him/her his name, I'd likely bring it to my T, like Echos did. I know there are often rules about seeing family members (unless of course it's family therapy) as well, due to potential conflicts of interest. I'm sure a skilled T could manage it, and in a small town, as another poster mentioned, it could be unavoidable, but if you feel at all uncomfortable with it, I'd tell your T.

It just seems like it is very controllable and does not need to be an issue.

Years ago my best friend and I saw the same therapist for a while. We both had sevee anorexia and she specialized in that. for a while, it was ok. we even had fun with it. we would schedule our sessions back to back so we could drive together and then do slmething fun afterwards. then we would dress the same to see if our therapist would notice. Our therapist liked art therapy and collage making, and we would do our collages nearly identical sometimes to see if she noticed. We just liked messing with her head.
We also made silly videos for her to watch.
then my friend started getting jealous because the therapist was closer to me than to her. I was more honest with the T, and T respected that. so problems started coming up. my friend started acting out to get attention in negative ways.
that started a very bad downward spiral.
eventually everything ended badly.
therapist stopped seeing my friend.
friend dumped me- in fact she disappeared from my life with no explanation and no goodbye.
then therapist dumped me.
none of us have any contact with each other any longer.

HOWEVER... my friend started off with some extremely severe issues to begin with. I probably should have never been friends with her, let alone best friends. The friends I have today..l would be fine sharing my friends with them.

I don't think the issue is just the two clients talking to each other. I think the bigger issue is both clients, individually, talking about each other (even if it's inadvertent). It breaks the frame of therapy.

Think of it like this. I'm seeing T for my stuff. I'm reserved, I don't fully trust T yet, and I'm cautious about what I share. As a client, that's my right. I get to control what T knows about me, and when I disclose things.

If my best friend goes to the same T, she may inadvertently bring up some of my stuff. She might not even know that I see that T (but the T may be able to figure out she's talking about me - it sounds unlikely - but I've seen Ts on reddit that have eventually realized that someone a client is talking about is someone that they know.)

So, my friend talks about how hard it is to talk to me, or how I'm stressing her out, or how clingy I am. And, maybe as part of that discussion, she starts telling things about me - like that she understands why I am like that, because of some trauma I've gone through, or something with my crazy family.

If T realizes that she's talking about me, and if I haven't disclosed those things yet - that's a huge problem for me. T doesn't get to have outside info about me - that's part of the frame (for me, anyway) that helps create safety. I'm supposed to be in control of what, when, and how I disclose my stuff.

It might be that a good T can keep all the stuff separate, but since Ts are human, I wouldn't count on it. It's easy to forgot where you heard something, and if my T suddenly thew out something about me that I had never disclosed, I'd be incredibly freaked out and upset.

Plus, it's going both ways. T has to remember to do this with both clients.

I also think Ts are supposed to have a certain level of objectivity, and I think that would be hard to maintain if two clients know each other and are close enough that they're talking about each other in therapy. If I'm complaining about something hurtful that my best friend did, but my T understands the real reasons why that friend acted like that - how can my T support me, without being torn between the two clients? I want my T to be unequivocally on my side - not making excuses for someone else's behavior. (This has been an issue with me with past Ts who have a ton of compassion for my brother, who's an addict, and feel pulled to support him rather than look at what I need in the moment. Like - one actually came to the waiting room and handed me a book to look over, because he thought it would be good for my brother, and I should buy it and mail it to him in jail!)

So, even without talking to your friend about the T, it would still raise all kind of concerns for me. Lots of potential for things to go wonky. If there are no other choices, then I guess you just deal with it. But in a bigger city with lots of choices, I'd expect a T that already had an established relationship with me to turn down my best friend.

I did not generally use names of others when talking to the therapist and I doubt, unless connected very clearly, that the therapist would have cared, remembered, or known exactly who I was talking about. I don't think those guys pay that much attention but I am in the minority here.

I told a friend about my therapist and how great she is when I was going through a particularly godawful time in my life. Later on my friend asked for my T's contact info when she was going through her own difficult life stuff. I had mentioned this friend a few times before in therapy, but she isn't central to my story. I actually talked about my friend's request with my T ahead of time, telling her that said friend might contact her and why I thought they would be a particularly good therapist/client match. My T seemed to appreciate the info, and she confirmed with me that I was comfortable with it. She said she wouldn't see certain people who were close to me (giving an example of somebody who I agree I would not want her to see), so I had the sense that she could refer my friend out without compromising my confidentiality. I do know that my T is (or at least was) seeing my friend now, but only because my friend told me.

Incidentally, because of my friend's rather specific job in our small city and the fact that she and my T have some professional contacts in common, my T knew my friend's first and last name the first time I mentioned her in session. So it wasn't a case where I could plausibly assume my T wouldn't make the connection. In pretty much every other case, I only just people's first names in therapy.

Ouch. Yeah, that's exactly the kind of issue I think therapists really need to avoid if at all possible--you should be 100% entitled to talk about whoever and whatever you want in your therapy, and the therapist's discomfort shouldn't be a limiting factor.

True, I have zero intention of bringing it up to my friend. I actually had a session today, but forgot to bring it up; it doesn't feel enormously urgent due to a combination of scheduling factors.

I may just wait and see if it's even necessary to discuss it. I'm not actually even sure my therapist is taking new patients right now (he wasn't a couple of months ago, though things can change), so it could be a moot point.