Does T Matter at All?

Silly idea I had. Wild speculation and generalisations. Here goes:

Does T Matter at All?

We never really know our Ts. Instead we interact with a projection, an idealisation. This is the whole point of the blank slate, after all. And the mirror and the brick wall operate on the same principle. The real T is a mere doll to dress as we like: it has no desires or beliefs that would give it a genuine personality. T isn't really there.

That being the case, why do we need a T at all? Couldn't we just stay home and imagine our Ts? Surely any reality that T lets slip just gets in the way.

At the very least, good Ts would be entirely interchangeable. (Is this an ideal that Ts set themselves?)

In all honesty, do you ever REALLY know anyone? probably no. There is always part of us we hide from others. Just because someone is related to you or a friend, does not mean you "know" them... and not all T's are blank slates.... so this makes the whole "you don't know them" argument pointless to me, because it's not much different than friends, I know my friends to varying degrees.

Sure you can have imaginary T's... but I'd rather talk to someone who is educated in how to handle things, I could see an imaginary DR too but I don't think it would work to well lol

My therapist never really said anything that required a degree or experience. I don't mean that in a bitter way (for a change), but I just mean I didn't feel very "therapized" at all. She was just a body listening to me and occasionally trying not to laugh at my jokes. To my frustration, she never even asked thoughtful questions or tried to steer the conversation in useful ways. She just sat there like a soggy taco.

I didn't need that specific relationship. But as a person who craves anything resembling maternal affection--and who is very skilled at imaging it when it's not there--there was something valuable in having a real person there to listen. Of course, it was also mostly horrible and painful and made me a raging lunatic, but there was a physical body in the room acknowledging my existence.

I'm not sure I could get the same kind of experience and outside-my-head feedback from myself imagining my t. I can be pretty blind to things I don't really want to see or that I'm not completely aware of.

Sometimes the logic around therapists sounds like this:
Ko-Ko. Your Majesty, it's like this: It is true that I stated that I had killed Nanki-Poo —

Mikado. Yes, with most affecting particulars.

Pooh-Bah. Merely corroborative detail intended to give artistic verisimilitude to a bald and —

Ko-Ko. Will you refrain from putting in your oar? (to Mikado) It's like this: When your Majesty says, "Let a thing be done," it's as good as done — practically, it is done — because your Majesty's will is law. Your Majesty says, "Kill a gentleman," and a gentleman is told off to be killed. Consequently, that gentleman is as good as dead — practically, he is dead — and if he is dead, why not say so?
(The Mikado)

Now I have "He's gone and married Yum-Yum (Yum-Yum)" in my head. I will be humming it all evening.

We had a record of the Mikado when I was growing up, and my sister and I listened to it over and over and over.

I could have had a better conversation with a turd sitting opposite me often.. I could tolerate that odour more easily than his cruel and smug garbage..

And talking to a wall is preferable, wall doesn’t verbally hit (or “shaft” ) me..

Hmm.. . Sort of sounds like it's time for some people to start to work on automated therapists? Might have helped on my case, maybe an automated one could have given me feedback about how I was coming across without getting triggered themselves and rejecting or shaming me.

I'm not sure it's true we interact with a pure projection or idealization. If your T is totally blank state, then yes. But nowadays there's loads of Ts that are not just a blank state. I do not believe that I know my T in depth. But I know some stuff about him, and I can sometimes tell that something is not me projecting stuff on him, it's actually his personality. And he has confirmed that.

The fact that we project stuff onto them does not mean we do not need a T. In my opinion, therapy is there to help you deal with life. For 99% of the people, other people play a huge role in life. Relationships are everywhere: your job, your partner, friends. Hell even people in the streets. Things that occur in therapy are not things that do not occur outside of it. Your project things onto every single person you meet. The difference is that in therapy you can tell to a large part that these projections are actually projections.
Assume the T is totally blank state, then you both know to 100% that everything you feel and think comes from yourself. It is not a reaction to the other person. So you can analyze in what way you project stuff onto people. You probably don't it exactly like that with everyone, but there's a good portion of the people in your life where you will do it similarly. And if you know that, you can change it if you want to. Or at least you know about it.

I feel like analyzing your interaction with other people would be hard without having other people around.

I used to feel that the T's personality really didn't matter, it was more important that I have someone to talk to, regardless of who that person was. But still I think it matters that T is a person different from me, who can ask questions I wouldn't think of and spot patterns of behavior and thought that I wouldn't be able to see. For example if I talk about a situation where I felt an older woman was criticizing me, my T can point out that my mother criticized me a lot, that I often feel criticized by older women, that this is a pattern and maybe I need to question whether my feeling is grounded in this instance or if it comes from somewhere else, or why it bothers me so much.
I think we all have basic assumptions about how the world works and how relationships work, and basic ways of thinking about things, that it's very difficult to perceive in ourselves. If there's nobody to challenge those fundamental things or at least bring them to consciousness then they won't change. So an imaginary T wouldn't cut it, I don't think.

Are there any 'blank slate' therapists left? Even Freud wasn't a blank slate. Didn't he have dinner with some of his patients? And of course, one was his own daughter!

I think we do know our therapists, even if we know very few facts about them.

The reason for them actually being there, is because they do have their own personalities which challenge our fantasies and projections. It wouldn't be very therapeutic if we were simply conversing with a fantasy therapist, most of us do that in between sessions anyway!

They aren't interchangeable because one size does not fit all. It's all about the client/t fit.

My T definitely matters.

There are things that I will never know about my T but that doesn't change the fact that I have a caring, compassionate, kind person sitting across from me. It doesn't change the fact that she has an ability to see me through a different lens than I see myself and she doesn't have my inner critic to tell her what a terrible person I am.

Nothing could be more satisfactory.

Also:
Let every therapist represent
A source of innocent merriment
Innocent merriment.

Also:
For they'd none of them be missed.

I think a good T would be fairly interchangeable, but it does matter in at least some aspects. Even with a blank slate T, they aren't just a mirror. The way I like to think of it is-the T takes my projection, transforms it into something with meaning (and hopefully attached with something good), then I introject it back in from the T. The introjections serve as building blocks of the self.

In becoming who we are, we spent years introjecting our parents projections, sometimes toxic. The point of a blank slate T, in part, is to leave their stuff out of what is projected back into us. That's how you can really figure out who you are.

A T has to be good at that-taking in our projections and leaving their stuff out of it. I would never see a T with a mental illness for this kind of therapy.

i agree that Ts need to be good at leaving their own sh#t at the door, mine really wasn't, but just out of curiosity, how would a client even know if their T qualifies for having a mental illness?? personally, i reckon that a lot of them are bat sh#t crazier than me, especially from the stories i hear on the forums. also, a lot of Ts get into this profession because of their own 'woundedness' (similar to my ex-T) and use it to further their own wellness. does this also qualify as a therapist to avoid for this kind of work??

Instead of mental illness, it might be more fitting to say mental health.

Sometimes it's obvious. Other times a therapist tells the client. Other than that, I agree with you-how would a client know?

When searching for therapists, it was obvious when one presented very needy for my approval. This was by the second session. Another one encouraged me to email him after the first session. Someone can very well interpret that in different ways, but with all the context, I thought he was lonely. I likely would have never noticed these things had I not done the type of therapy I've done.

It may seem kind of mean to say, but after my experiences, it's self-protection. I have been very vulnerable in my therapy and for that an other reasons am prone to being harmed.

Maybe it doesn't matter to others as much, but also a therapist would have to have worked through their issues in their own intensive therapy for me to consider them. It wouldn't be as much of a big deal if they were an issue oriented therapist, maybe for coaching or short term CBT. But I am speaking as a trauma client.

For me the T matters quite a bit. They have to be someone I can feel safe opening up to - otherwise they're just an expensive not-quite-friend. I've done that. There's no point.

that is good that you have the ability and the confidence to do this, to weed out the Ts who you feel will not work for you or may have questionable issues that will get in the way of your therapy.

if i were to ever return to therapy, (most likely not before hell freezes over ) knowing what i know now, after experiencing therapy the way i did and learning the things i have, i too believe i would be in a much better position to protect and advocate for myself and my needs when it came to selecting a 'healthy' therapist. when i first started therapy, i was ignorant, quite naive, and very vulnerable. i was incredibly desperate and so full of shame that i didn't feel that i was worthy enough to even sit in the presence of an 'all knowing guru' and privilege them with my septic toxicity. i was in no condition, nor did i have the confidence, to screen my Ts in their mental health capacity to whether they would be helpful or harmful for me. all i knew was that a T was suppose to help you heal...not cause more harm in the process. unfortunately, i suspect a lot of clients seeking therapy in their times of need and desperation may be in a similar situation when seeking help and have absolutely no clue what to look out for and are just relieved that someone is willing to sit there with them

I never found them to be not-quite friends. I experienced them more as being expensive not quite full blown enemies.

My T matters greatly to me.

I am someone who has experienced T's as interchangeable because the relationship itself hasn't been something I have focused on, or thought it would be helpful for me to focus on. And I have also experienced being helped by therapy in positive and tangible ways, mostly feeling like I recovered from the abuse in my childhood. I like the person I've become. I like the way my life is although I still struggle with being able to do everything I want to do. Therapy helps me now cope with the ongoing stress of life, but I also have learned (outside of therapy) stress reducing "tools" like a commitment to self care that involves several different areas of my lifestyle. If I could no longer go to therapy, I would be okay but I would feel like the loss of support, not so much a loss of the T, would be noticeable.

Though I've spent time being bitter about therapy, I still think who the therapist is "matters." A dentist is a dentist, but a friendly one can make a difference while they're hammering in a root canal. You can dislike therapy and still find that one therapist is more palatable than another due to office, looks, voice, all sorts of things.

I once saw a male therapist who grossed me out, and another therapist who I felt sorry for (she overshared). My most recent therapist was flawed in a way I could appreciate, and I liked what I knew of her more than what I knew of the other two. That helped.