Do you withhold important information from your therapist?

Hi, all.

Over my interminable break, I have written something that I am intending to share with R...but there is a temptation to just draw a line under this and turn over a new leaf in our relationship. I would be interested to know whether anybody else has considered withholding information, and if you're comfortable sharing, why you might or might not choose to do so.

Please be civil in regard to each others' choices.

I never knew what I was supposed to tell a therapist that would be useful to me or not. I told them the things I thought would be. I answered the questions in the way I thought was covering what I thought they were asking - but I was never certain. Any question could be answered any number of ways - they gave no guidance despite my request - so I just did what I did and went on.
How would one know what is an important thing to tell a therapist in the first place is my hurdle.

There are things with which I am fine in my life. Some of these might be weird or not normal, but I'm fine with them. Why would I tell my T about them if I didn't want to change them (unless it came up in a conversation). If I were asked about it, maybe I'd decide to share it or maybe I'd say I'm not comfortable with it. Having secrets and things the other person doesn't know about is perfectly normal in a relationship.

If there's something inside that says it's important to tell her (even if I don't know why), then I tell her. I try to be kind or at least courteous in my phrasing, but it's not my job to hold back for the sake of how I think my feelings might make her feel. It has been transformative for me to learn how to express my anger and disappointment with her, even if something is legitimately not her fault. And she is basically always good at non-defensively listening to what I need to share. Therapy doesn't work like other relationships, and for that I am sometimes very grateful.

There is a lot of information I withhold especially at the beginning of the relationship with a T. When I begin trusting T then I open up more. There are still things I didn't tell my T of 10 years either because I wasn't comfortable talking about it, or it wasn't pertinent to our work, or sometimes I thought it might get in the way of work. I tried not to withhold big stuff that T needed to know about in order to help me. I was pretty upfront with the big stuff like SH so that T would know what T was getting into. But sometimes if I felt like not sharing, I didn't share. I might have shared at another time or another day but sometimes I just couldn't or didn't at the time for a variety of reasons.

I do right now with my T because I haven't been seeing him for too long and I don't want to risk being IP again at the moment. I wish I could open up honestly and completely but right now I'm choosing not to be. Probably a bad decision on my part.

I don't "withhold" anything from my T. We have a deal that we are always honest with each other. I know she's kept to her word (she told me she doesn't love me), and I have kept to mine (I've told her my deepest darkest secret). However, I don't tell my T EVERYTHING. There's just some stuff that's not important or doesn't pertain to what we talk about.

I mistakenly voted for no but I really wanted to vote for yes. I definitely withhold important information. I am not very collaborative in therapy (I find my self to be even rather hostile) and withholding important information is my trump card. Not that it objectively helps me. But in session it always seems like a good idea to hint some stuff and then not tell it.

I have to an extent. I don’t always tell her about SH. The reason I don’t is because I don’t know if I’m “supposed” to tell her and for what purpose. When it gets out of hand, I’ll tell her - and that’s more of a safety thing - like I’ve told someone (a professional), and that makes me feel better.

With ex T, it was a year before I told her about the existence of my partner. With current T, there was a thing I didn't tell her for a year or more too.

no. i trust her and i tell her everything.

I am a willful withholder. I actually feel like I don't withhold enough. I have recently withheld less, and it has really backfired on me.

There's some parts of my life that I don't think of as problems, or not problems T can help with, so I don't talk about them.

There is a lot I want to tell my T that I haven’t yet, because I get so overwrought when I try to. He is encouraging me to stop trying to share before I feel safe enough to do so. Which is frustrating but ultimately I think it’s the right approach.

I try my best to be as honest as possible. I've been terrified sometimes when I go out of my comfort zone, especially when it involves a rupture with T. But, she's always welcoming and supportive of anything I have to say - even if it's anger with her.

There are many things I am ashamed of and want to tell her but I'm too scared. Then when I finally feel like I might have the courage to tell her, I think it's probably been too long and she'll be disappointed in me for lying for so long. (She constantly tells me that she isn't ever angry with or disappointed in me, but I have trouble believing that.)

There are also things I willfully withhold from her. For example I have never told her about SH. It was a problem many years ago, but nowadays it is a very rare occurrence. I feel I can handle it on my own. It's not an addiction anymore.

I hate that I'm doing it, but yes. I'm scared that it will be a deal breaker for him if I were to share.

I don't mean to withhold but there are things I just can't make myself say out loud. They're often not what I'd expect. Last week I was telling her that I'd spent the whole weekend in bed and I was about to add that I made my go-to post-divorce comfort meal which sustained me for those two days. Somehow that last detail was too hard to say. Like there was too much pain in that? Even though it sounds pretty bland. It was one thing to tell her I was exhausted, and it was quite another to say that I was just completely slayed and laid bare by my grief, desperation and resentment.

Also I have, at times, withheld bigger stuff on purpose. I usually feel okay about the stuff I've made a decision not to discuss, or not to discuss just then. I feel entirely entitled to make those decisions. It's the stuff I want to say but choke on that makes me feel terrible.

I definitely withhold stuff. I try to do the opposite of withholding, by noticing when I really don't want to talk about something or feel like I can't, and using that as a signal that I really need to (eventually) talk about it. But that difficulty can take a while to break through.

And there are all sorts of things I accidentally leave out or just never get around to bringing up without even noticing, some of which turn out to be "accidents" where I'm unconsciously avoiding something significant.

It's all part of the process; I do what I can to say what's on my mind, but the reality is always going to be more complicated and that's just a thing about how therapy works.

Yeah, of course. Some big. Some small. Some that I eventually told him about, just not at the time (either because it was difficult to bring up and we ran out of time or it didn't seem like the most important thing at the moment).

A lot still bothers me, even though some are things that I don't think he'd ultimately say were a big deal in the end. And the more important ones — they don't make me feel good about myself because I've always been a pretty straightforward, honest person. I feel like I'm keeping some horrible secrets and I don't like it.

IDK yet, I have only seen her twice.

I voted "Why would I tell them anything?" and surprised that no one else chose that option. Whenever I had the desire to tell everything about me to anyone (T or not), it never had a very positive outcome. If nothing else, it can lead to an obsession that, for me, seems unhealthy and can go on forever. What is "everything" anyway and how could one tell everything to another person?

I did consciously withhold important information in therapy, for example in relation to the primary issue I "wanted" to address, which definitely hindered any effectiveness. But I also just had no desire/intention to talk to the therapists about every detail of my life and what occupied my mind. I have no idea how that could be done in about an hour per week, even if one goes for decades? I think a good practice is to tell what the client considers important in the context of what they want to address. I tended to be prone to jumping all over the map (that sort of free association comes very easily to me) and, I think, that was just another avoidance strategy on my end, diluting my own therapy with all sorts of irrelevant topics and details, and the main one got masked. I think the loose and uninhibited strategy of getting into a zillion different topics and details may be useful if someone does not know specifically what they want to address or seek a more general understanding/makeover - it definitely helps patterns to emerge. But if someone has specific goals, it may serve more as a distraction.