Briefly: Do you feel like your therapist actually knows you? Or does your therapist only know of you via the details of your "issues?" How do you know the difference? If you feel like they don't really know you, how does that affect your experience?

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Background, if it matters: One of the things that bothers me about therapy is that, though I love my therapist in many ways, she doesn't always seem to "know" me. I've gotten so mad about her not responding to things as I'd like her to, and I always blame it on aspects of her personality (like she's an arrogant ***). But maybe it's more that a series of 50 min sessions sitting in an enclosed space doesn't actually mean someone will learn who you are-- and therefore she can't be fully aware of what answers I'm actually looking for. She appears to know me because we've known each other for several years and she knows intimate details of very private events in my life, but she doesn't know me beyond just a "patient" with such and such things to discuss. She has also made some sweeping statements about me that feel so wildly untrue, but she was so certain of them at the time because she doesn't understand me holistically.

In related news: When I first tried more long-term therapy, I was in my early twenties working out issues regarding my mother's death and our (at times) difficult relationship because of aspects of who I was. My therapist was trying to "re-train" me to trust others and let love into my life despite my feeling unlovable. But my therapist didn't love me! How was I supposed to learn to accept being loved by someone who wasn't loving me? How do you learn math from a teacher who doesn't know math? This isn't me being upset that some woman had only professional affection for me some thirty odd years ago--it's all water under the bridge--it's just me musing on how clumsy and awkward the therapy relationship can be. And I'm a little grumpy from my last session. Thank you for listening!

[stopdog]

I doubt the woman knew either

[ChickenNoodleSoup]

He knows the things I bring up in therapy. Some of these things are hobbies. But he sure doesn't know all my hobbies, most of them I don't even mention. I don't tell my T about every single thing happening in my life or everything I like or hate. Only the things that we work on a lot are things that I expect him to know. He can't know everything there is to know about me, not even I can do that. As my T always says, somebody who tells you they understand everything about themselves or another person is lying. And I agree with that, there's always things we don't know.

[feralkittymom]

Interestingly, I don't think someone else knowing me in the deep soul way you describe was ever a goal/expectation of mine from therapy. I suspect I didn't believe it were possible. I wanted to be "fathered," but that was more about getting unmet needs met. Ironically, I think the upshot by the end of therapy was that I was known in ways I could never have predicted. And it was clear to me that was his design all along, and my being able to experience that was what fathering was all about.


With current T I don't feel that at all, but I also don't have the same needs, and it's only been a couple of years. But while I value her as a peer, I don't find her intuitive in the same ways as former T.

I think the kinds of feelings you're noticing reflect unmet needs and are a psychological throwback to very early stages of development. They're not part of the adult self, but the very young self that needs the parental reflection of self to form identity. I'm not saying you have those needs necessarily, but that therapy can sometimes brush up against remnants of those feelings and reactivate them a bit.

[DP_2017]

Of course not. They don't see how we are in situations outside the office, interacting with friends or family etc. Which is why I hate the argument of "We don't know our T's, they are not the same person we see in the office" Well,neither are clients.

We only show parts of ourself to others, including therapists. I think our therapists CAN know parts of us others typically don't but it doesn't mean they know the real us... only what we choose to tell them

[downandlonely]

I don't think that anyone can truly know another person fully.

There are aspects about myself that my therapist knows that I don't tell my friends and family and things my friends and family know that I don't tell my therapist.

[WarmFuzzySocks]

In some ways, my therapist knows me better than most of the people around me. She hears my fears, anxieties, insecurities, joys, hopes, trauma, health in a way that very few people in my life get to hear.

In some ways, because the way that she knows me is by sitting in a room with me for an hour every couple weeks listening to me talk about my life, she doesn't know me. She only sees my world through my lens and my words, so she's left guessing what I am like when I am actually out there in the world.

Mostly, though, it's like any other relationship. No one gets another person 100% of the time. Sometimes she "gets it," most of the time she understands, some of the time she misunderstands or get it wrong. Then it's my job to clarify, listen, explain, be curious about her perception, and in that process I learn more about myself.

[Amyjay]

I think they can only know us through their own lens. Even, they can only interpret the parts of us we show to them, and then that small snippet is distorted through their unique perception/bias/prejudice/knowledge/experience.

[Echos Myron redux]

If anybody does, he does.

[starfishing]

My therapist knows me, in some ways that are similar to other people in my life and in some ways that are very different. He knows the parts of my experience I bring to therapy, which means he sees different vulnerabilities than friends and colleagues do, and different strengths.

In some ways I think he sees me as stronger and more resilient than others do, because he has so much more context for my background and how hard it's been to get to where I am. And in some ways I think he disproportionately sees my weaknesses and difficulties rather than my strengths and the things that make me happy, because I'm so much more fragile-seeming in therapy than elsewhere, and often don't talk as much about my accomplishments and sources of joy.

Regardless, I do have the feeling that my therapist "gets" me on the whole. That doesn't always mean he reacts the way I want him to or hope he will, or that he always understands what I mean on the first try. But I do feel like I'm consistently able to get him to understand where I'm coming from, which has often not been true for me with other therapists, and like his inferences and hypotheses about my experience (always presented as possibilities rather than firm conclusions, which helps too) are often correct and insightful in ways that indicate he has a pretty solid understanding of how I think and how I experience the world.

[elisewin]

I think my T knows a considerably large part of me and has a pretty accurate picture of who I really am as a person. I don't think anyone can know and see another person perfectly, but my T is on the list of people that know me most.

[ScarletPimpernel]

I think my T knows me and not just my concerns. She doesn't know all of me. Only I know all of me. But she not only knows a bunch of information, she also knows in essence who I am...just as I know her by her essence. I don't know if that makes sense? She knows me well enough to read my expressions or knows when something will upset me. I think what helps a lot is that we're always laughing. Even if I'm crying, she can always get me to laugh. I think that in itself shows she knows me.

[SlumberKitty]

I think my former T really knew me and really understood me, better maybe than I understand myself. I think she knew a lot of how I see the world and how I interact with it. I can't say that about my new T (I've only seen her twice) but she has already made some observations about me that I can't say were off. I think she will be intuitive. Obviously any T can't know me completely but then again, I probably don't know myself completely either.

She knows me better than anyone else does.

[Taylor27]

He is getting to know me better.

[ruh roh]

She knows more about me than anyone else I have ever known in my life.

[annielovesbacon]

My therapist knows more about me than any other person, yet she doesn't truly know me. She only knows me in how I present myself to her. I am just "me" in sessions -- I am goofy and sarcastic just like in "real life." But therapy is a sort of vacuum, in my opinion. She only hears about things that are issues in my life; she doesn't know what I did for fun last weekend or what time I got off work today or that my favorite color is yellow.

She's said so herself, too. One thing we work a lot on together is my self image. I am very hard on myself. She'll say, "I see you as X and Y, but I don't know you outside of this office. Maybe ask your friends how they see you, too."

Sadly, he is entirely off the mark. Never knew me and never will!!!

[CantExplain]

I don't think Madame T ever really understood me.

[Whalen84]

I totally agree with you and this has been a big problem for me. Im done with therapy. This is an aspect of what a small piece of the problem was.