[Anne2.0]

I'm sure there are as many ways to define who makes a trustworthy therapist and/or what trusting a therapist means as there are people. Although I'm not a complete Brene Brown fan, her new book on Leadership breaks trust down into seven categories of behaviors that follow a goofy (or making her branding) acronym "BRAVING." I've listed the seven categories and the link to them below, but first I'm going to sort out how they apply to my T and my T relationship.

"Boundaries." My T is excellent on respecting my boundaries; in the early months of therapy he would ask me if my chair was far back enough after I asked him to move it one day. I feel very free to say "no" to any of his suggestions, which indicates to me that I feel comfortable holding my own boundaries and not afraid he will break them.

"Reliability." This is something really important to me, that I can rely on him showing up, being on time, ending on time. I appreciate that he has "gone" places with me he admits are not his best skills, such as dreams or sand trays. I got something out of them and it makes me feel safe when he has said we could discuss it or do it when I raised the possibility, but that he's not very good at interpreting in these contexts.

"Accountability." He really excels in this domain, as he is always willing to listen to (or read) my "feedback" about sessions or my concerns about things he has done or said. Even when I bring them up after a session is over, like I thought he was angry about something, he tries to recall what was going on and is open about the context of what was going on. He owns what is his mistake and tells me when he sees it differently (i.e. not a mistake).

"Vault." It should go without saying in a T relationship that confidentiality will not be broken, but I find that his reliability and accountability make me feel more secure in this. I have also asked to see my notes, have read my notes, and feel that sessions were described in ways that were true to what I brought to therapy without providing details about the specifics of the stresses I face or the issues I discuss in therapy. I didn't ask to read them for this purpose; it was just a side effect.

"Integrity." Although I relate to what Brown said about this in my professional work context, I'm not sure how it plays out in my therapy. At work, what I do requires transparency and having difficult conversations with clients and colleagues. I have to play it straight, call it like I see it, and only work on projects when my opinions and skills are consistent with what is needed. Sometimes I have to say, sorry, I can't help you here. There have been times when my T has responded in ways where I understand he doesn't see things the same way that I do, or reacts in a way different than I do, and that is how integrity plays out in my therapy. I can't say that he is always genuine, though, as at times I think his responses are more like reasonable people can disagree about reasonable things, and I understand how you can see it this way even if I don't.

"Non Judgement." I have never felt judged negatively by him in therapy, or really positively either. He is not one to give compliments or tell me positive things about myself. Occasionally I might rag on myself as a mother and he brings up an example of something I did parentally that is not negative. Nor is he negative, even gently so. He seems more interested in helping me reach a place of self acceptance. He comes from the humanistic school of therapy, and he seems to practice it well, as his "positive regard" is subtle but all over the room.

"Generosity." This is the one that surprised me the most, as in thinking this was part of trust. I wouldn't have articulated it on my own. But I do notice that this is the biggest shift in my sense of trust in him that I can point to over the last few years. I used to correct him all the time when I thought his understanding of me or what I said was even the slightest degree off, wanting him to be more precise in his word choices or making distinctions that I thought were important. Or I'd ask a lot of what do you mean by that, it sounds like some ___ (my many versions of things that are b.s.). Now I am more focused on what he means rather than the linguistic nature of what he says, and I first try to broaden my understanding of what he means before I jump down his throat. I feel more generous towards him, that he has understood me or at least sees what I am meaning. This has helped me be more generous towards others in my life, especially when I don't agree with them.

Bottom line: I trust my T based on these behavioral indicators; as a global feeling my trust for him has grown over the years I've seen him. I trust that he will get me and/or that I can explain it in a way so that he will. I trust that what I say to him is confidential and that is what largely distinguishes my relationship with him from all the others in my life. I live in a fairly small town where a LOT of gossiping goes on. I often speak to some people with the idea in mind that this will travel elsewhere, and mostly I don't care.

Background:

http://creativebynature.org/wp-conte...01/BRAVING.pdf

“B”- BOUNDARIES: I will say no when I feel I need to and I
am willing to respect and accept your “no” when you are
employing your boundaries. We hold boundaries for
others and expect them held for ourselves.
“R”- RELIABILITY: I can only trust you if you do what you
say you are going to do over and over again. This means (at
work or play) staying aware of your competencies and
limitations so that you don’t over-promise and can deliver on
commitments and balance competing priorities. Your actions
mean more than your words. Trust is built over time with
small acts.
“A”- ACCOUNTABILITY: I can only trust you if when you
make a mistake, you are willing to own it, apologize, and
make amends. I can only trust and respect you if when I
make a mistake, you are willing to let me own it, apologize,
and you will offer true forgiveness.
“V”- VAULT: You don’t share information or experiences
that are not yours to share. I need to know that my
confidences are kept and that you are not sharing
information with me about other people that should be
confidential.” Relationships built on gossip about others are
not trusting they are based on "common enemy intimacy.
“I”- INTEGRITY: Choosing courage over comfort. Choosing
what is right over fun, fast, or easy. And practicing your
values not just professing your values.
“N”- NON-JUDGEMENT: You and I can both struggle and
feel comfortable asking for help. We can freely share holes
in our knowledge and skills without fear of judgment. If we
judge ourselves for needing and accepting help, we may
also be judging others who we help.
“G”- GENEROSITY: Our relationship is a trusting
relationship if you can assume the most generous thing
about my words, intentions, and behaviors. I will do the
same. When in doubt we seek to understand and be curious
before we judge.

[Lrad123]

I find this pretty interesting and useful, and as someone who has had a bit of trouble with trust in therapy, I actually think my T is pretty trustworthy by these criteria although I think I’m still testing him on a few of these (mostly accountability at the moment). I also find it interesting that you’ve requested to see your session notes. May I ask what prompted that request?

[ArtleyWilkins]

Interesting. I'm not someone who has much difficulty trusting people. I tend to trust fairly automatically unless one or more of those factors starts coming into question. I think somewhere in my upbringing these traits/criteria were internalized for me. I think these are qualities that apply beyond the therapy situation.

[Anne2.0]

Originally Posted by Lrad123

I also find it interesting that you’ve requested to see your session notes. May I ask what prompted that request?

Someone made a fairly baseless threat to sue me and while i was at least partly paranoid they could subpoena my therapy notes, the judges in the small town where I live had been requiring litigants to cough up their therapy notes (in violation of HIPPA, I think) for some time on quite a regular basis. So I wanted to see them to see if there was anything in them that could be used against me.

[Seelenna1982]

my T would fit the bill for all of these, however there’s an element for me that is missing and I feel it would be something like ‘time’ or ‘repetition’, it takes me a long time to warm up to someone. I’ve only known T for 1hr a week over 7months. She does all these things but I don’t have a concrete feeling of trust yet. I can predict the course of a session, but I can’t be sure something wouldn’t change.

All the above go toward earning trust.
For me it wasn't so ordered. I had to be able to take T apart and have her survive that and then I reconstructed her.
Is more an inner experience.

[feileacan]

Yeah, my T also fulfils all these criteria, but still it doesn't mean that I trust him. I trust him intellectually but emotionally I still often (mostly?) don't feel secure enough with him to let him see me, or to be more precise, to let me be me so I could find out who I am. There are more these moments now than there were before but it has taken years to even get to this point.

[Anne2.0]

Originally Posted by feileacan

I trust him intellectually but emotionally I still often (mostly?) don't feel secure enough with him to let him see me, or to be more precise, to let me be me so I could find out who I am. There are more these moments now than there were before but it has taken years to even get to this point.

I suspect for everyone there is more to it than whatever criteria one uses intellectually to sort out the trusted from the trustworthy. For me, I have found it helpful to hold my emotional sense of trust together with my more intellectual reasoning and see how the information squares up. One of the things therapy has helped me with, because I struggle with trust in interpersonal relationships as well, is considering whether it makes sense to decide to trust right now, revocable at will, despite my emotional flare warning me not to trust. In this way trust reminds me of romantic love, in the sense that I may not feel it at any given moment (and I was married for a long time), but I decide to love this person right now despite not having great access to my feelings of love.

I've had a couple of personal experiences in the past few years, one with someone I considered my friend and another with a work colleague, where it turned out I was being conned (not out of money, but being lied to for nonfinancial reasons). It was a long process before I could kick either one of them to the curb and with my friend, it was so gnawingly deliberate to ignore my feelings about being conned in favor of being "in the moment," because I liked the emotional payoff of trusting her and it was better than accepting I was being used. While I learned something about the costs and benefits of trust, I guess I wish I was better at it, or made quicker decisions, but for me trust feels ephemeral, like I can't really see it well or grab onto it.

In therapy, trust is simpler for me than in real life, but it still regularly comes up. My T likes to emphasize that it's okay to distrust him-- earlier when I was heavy into some trauma work, I'd have sessions where I'd hold back because I knew he would be out of town the next week. To me someone validating a lack of trust is more trustworthy than someone telling me I can trust him.

[LonesomeTonight]

I think my T meets all except the Non-judgment one. And that's kind of a big one for me. A big one was the whole thing with the stone, where he judged me for getting comfort from it when I associated it with him. And he had trouble understanding why I felt judged for that. There have been a couple other more recent things, too. I've always felt very judged by my mother (she tends to focus on my mistakes, not my successes), so this is a particularly big issue for me. Yet there are other areas where he's been very nonjudgmental--it's not like he's judgmental about everything. Just a few areas to which I'm particularly sensitive.

And this isn't a thing that's all in my head--he's actually said (in response to Rogers coming up) that he doesn't believe in unconditional positive regard. (And, I know it's a totally different thing, but he also doesn't believe in unconditional love, even for his son.)

[Anne2.0]

Originally Posted by LonesomeTonight

I think my T meets all except the Non-judgment one. And that's kind of a big one for me. A big one was the whole thing with the stone, where he judged me for getting comfort from it when I associated it with him. And he had trouble understanding why I felt judged for that. There have been a couple other more recent things, too. I've always felt very judged by my mother (she tends to focus on my mistakes, not my successes), so this is a particularly big issue for me. Yet there are other areas where he's been very nonjudgmental--it's not like he's judgmental about everything. Just a few areas to which I'm particularly sensitive.

And this isn't a thing that's all in my head--he's actually said (in response to Rogers coming up) that he doesn't believe in unconditional positive regard. (And, I know it's a totally different thing, but he also doesn't believe in unconditional love, even for his son.)

His perspective on the unconditional regard/love is interesting. I wonder if what he means is the experience of not feeling love for the child in the moment, or if he's talking about the expression of it? Not on point for this discussion, so I'll move along.

I don't think that my T gives positive regard in the sense of being positive about everything I express and experience, but he is consistent in the sense that he does not express negative regard. He feels nonjudgmental to me, and I would say I don't have much experience with that. My parents were very closed off from compliments-- old world belief they give a child a "swelled head"-- and rather harsh, similar to your mother, with mistakes.

So at times the nonjudgmental thing with him feels fake, but on the other side of that, he refuses to collude in my beating up on myself, and that's been helpful to show me there's another way besides shame out of making a mistake or doing something or saying something I'd rather not.

Your experience with your T being judgmental, especially to something kind of close to your heart, seems clearly related to trust. A couple of times I can remember telling my T I wanted to discuss something but being afraid of, and he asked if I was afraid I'd be judged for it. I was, and I have also experienced both positive and negative judgment from people that made me uncomfortable. The biggest one was when I was caretaking for my spouse after he was diagnosed with a terminal illness. The positive judgment made me feel bad, even fairly innocuous things like I was good at figuring out how to juggle his medical care from two different places 150 miles apart and good at the research that led to these options, because it made me feel there was a "right" way to manage all the horribleness and unexpectedness but good for me, I followed the proper playbook. The compliments were backed up by judgment. And although I had much support from a tribe that grew larger all the time, there was also a lot of negative judgment, in part for supporting what my spouse wanted to do and the negative judgment of that. That somehow I should have tried to talk him out of this procedure that he wanted or "made" him do or not do this or that. Or a big one was that I should take him to all his medical appointments (which were so time consuming) or be with him always 24/7 on the two times he was hospitalized, rather than asking others to accompany or drive him (he wasn't capable driving himself).

Long winded story to say that I think judgment framed as compliments or criticism doesn't feel good to me, and I have experienced it less from T's than from regular people. I thought that one of the foundations of therapy was non-judgmentalness, and that's part of what is meant by T's keeping their "stuff" out of the room. It's not that they have to cheerlead when their instinctive reaction might be negative, but I am not sure why it would be so hard to not do it. Maybe that's your T's "work," and having clients with sensitivities to judgment is moving him forward as a therapist.

"They" say that we choose therapists in part because we're trying to work out the stuff with them that we can't or won't work out with important people in our lives. For me my T right now represents someone far more like my parents in some ways than previous ones. I think that has worked to my advantage in the sense of dealing with other people's judgments-- which he is quite good at helping me move away from.

[satsuma]

Originally Posted by feileacan

Yeah, my T also fulfils all these criteria, but still it doesn't mean that I trust him. I trust him intellectually but emotionally I still often (mostly?) don't feel secure enough with him to let him see me, or to be more precise, to let me be me so I could find out who I am. There are more these moments now than there were before but it has taken years to even get to this point.

On this slight tangent to Anne's original post - my T says that often the thoughts change first and feelings take a while to follow, and Ive experienced that as well. With trust, and with other issues, especially around my self esteem.

[*Laurie*]

Good list. Reliability would be super from the therapist I have. It's all falling to sh it because she keeps cancelling. If she's so sick she can't work, well retire.

[WishfulThinker66]

For me it matters that my therapist and psychologist take my troubles and concerns seriously. I absolutely could not respect and trust a professional who dismisses my difficulties.

Originally Posted by LonesomeTonight

I think my T meets all except the Non-judgment one. And that's kind of a big one for me. A big one was the whole thing with the stone, where he judged me for getting comfort from it when I associated it with him. And he had trouble understanding why I felt judged for that. There have been a couple other more recent things, too. I've always felt very judged by my mother (she tends to focus on my mistakes, not my successes), so this is a particularly big issue for me. Yet there are other areas where he's been very nonjudgmental--it's not like he's judgmental about everything. Just a few areas to which I'm particularly sensitive.

And this isn't a thing that's all in my head--he's actually said (in response to Rogers coming up) that he doesn't believe in unconditional positive regard. (And, I know it's a totally different thing, but he also doesn't believe in unconditional love, even for his son.)

My main grind with my ex-therapist was around judgment.

In theory and technique, she practiced unconditional positive regard. I felt like she would verbally validate everything out of my mouth, whether or not I was looking for validation. I genuinely believe she cared about me, but I continuously picked up on insincere comments which felt like concealed judgment rather than true non judgment. Her heart was in the right place, but it underminded my trust in her words and created paranoia that I was being ‘played’. Also, in casual conversation she was generally pretty judgmental about the people I complained about, so I suspect it was a personality trait. I never quite felt comfortable with who I was talking to and therapy felt slippery and confusing. I often brushed it off as my own core trust issues.

When things started unwinding in the end, I accidentally opened the flood gates and as it turned out I was being harshly judged about quite a bit more than I suspected during our time working together. Which was coldly and callously exposed to me during some heated arguments. It became clear that even some of our more powerful moments were deliberate manipulation attempts & technique instead of spontaneous caring or a real connection.

On one hand, I was happy my gut instinct was correct. On the other, the experience of having a therapist turn on me and having my fears validated was beyond damaging.

I think working with a truly nonjudgmental therapist is key, with a second best being working with someone who is honest and up front about being judgmental.

I think the first five are very important for me, not only in therapy but in any decent professional collaboration and personal relationship. Non-judgment is the least important for me - in fact I prefer if someone has clear own judgment and opinion and shares it with me in a direct and respectful form. I often missed clearer opinions and feedback in my therapy (although I do get quite annoyed if someone is pushing a projection or misinterpretation that is too off). Generosity is also less important. I am fine expecting exactly what the service is supposed to provide and probably prefer sticking with that and do not expect someone going above and beyond (that can be confusing). I usually realize that I appreciate generosity once we have established trust and a good relationship, but definitely not something I expect although I usually appreciate a moderate dosage of it.