[MoxieDoxie]

it is not a good idea for a therapist to disclose too much info.

I have been having a rough time lately because of my husband in on furlough from the federal government being shut down, our land lord told us we have to be out by the end of March despite all my marketing efforts I am not getting enough business. I also went on a job interview that caused every part of me to come out and I was self medicating the past few days.

So I go into session and he starts it off with he will have to be taking off a few weeks because his wife is pregnant and is due on Feb 1st and went on about scheduling and all that goes on with having a first child. I did not know his wife was pregnant.

Well after hearing all he was going through I just did not want to whine about my issues so I kept it light.Maybe he could have saved that to the end of session?

[DP_2017]

It depends on the person... for me I loved/needed the disclose, it helped me gain trust and a level of comfort, for others, they can't have it... and that's fine

Maybe politely ask him to not share things like that anymore. I'm sure he would be ok with it.

[MoxieDoxie]

Originally Posted by DP_2017

It depends on the person... for me I loved/needed the disclose, it helped me gain trust and a level of comfort, for others, they can't have it... and that's fine

Maybe politely ask him to not share things like that anymore. I'm sure he would be ok with it.

IDK some people like big disclosures. I find it keeps me from discussing my issues. Like I know my other T's wife works for the federal government like mine and she is also out on furlough. I wont whine about financial issues because I know he is in a similar situation but worse as he has two young kids. So I sensor my own session.

[Anne2.0]

My guess would be that he didn't want to save it until the end because that would give you no opportunity to talk about any reactions you might have to the break or the reasons for it. To put it out there and send you off seems kind of cold. I don't know if pregnancy or children are a sensitive issue for you, or if breaks are.

But I do understand how that could have affected you and why you felt you needed to withdraw. It might be helpful to you if you could tell him how it affected you and figure out a better way for him to let you know about breaks without putting too much info for you out there.

[DP_2017]

Ya I know, I said some people do, some don't.

If it bothers you though, all you can do is bring it up.... you shouldn't have to sensor, I felt comfortable enough with him that It didn't cause me to sensor things, in fact, I began just blurting things out.... never would have happened had he not shared as much as he did though but many people would have ran screaming from the amount of stuff my t shared. Just depends on the person

[MoxieDoxie]

Originally Posted by Anne2.0

My guess would be that he didn't want to save it until the end because that would give you no opportunity to talk about any reactions you might have to the break or the reasons for it. To put it out there and send you off seems kind of cold. I don't know if pregnancy or children are a sensitive issue for you, or if breaks are.

But I do understand how that could have affected you and why you felt you needed to withdraw. It might be helpful to you if you could tell him how it affected you and figure out a better way for him to let you know about breaks without putting too much info for you out there.

Yeah I can see that.

[Anne2.0]

Let me test this out on you and see if you think I have a right to complain about it:

The federal shutdown is affecting me too, because I am a federal contractor (I work for myself). It's maybe 20-25% of my overall gigs. But right now two substantial payments from two different federal places are owed to me, some reimbursing me for expenses as well as time-- one that I've been trying to collect on since May 2018.

So I feel a twinge of what I think you experience given your family situation, and I think I understand how it feels to be worried about money because of something completely out of your hands. And maybe the unempathic callousness of some of the political dialog or (my) utter lack of support for the thing that is causing the shutdown makes not getting paid a little more painful.

I guess I would say I think we have something in common, so I believed complaining about how it affects me would feel supportive to you. If I'm wrong, I apologize and I'll edit my post to (.).

[MoxieDoxie]

Originally Posted by Anne2.0

Let me test this out on you and see if you think I have a right to complain about it:

The federal shutdown is affecting me too, because I am a federal contractor (I work for myself). It's maybe 20-25% of my overall gigs. But right now two substantial payments from two different federal places are owed to me, some reimbursing me for expenses as well as time-- one that I've been trying to collect on since May 2018.

So I feel a twinge of what I think you experience given your family situation, and I think I understand how it feels to be worried about money because of something completely out of your hands. And maybe the unempathic callousness of some of the political dialog or (my) utter lack of support for the thing that is causing the shutdown makes not getting paid a little more painful.

I guess I would say I think we have something in common, so I believed complaining about how it affects me would feel supportive to you. If I'm wrong, I apologize and I'll edit my post to (.).

I do not understand the intend of this? Are you insulting me? I can not even tell.

[Anne2.0]

Originally Posted by MoxieDoxie

I do not understand the intend of this? Are you insulting me? I can not even tell.

No, I am not insulting you or intending to say anything negative. I was afraid to post what I did because I thought you might find it unsupportive. I was asking the question of whether it felt bad to you for me to complain about not getting paid by the federal government for contracts right now, when your H is furloughed and doesn't get a paycheck at all.

Edited to add: What I'm trying to say is that I wanted to offer you something supportive about how the federal shutdown is affecting you, but was afraid because of what you wrote in your original post about not commenting on it because your T is experiencing it too, but supposedly is more deeply affected by it. So I assumed (perhaps wrongly) that if I said yes, I'm in a similar situation but not as financially affected, that it would feel unsupportive or otherwise negative. Then I wanted to check out my perception about that. So what I tried to do is ask, does this feel unsupportive to you, to say that I'm impacted and worried about the shutdown too?

[stopdog]

I think it is not universal either way. I would not mind at the beginning other than that if a therapist does that sort of thing at the beginning, I believe it is because they think they are such a big deal in the client's life that the whole rest of the time can be spent on the client talking about it. That approach bothered me because it so misread how I saw therapy or the therapist. But I can see how for some it would throw them off of what they wanted to say and would be quite annoying for different reasons than it would annoy me.

[Amyjay]

Originally Posted by MoxieDoxie

it is not a good idea for a therapist to disclose too much info.

I have been having a rough time lately because of my husband in on furlough from the federal government being shut down, our land lord told us we have to be out by the end of March despite all my marketing efforts I am not getting enough business. I also went on a job interview that caused every part of me to come out and I was self medicating the past few days.

So I go into session and he starts it off with he will have to be taking off a few weeks because his wife is pregnant and is due on Feb 1st and went on about scheduling and all that goes on with having a first child. I did not know his wife was pregnant.

Well after hearing all he was going through I just did not want to whine about my issues so I kept it light.Maybe he could have saved that to the end of session?

Oof. I am so sorry that happened. It is such an awful feeling. I don't know about you but for me it usually triggers a whole lot of related not good enough/not worthy stuff and puts me in a state of chaos for days.
How are you doing?

[Salmon77]

Originally Posted by MoxieDoxie

So I go into session and he starts it off with he will have to be taking off a few weeks because his wife is pregnant and is due on Feb 1st and went on about scheduling and all that goes on with having a first child. I did not know his wife was pregnant.

Well after hearing all he was going through I just did not want to whine about my issues so I kept it light.Maybe he could have saved that to the end of session?

I think Anne makes a good point about why he may have chosen to start with that. My T always brings up scheduling stuff right at the beginning, too, I think just to get it out of the way and so he doesn't forget, but for a longer break (a week or more) there is usually some talk about how I feel about it, etc.

But it definitely sounds like he went into too much detail about this. He could have just said "I'm taking family leave for X weeks" without getting into all the first-child stuff. It sucks that you felt like you'd be whining. I'm sure that isn't the case, and anyway just because he's facing something difficult doesn't mean your problems aren't legitimate, too. Maybe you could bring it up next week?