[WishfulThinker66]

Another thread made mention of a therapist's ability to relate to our particular life experiences. It occurred to me to ask, how do we relate to theirs? Are we able to respect them then or do our own frustrations negate this?

As my psychiatrist seems totally unable to comprehend what it is like to be destitute I have a hard time accepting the fact that his own life is without problems. It must be so however. Even the filthy rich have their own problems and bills to pay. However, I still have a hard time respecting that my psychiatrist will have problems I myself cannot comprehend. I wonder if he realises this?

My psychologist too seems to have what I have assumed to be a pretty great life and I've been frustrated at times with the assumption she just doesn't get this or that or that she can't appreciate my situation. But then I hear through the grapevine that all is in fact not perfect in her life and that she is dealing wish some pretty heavy stuff. I feel now guilty and full of regret for my assumptions. I suddenly then have some respect I had not felt before.

[DP_2017]

I have respect for everyone unless there is a drastic reason to stop. T's are flawed, they are not perfect. I am well aware they are basically just actors getting paid to help people. I try to remind myself of that and see beyond the show they give me.

[Misery Business]

I respect her as deep down I believe she is trying to help with with her schooling and knowledge that she has. She also tries to make me as comfortable as I can be while in therapy so I also respect that in her. She includes things I enjoy in therapy including music and art which I think is really cool.

[Salmon77]

My T has mentioned some of his difficult life experiences (a parent's death) so I know he has gone through some stuff I haven't yet.

The older I get, the more it becomes clear that everybody has probably gone through some hard times, and if they haven't, they will someday. It makes me feel a lot more sympathetic to people than I used to. There are some experiences that are hard to "get" from outside, but I try to respect people who have dealt with those things even if I can't fully comprehend it.

[Omers]

I have a lot of respect for T. He has not had the same struggles I have had but he has had different ones. He certainly has a great deal of empathy even if he doesn’t understand my struggles. Right now I am super upset with him and yet still have respect for him. Yes, he has gender and economic privileges I don’t but we both have racial privileges others do not.
I know T struggled relating to how I felt safe sleeping in a horse barn on a 15 degree below zero night when H told me to leave... I’ve been homeless, I had walls, a roof, a soft place for a bed and good blankets in a safe area. T couldn’t relate or understand why I didn’t refuse to leave, go to a friends (no friends to go to) or get a hotel (the ones I could afford that night were sketchier than the animals in the barn). But... we got there.

Pdoc, although she makes even more, I respect and relate to even more. She gets where I am at and understands even though it is not where she is at. I do not know what struggles she may or may not have had to be able to understand where I come from.

[Rive.]

I do not have respect solely for people who have gone through the same experiences as I did/do.

If T treats me humanely, I would have respect for them. Even if our life circumstances were very very different.

For me, different life circumstances are not what determine whether I ought to respect someone or not. If they are a good, decent, human being I will automatically respect them.

[autonoe]

Relatability and respect don't really have much to do with each other for me. I don't really care if a therapist has been through the same struggles I have as long as they try to be empathetic and understanding of my feelings about it. But yeah, I do respect my current therapist because he doesn't put on a big show. He's pretty straightforward and will also share some information about himself that makes him seem more like a regular person. He's not trying to be a god or a profound "healer." I feel like he's just a normal guy.

I've had a bad experience with a therapist who did have a god complex and didn't like it if I disagreed with something she said. It ended badly. The more I learned about her over the years, the less I respected her because I came to see it was all a big production. She was no better than a TV preacher in the end.

[WishfulThinker66]

gee thx. Positive.

[nottrustin]

Unless they tell you otherwise how do you know they haven't struggled financially.

My husband and I in a good place financially however early in our marriage we were crazy poor. At the age of 13 I would babysit and used a portion of the money to buy food.

A friend of mine is a doctor. During medical school he had a wife and child and worried about the next meal would come from.

[nottrustin]

I have no reason to not respect them. They are wonderful caring people who want to help me live a better life. Neither of them had the same struggles as me but especially T had some other areas.

This week when I talked about anger over not having a dad and my kids taking for granted their amazing dad. EMDR T admitted she took for granted her amazing dad until she was working as a T. After that she was emotional for a few moments and almost hid the tears.

[Taylor27]

I have more respect for my new therapist because so far she totally is down to earth and shows that she cares about me and i know she wants to help me get better. I have respected all my other t's too I think sometimes they forget or have not experienced some of the things we have as clients, im sure they struggle too in areas like the rest of us. Every therapist has a different life some are better financial then other therapist it all depends on a number of factors

I respect her a lot.

[Xynesthesia2]

I personally think it is quite naive to assume someone hasn’t been great hardship or are not currently struggling with difficult challenges just because they have good education, seemingly successful career, wealth etc. No one can closely relate to everyone’s problems on a personal level but it is still possible to understand at least intellectually, and that’s more what Ts are trying to do, I think.

I have respect for professionals based on their competency, not on their position relative to me, social status, or whatever life experiences they had been through. They need to demonstrate and earn it with the work they do and their attitude. They can lose it if they are sloppy, unprofessional, incompetent, manipulative etc repeatedly. My first T completely lost my respect with those things. I did have respect for my 2nd T but nowhere near on the levels close to many colleagues I had and a few other service providers I hired in my life.

[koru_kiwi]

Originally Posted by Xynesthesia2

I have respect for professionals based on their competency, not on their position relative to me, social status, or whatever life experiences they had been through. They need to demonstrate and earn it with the work they do and their attitude. They can lose it if they are sloppy, unprofessional, incompetent, manipulative etc repeatedly.

and having integrity is definilty a big deciding factor for me as well

[Misterpain]

I had the same guy for 8 years ,and honestly the more time I spent with him the more I respected him, he was originaly just a "safety valve" I have 500 mental health people on speed dial,i grew up with them as they were students of my mother's ( she and i were incredibly close,when she died ,it was crisis time) so to insure i had a safe place locally to ***** & moan ,and question my place in the universe without her ,this guy got the job by accident ( god if you belive in one works in weird ways) in my case ,after working thru both grief and gratitude ( gratitude being the more toxic ,which is why my friends insisted I have that safe space).

Right at the end of my work for which he was hired,i had an even more immense challenge dropped on me ,that fortunately most people never have to work through ( i went to bed and woke up dead ) what I thought was waking up was actually emerging from a coma ,i had a cardiac arrest ,resuscitated, gone straight into a coma, and had brain injury . I was a Paramedic Firefighter,saw plenty of life and death ,talked to people who i had worked on and survived ,never understanding the deeper things they questioned ,until it was me looking for answers .

As fate would have my therapist for my grief over loseing my mom,doesn't hang out a shingle about it ,but i soon found he himself died during heart surgery ,and had to travel really far to find someone that could help him deal with it ,so I got lucky ,i had an existing trust relationship with someone expert in what I work I now needed to desperately do . Accidents aren't always bad, sometimes they fix things you hadn't broken yet !

[Spirit of Trees]

I respect my T as a therapist and as a person. So far, I haven't experienced anything that would cause me to lose respect for her.

[divine1966]

My t is just a regular person, I have no reason to disrespect her. I don’t put her on pedestal though.

I don’t put any particular weight on how many hardships people had because it’s honestly no one’s business. I had ton of hardships in life but I don’t walk around advertising it. Whatever I have financially speaking is earned by me and I don’t feel guilty. My husband has a disability, which makes every day at work rather difficult and he came from poverty in the middle of nowhere but he obtained education and has a good career. It would be ridiculous for someone to say “oh look at this guy and his nice car, he can’t relate to us poor folk”.

But what if someone really never had hardships and is in good health and was born into money. Do they not deserve respect? Must one suffer to be a good human being? I don’t subscribe to this notion. I also don’t equate poverty with goodness and wealth with evil.

[Merope]

I don't think I could trust him with my deepest, darkest secrets if I didn't respect him.

[tabhady]

I respect my therapist. I think we have very different experiences, but I respect him for how he treats me. I respect him as a professional.

I have great respect for her. She has a hard life yet she is amazing at her job. I dont know how she does it all.

[tomatenoir]

I don't think therapists need to have had the same problems as me to be effective.

I went to therapy for a miscarriage, subsequent infertility, and difficulty trusting people in caring roles/professions. I didn't get the sense he'd experienced any of those problems himself. Despite that, he was very helpful with the miscarriage, moderately helpful with the infertility, actively damaging with the last thing. Other therapists and doctors I've seen also have had their strengths and weaknesses when treating me.

I respect people who are competent, show integrity and can admit when they don't know something. Titles, status, and money don't do it for me. I respected my ex-therapist early on in our therapy, when he was helpful and when our conversations were open and honest (despite his flaws). I lost respect for him when he refused a final session with me, as I thought it was unprofessional and showed an inclination to give up on clients when it got hard (despite the talent he still obviously has).

[susannahsays]

I don't really understand the question. Respect doesn't have to do with whether someone has had the same life experiences as me.

As for the therapist, I wouldn't pay for the services of someone whom I don't respect, particularly a therapist. But don't confuse respect for anything other than what it is. Respect does not mean I put her on a pedastal, that I am never angry with her, and it certainly doesn't mean that I "respect" her opinion above my own.