Therapist gets married?

EVERYTHING that affects the client is grist for the therapeutic mill. It might not involve the client, but the client can still have feelings about it. In my case, this exclusion is directly related to the issues I am in therapy for, and she knows it. We have mutual friends. She might have guessed that one or more of them talked about it. Furthermore, the part of her FB page that showed a wedding photo is completely open to the public. She knows this, too. This could have gone very differently. For instance, she might have said, for my vacation this year, X and I are taking a honeymoon." Then we could have worked through my feelings from there. Instead, I am excluded AGAIN, and have to deal with all the meaning and ramifications of that by myself, because I won't see her until the first week in September.

Cool librarian-I do feel for you but I only found out that my psychologist had split from his wife when he was very harsh with me and I called him cruel and that I didn’t deserve the way he was behaving-he apologised and acknowledged that he was in a bad place emotionally-I was gutted by the way he shut down and basically became blank slate and eventually I left which causes much ongoing pain and tears
HOWEVER he is firstly a human being and I don’t feel I had a right to be told-unfortunately I suffered because he couldn’t hide his emotions but his personal and private life are exactly that and he fell apart-I can’t blame him

I am not saying that you don't have a right to be upset. You have a right to your feelings. In fact, it would be understandable if you felt jealous or anything else. I am just saying that she may not have told you because she is aware of the boundaries of the therapeutic relationship.

Even if you both have mutual friends and her Facebook page is open, she may not be thinking about all of that. She might be occupied with other things.

I don't think she is hiding anything. She is probably just trying to separate her private life from her role as a therapist.

Do you want a personal relationship with her?

I think this idea that absolutely anything and everything is "grist for the therapeutic mill" is a bit misleading. Of course a client can raise anything and sometimes work arises from surprising and unpredictable places, but I don't think this means that a therapist's private and romantic/sexual life is relevant material for a client's development.

I'm curious why you think this is the case. I guess it probably depends enormously on the type of therapy you're doing. I have the kind of therapist who will analyze the occasional dream, and she was fine with me talking about what I imagined her private romantic/sexual life is like. Same when I was going through fertility stuff -- I assumed (rather angrily and perhaps completely incorrectly) that having kids came easily for her because she's straight. She shares almost nothing in this domain, but discussing what I think and feel about anything that seems relevant to me is often fruitful.

I think the difference here is that she wasn't bringing her life into your therapy. You were discussing your projections and your transferential feelings - your material. That's very different from her telling you that she conceived easily and, as such, prodding you to have a response about her life.

I am doing Gestalt therapy and so the work is very relational. Sometimes the boundaries become grey so I have experience of difficult and confusing interactions.

This. Especially the highlighted portion is my point.

I understand being upset, you are entitled to your feelings. I also think it’s perfectly understandable to bring up anything in therapy and anything could be a topic of therapy session, including clients upset with therapists.

Everything could be discussed in therapy but it’s still does not negate the fact that it’s her personal life and she is under no obligations to share her personal life with clients. It’s not her session. It’s yours.

You can and probably should bring anything up including your feeling of being excluded or rejected when people don’t share with you. Hopefully she can help you to work on it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by coolibrarian EVERYTHING that affects the client is grist for the therapeutic mill....

You are correct. Actually, with a friend you might not be able to be as straightforward and honest as you can be with your therapist.

My T has brought other personal issues into my therapy: the loss of a partner, the loss of her parents, her bladder cancer and treatment. All of these issues required her being out of the office for significant periods of time. In some cases, I was unable to be in contact with her for months at a time. That is why I feel she should have made some mention of her marriage. I'm not sure I am going to bring it up in therapy. I still have over a week to think about it.

I understand more now why it's so upsetting that she didn't tell you. Mine is also very open about a lot of stuff and I'd also feel deeply upset if she didn't share her news of her marriage with me. It doesn't mean she is ever obliged to share anything, just that it's how she is and what I'm used to with her. So it makes total sense to me. I'm sorry your T didn't say anything. I hope you can share your hurt with her.

Hm maybe we are on to something here.

She shared with you tragic or sad events in her life such as death or illness, yet she didn’t share a happy event. I wonder if there was a reason for not sharing happy personal events with you.

Other posters often report being upset or angry or jealous when therapists date or marry or have children. Not saying you are, but maybe she thought you’d be upset?

Mine is getting married in two weeks. He just told me outright. They have been in a relationship for years and had a child already so not really a huge change. I am super happy for him