[smileygal]

Does your therapist tell you how what you say impacts them at times? Do their share their experience of you with you? I know the therapy is about you and not the therapist and many don't do this solely to keep the focus on the client but I see here that some do.

Mine does not share their feelings really ever which is a bone of contention. I feel doing so would be really helpful for many reasons and not doing so is actually having a negative impact on me and my therapy. It is not so much me wanting to seek their approval etc but more so wanting to know that what I say or do has an impact.

If your therapist does do you find this helpful? I would think that this style is not needed and not helpful for some people but does really help others.

[Waterbear]

When we first started my T would not, but she soon saw that actually, I needed help with feelings, and one of the ways shhe helped was by telling and showing how she was feeling, moderately.... If that makes sense. Just every now and again. It helped. It also helped because it needed to be a relationship, and I couldn't open up to her if she wasn't going to reciprocate in some way. This was a way she could reciprocate without bringing her stuff into the hour. Her feelings were only ever about us, me, the work.

That said, no, she has never really told me how she feels about me... I doubt she ever will, and I won't push because I fear the reason for that is that she actually thinks I am a self centred pain in the but!

[smileygal]

Thanks for sharing. Ya I see the benefits of not sharing how the therapists feels about the client just not so sure it's the same with how they feel about something that is said or done. I see that this might actually be beneficial in helping the client to see how they might be experienced in the outside world.

[Amandae8787]

My T does it sometimes. I think she does it when I’m shut down and tells her things without any feelings, like I could tell her about abuse without feeling anything. Once she asked me how I felt and I said ”nothing”. She said that she felt a lot of sadness for me, for the little girl. I remembered that something happened inside me when she said that, like it made it more real.

Sometimes I wish she would tell me more about how she feels about what I tell her but I think she doesn’t because she doesn’t want me to feel like I’m responsible for her feelings. And because therapy is about me and not her, of course. I haven’t asked her, maybe I will...

[smileygal]

Yes, my T has done this a few times when I have described something and had no feeling associated with it even though it may have been something sad. I have found her telling me how she felt helped me to actually get in touch with the feeling in me. Like something was clearly sad and if I saw it happen to someone else would probably make me cry but when I talk about myself I can't tap into that but her highlighting it had helped. Hasn't happened often though.

This is something which my therapist does regularly and it is a mixed blessing. She is transparent about her responses to me, both negative and positive. She has shared her varying degrees of animosity towards me (being angry with me, needing a break from me, finding me challenging, feeling hurt by me, and worse!). She has also shared beautiful feelings in response to me. The latter kind of sharing is lovely and compelling, the former is hurtful and harsh. She also shares what is happening for her in terms of our relationship, including where she feels things in her body. Using herself in this way is a significant part of her modality, but it is hard for me to work with it and I frequently question whether I am robust enough to continue working with her.

How would you feel about hearing negative reactions? Would you only want to hear positive or neutral responses? Whilst sharing reactions should only be done to serve the client, this is hard to judge and once the feeling is shared, it is between you and can't be unsaid.

[ChickenNoodleSoup]

By now my T tells me about his feelings about me pretty often. Most times he'll ask how he's probably feeling, I point out some emotion. And then he'll either agree or disagree and explain what he's feeling and why. But he'll never for example just yell at me and tell me to get out of his room so he can calm down. He will say "yes, what you said was kind of angering to me". That helps me because I have difficulties with interacting with others, due to misinterpreting what they are feeling and reacting to that. I can't learn how to not do that if I do not honestly know what my partner is feeling. Sometimes I assume they are angry or ill-intended and it's true, sometimes it's not.

In the beginning, he didn't share much about his emotions though. I think it takes some time to figure out how much of you you share as a therapist. I didn't have a big problem with him not sharing them either though, so that was fine until it changed.

[ArtleyWilkins]

On occasion, yes. Maybe pretty regularly now that I think about it. Honestly, I never much wondered about their feelings because they were pretty apparent - they were always very open and upfront with me so I probably just don't really remember very many direct conversations about their feelings and experience in their interactions with me because that was our norm.

[stopdog]

I couldn't get the two I hired to stop talking about themselves. I did not care what they thought, felt or did about anything but still they shared even after I objected. I have no idea why they thought they needed to tell me stuff about themselves. I am not even sure some of what they said was true - I think they just make up stuff to mess with the client

[Mountaindewed]

I’ve learned the less questions you ask, the more you will be told. Some of it is interesting. Other stuff I have no business knowing.

My therapist mentioned one time sending me to the hospital and she said “you’d probably hate me if I did that” and she said it in a kind of hurt voice like it legit mattered to her if I liked her or not. One of the many reasons I suspected there was some countertransference going on.

[smileygal]

Originally Posted by comrademoomoo

This is something which my therapist does regularly and it is a mixed blessing. She is transparent about her responses to me, both negative and positive. She has shared her varying degrees of animosity towards me (being angry with me, needing a break from me, finding me challenging, feeling hurt by me, and worse!). She has also shared beautiful feelings in response to me. The latter kind of sharing is lovely and compelling, the former is hurtful and harsh. She also shares what is happening for her in terms of our relationship, including where she feels things in her body. Using herself in this way is a significant part of her modality, but it is hard for me to work with it and I frequently question whether I am robust enough to continue working with her.

How would you feel about hearing negative reactions? Would you only want to hear positive or neutral responses? Whilst sharing reactions should only be done to serve the client, this is hard to judge and once the feeling is shared, it is between you and can't be unsaid.

I honestly think I would be fine if the reaction was negative. as well as positive or neutral. I mean an angry reaction might make me feel hurt or angry but we could talk about why that is so and to me that's fine as anything can be worked through. A reaction to me is better than no reaction to me. She is not blank slate completely but if I ask if something made her feel a certain way she will just say 'no I don't feel that' but no more. I have a wandering mind and then spend endless time wondering how it did make her feel?

[Rive.]

Yes, because therapy is is about two human beings being in relation to one another, even though the focus is on the client.

That being said, some types of therapy (i.e. relational or humanistic) are more likely to see therapists share the impact of what the client is saying than other types of psychotherapies.

Could you ask her to share this information with you? I agree that it is helpful as it provides valuable, or at least insightful, information as to how others we relate to in our day to day lives perceive us and/or the impact (positive or negative) we may have on others.

Talking to a 'non-responsive' therapist, to my mind, is dehumanising. I might as well talk to a wall for all the benefit it would bring (and would be cheaper too!). Honestly, I don't really see the point of therapy that is too cold or robotic or impersonal. At least for me.

[*Beth*]

Yes, she shares her thoughts about me. They are almost always positive. Of course, positive is nice- but I would pay attention to negative feedback, too.

[smileygal]

I have asked a few times how it makes her feel not usually no response or get the question redirected back at me as to why I want to know or where the question comes from....and around we go. I've shared my thoughts on how I feel it would be helpful to know certain things , to get some reaction. She isn't blank slate and just share thoughts about things but not necessarily thoughts about me.

[CantExplain]

Clearly different patients need different amounts of disclosure. A good therapist ought to respond to that, I feel.