Googled my therapist and feel guilty about it

So I have a habit of googling all my therapists and looking them up on social media. It is embarrassing to admit but I often I have to go to great efforts to find them.

I've been seeing my current T for a few months now and I found her and her family members on social media. Yesterday, through these searches I came across some personal information about a tragedy that has recently occurred in her family and this morning I received an email from T saying she will need to cancel our session as she has had to travel unexpectedly for family. I feel horrible that I know the reason for this as it 100% none of my business. I wish I hadn't looked her or her family up but I can't undo it now.

I don't know if I should bring this up or not as I feel so guilty about it. I have a real compulsion to look her up as well as ex Ts and it is very difficult for me to stop. I have two ex Ts now who ended things poorly and I never got closure which I think is why I still look them up but it is preventing me from moving on. I want to be able to stop this behaviour because it is not helping me and it is now at a point where it is going to affect my current therapy as well.

I'm just worried T will be mad at me or not want to see me anymore. I feel horrible that I have invaded her privacy like this. I just wanted to feel connected between sessions, I just want to know her and I didn't expect to come across something like this

I'm not at all judging you, as I've done this, too. Honestly, if you think you can manage to keep it inside (and don't think you'll just randomly say it), I wouldn't tell her. I had a conflict with ex-T when I told her I'd found her Facebook page. And I've had a couple conflicts with my current T about this, within the first year or so I was seeing him. He actually told me that he'd prefer I *not* tell him that I've searched or found things.

Finding a T on social media--to me, it's on them to lock that sort of thing down (and potentially ask relatives to not post pics of her, tag her, etc.). It's not difficult to do, at least on Facebook. T's should realize that clients may be looking. However, it seems that they can react rather unpredictably to a client sharing something like that. And this is made more complicated by your knowing what happened in her family.

So I think it's better not to say anything, particularly with her being fairly new. If you'd been seeing her for 5 years and she knew you tended to google her, that might be different. But I think it's too risky to share right now

Again, I want to clarify that I'm not judging you. But I don't know what your T's reaction will be, so I think it's safer not to tell her.

I *would* tell her that you struggle to feel connected between sessions and talk about possible solutions for that.

Thanks for your reply. I have told Ts in the past that I looked them up and they didn’t react badly to it however I didn’t find out something as personal as this and I didn’t go into a lot of detail about what I found either. I think we really only discussed it for one session and it wasn’t really brought up again.

I’m wondering if I should mention that I still look up my ex Ts as my relationships with them and the way things ended between us still affects me and is central topic at the moment. I really feel ashamed that I am still obsessively looking up a T from over 5 years ago and still can’t really move on.

I believe it's best to be honest. I have told all my Ts I've looked them up. And I've told them what I found too. Like I found L's address. Or an article she shared on fb that upset me. I helped her get her address off the site I found it on, and she locked down her fb. Not because she didn't trust me. But because she didn't know what others might do with the information.

I rarely look up anyone anymore. It helped telling them to lock it down.

I can relate to how you feel I found my last T’s account on a social media and scrolled through about 5 years worth of posts. I found out a lot of stuff about him and his family.
I didn’t tell him for a year as I was terrified he was terminate and I was so ashamed. But eventually I knew that what I was reading was negatively influencing my parental transference towards him, so I plucked up the courage and admitted I’d been stalking his page. I was a sobbing wreck and he simply said ‘If you think I’m angry with you, then I’m absolutely not. If you feel guilty then there is no need. All I would say at the moment is that clearly this is not something that is helping you so it might be best not to look at it again, but that isn’t me telling you not to, and I certainly won’t be angry if you do, it’s just me wanting us to have the best chance of helping you.’
In the end I asked him to block me, which he did and we had some really useful conversations about things that I had seen on there and how they made me feel.
He also made it clear that it was his responsibility to think about the fact that there is always going to be the chance his clients will come across his account and that it’s for him to manage and only put things on there he is comfortable with them knowing. And I think that’s an important point for you to remember with your situation.

Thank you for this. The thing is though, I found this information via one of T's family members profiles. Hers is very private and I have had to go to great lengths to find out any information at all. I feel like that just makes what I have done so much worse. I was thinking of just telling her how I still look up my past T's on social media as it does relate to the work we are doing and see how she responds to that first. I might tell her that I have looked her up to but don't feel comfortable discussing what I found out yet. I really don't want her to terminate me as I am still going through so much grief over my previous T leaving last November and I just can't handle that happening again.

I'm also worried I won't have enough time discuss all of the things that have been going on as my session is cancelled this week and I will have to somehow manage another week on my own.

Personally I would not tell her I was digging so deep into her family members' social media. She might feel threatened and react badly. If I were you I would maybe bring it up in general at one point that you feel you have a problematic way of googling and then feeling bad. I would just try not to carry on doing it and finding new info and forget about this instance and not bring it up, as it is highly personal. Maybe you could block her yourself to avoid the temptation to search again?

I don't think you need to be honest about the fact of your Googling. Stuff on social media is public and if people don't want information to be accessible to strangers, they need to take responsibility for not sharing personal information in world wide arenas. Therapists and their families are not a special case. If it's out there to be read, your reading of it is not an overstep.

In many ways, I think the Googling itself is a bit of a red herring. I would want to explore what was driving my need to Google. For me, my questions would include am I searching for connection and reassurance? Do I feel safer observing the family events of others because my own relations are overwhelming? What aspects of my internal world are trying to get my needs met by social media searching? And what is my guilt about? That I am not deserving of connection?

You can explore the underlying needs without exposing the extent of your searching. Therapeutically, the searching itself is probably the least important factor. You don't need to hide the level of your searching because it is wrong or something to be ashamed of (it's normal and expected, why else do people post stuff to be read?!). Nor do I think you should hide your actions out of fear (although I have no doubt that some therapists would not respond compassionately). You do not need to be 100% transparent, you are allowed to have private actions. Exploring our needs is the most important factor for clients.

Yes, I have banned myself from looking at T, ex T's and their family members' social media accounts but I know it is going to be hard and not being able to talk about this issue with T is going to make it harder. I think I may bring it up in a more general sense but not tell her that I found this particular piece of information. I don't know, I will see how I feel about it in the session but I worry not talking about it at all is going negatively impact my ability to engage in the therapy which is already a bit of a problem for me for various reasons.

Yes, a big part of it for me is trying to find connection, particularly between sessions. I also just want to know what sort of person my T is outside of our sessions.

As for my ex-Ts, I am still in search of answers as to why things ended the way they did. One of them ended things quite abruptly and then told right at the end of our final session she was closing her practice and I never got to discuss this with her.

My most recent ex-T went on maternity leave but has ended up extending that leave by another 6 months and has since behaved in a way that is totally out of character for her. She told me she would keep me updated if anything changed, she didn't. She told me I could email her life updates while she was on leave but it seems she changed her mind. Again, I have no answers or explanation for this. I have the option of going back to her when she returns and discussing this but it won't be until next year. I just can't seem to let these things go and I guess I'm just hoping to find some explanation for their behaviour in my online searches.

I think these things can be discussed and explored without me telling T what I found out about her/her family.

I quite often google my therapist and her family. I have sometimes ‘confessed’ to her what I’ve done. She’s is usually supportive and tells me it’s normal to be curious, however I fear that if she knew the extent she would have concerns. We have talked about it and what do I get from it, and my answer is usually that it is in search of making a deeper connection. Although im not sure it accomplishes that.

I think it’s kind of normal looking up people. I don’t think it’s a big deal or offensive. It would be much more intrusive if lets say you look them up and then keep showing up delivering unsolicited items to their doors or calling and hanging up or hiding in the bushes in their yard or other stalking activities.

I think it’s ok to share with a t that you have hard time connecting and want to look her up for those reasons. It might prompt a good discussion

I don’t really know what to say regarding whether you should tell her or not about looking her up, but given the information you found and the fact that she’s going through a pretty tough time and grieving, I’m worried that may impact how she reacts. I personally think it’s always best to be honest, but in situations like these, I think it’s a lot more complicated.

This is a really good point. If you do feel like you need to tell her, her first session back is probably the wrong time.

When my former marriage counselor's wife passed away, I found out not long after it had happened (she'd been sick, and he suddenly had to cancel, so I googled her and found her obituary). We let him know we'd found out, and he said he had planned not to tell us. I reacted poorly to that and was pushing him to explain why, things like that. He handled it kindly and compassionately, but I imagine not all T's would (even if under non-grief circumstances, they'd handle it well).

I know this is different, but I do think it's riskier telling her when she's likely grieving. She may react differently than if you told her you googled her when something like that wasn't going on in her life. So I'd at least wait.

Yes, I think I have decided to not tell her right away. The information I found out pertains to a non-immediate family member but obviously I have no idea how close T was to this person and how this has affected her so I don't want to create further distress. I think if I ever do broach this topic, I will just start by saying I have looked her up on social media and see how she responds before providing more detail.

I think this is a good idea. Sort of ease into it, and if she seems bothered/concerned, then you don't need to tell her anything else. If she seems OK about it, consider telling her.

Ugh. Really struggling to not look T up on social media. I have blocked all the accounts I used to look at but I really want to look. I already had so much I wanted to talk about in our session so having it canceled has been hard. I’m also thinking a lot about ex-T and I’m trying to resist the urge to look her up too.

When current T emailed me to cancel last week, she said if I want to meet earlier for my session this week to let her know and we could try and arrange something. I replied saying I would like to do that but I haven’t heard back and that was last Thursday. I don’t know if I should follow up given the circumstances. I also feel like it is going to be difficult for me to talk about my problems as they seem insignificant compared to what T has experienced. Of course, I’m not supposed to know about that so I’m just going to have to act normal somehow…

I think it would be OK to follow up. Something like, "I know that you're likely busy, but I just wanted to follow up to see if you might have anything earlier this week. If you don't, I completely understand. But thought I'd ask."

And well done on resisting googling. I know how difficult it can be.

I did it all the time. Never told her.

Is there something else you can do to at least partially meet the need that won't bring up the guilty feelings? Maybe look at the picture on her website or Psychology Today profile? Look at or hold something special that reminds you of her? Listen to an old voicemail? Maybe that would help you feel calmer and less in need of connection without googling. (For the record I don't think you're doing anything wrong, but I can also see why you might want to choose another method of getting that need met, whatever it is for you.)