age of therapist/is your therapist younger than you?

I saw GimmeIce's response to my post and saw that she said her therapist is younger than her. This piqued my interest since I am 27 and the majority of my clients are in their 40s or older. The only person who has ever made a comment about my age being a problem is actually a male client who is about 2 years older than me. I can see how it would be weirder if the younger therapist is younger by a couple years, rather than 20 years.

I would absolutely die if my therapist was younger than me (this is not very likely, but there are a few people in my doctoral cohort who are therapists and they are a year or two younger than me). But I couldn't even deal with a therapist who would be anywhere near my age.

Besides for needing a male therapist, I also needed someone who was considerably older than me. My T is in his mid 80s. No, I'm just kidding. He is in his mid 50s.

I let my T pick out my marriage therapist for me. I told him to make sure she was old, haha (I suspect she is in her late 50s to early 60s). Before I met her, T said to me, "Do you need me to interview her and ask her where she was when JFK was shot?" hehehe

So-- I am wondering how important is a therapist's age to you, particularly when choosing a therapist?

And for anyone who has a therapist who is younger than you are-- what is that like for you?

My T is about 62.
I couldn't deal with a T who was younger than 50 I don't think.
I'd absolutely freak with a T who was also in their twenties, let alone younger than me.

my T is 34 and i am 20. its important that my T is older than me right now because of my age, but i always wanted someone on the young side. she is the youngest one in her office and she has this soft child voice that when people call her house they ask if her parents are home, haha. I like that she is young because i feel i can still relate with her because she is in touch with where i am in life, because it wasn't too long ago that she was there herself. times havent changed much since she was my age so its easy for her to relate. i just feel closer with her. but i also had transference feelings towards an older woman (who is a T but not my T, but i know her personally) and she is in her 50s. i liked her because she was like a mother figure that i wished i had. for some reason i haven't gravitated towards men, which is weird because my dad was absent a lot during my life. My mom was there, but there is an emotional part missing that i never got that i tend to put on my T. so yea, thats my two cents, hehe.

My T is 4-5 years (don't know exectly) older than me. I don't think I would be comfortable with a T who is younger or much older than me, because I tend to think "oh don't pretend you understand" or "you know nothing about it" quite often. The fact that she's just a bit older than me helps me to believe she really understands what i'm saying.

My T is 60. I feel better that she is older. I did once see another T for 1 week who was the same age as me and i didnt like it. (but then i was only seeing her cos my T was away and my T thought it would be helpful if i met this other one, that may have been something to do with the fact that i didnt like her)

Wow, how is it that so many of you know your T's age?!?

I think my T is about my age or a bit older. Or, that may be my assigning her that older woman role I want, I'm not sure. It's something I worry about sometimes, thinking she could be nearing retirement and I should voice that worry but then what if she isn't that age at all?!?!

I know that I could not work with a young T, but I also have to realize that the older I get the harder that will be. The rate I'm going, T and I will both be sitting there in our Depends as I'm still struggling with my stuff. lol

T is older than me. I knew when I chose a therapist that I needed it to be an older man. He's about 10 years older than me age-wise. It works.

I think Teacher T is much closer to my age - we may be the same age even - but she is like 658943495 years older than me wisdom-wise, so that works out fine.

On any given day my T is either about the same age as me
OR
quite a bit older, like a parent?



Seriously though I think we are the same age but I am not certain. AND recently I found out that his first marriage (and reception upstairs) was in the same chapel, same year (and maybe same minister) as mine, just 3 months apart. How weird is that?

My T is 26 and I'm 25 years old

I guess my T is in his late 50s or early 60s. When I decided I wanted a T I specified that he had to be male (a friend of mine IRL who is a psychologist was helping me find someone). She asked if I wanted someone older or my own age. I thought about it a long time and said I probably wanted someone older but definitely not younger -- ideally, at least 10 years older. My T is probably more like 20 years older, and it's perfect that way. I just tend to think people around my own age probably don't know enough. I'll probably still feel that way 20 years from now. Eventually I'll need a T who's around 100. Hopefully it'll be the same T.....

Sidony

My first T was within a year of my age and my current one is actually considerably younger than me. At first I had a sense of concern about this but decided that I wanted/needed the help enough that I would try not to let this be a barrier. T2 has skills that are in line with much of what I need to be working on. I'd say that for the most part, it's a non-issue at this point, though sometimes there's a cultural reference I'll make that won't hit the mark or a musical reference that goes right past him, (To his credit, being very tech savvy, he will go to iTunes and pull the songs I mention sometimes.) I haven't entirely swept the age thing under the rug, but he has the skills that seem to match my need right now so I let the age difference thing thing be okay with me. We've talked about it a little, too.

As I get older I find that I have supervisors who are younger than me too. It's just part of life, I guess.

I still wish I hadn't had to discontinue with my first therapist, though. We were a very good fit in many respects. The hard thing will be if T1 suddenly has time openings in January that would fit with my schedule. I'd have to make a choice then as to whether to stay with my current therapist (with whom I'm making progress) or go back to T1. Maybe I'll need to find T3 to help me make the choice. (Just kidding!!)

I am 35 and I believe my T is 38. I don't mind that age at all. I am not sure that I would do well with a younger T, not that I wouldn't get along with them, I get along well with many age groups.

I believe it has to do more with experience, I would want them to have experience. Then of course you may get those who have been doing it for so many years that its almost mechanical, so I wouldn't want that either lol I guess I just want it balanced.

Hangingon

My T, pdoc and addictions Dr. are all older than I am. I'm guessing but based on what they've told me about their lives, I'd say there all late 40's early 50's. I'm 39. I feel comfortable with the fact that they're older than me, it helps me to know that they have lots of experience. Personally I think I would find it a bit weird, or uncomfortable to have a T that was younger than me, althogh I suppose it will happen eventually.

--splitimage

My previous T was 58. I was comfortable with that. Then she moved towards retirement so I was concerned with having older T's I guess.
Right now I have 2 T's. One is in her mid-30's and the other is in her late 30's or way early 40's I think.
I'm only 22 (about to be 23) so finding one younger then I is difficult. I'm not sure that age matters as much to me as what experience they've had in the areas I need help with.

My therapist is 77 and I'm 37. I wanted an older woman because my mother died when I was young and I have many issues to work out around that and I welcomed the mother-transference that I knew would come with having an older woman T.

My problem is that because of my T's age and my experience with losing my mother, I worry all the time that my therapist will get sick and die, or that she will retire. I've told her about this and she assures me that she's in perfect health and has no plans to retire any time soon.

Does anyone else worry about their older T?

my T is 138, but man she looks good for it

Our T is substantially older then we are...she is 64 and our body is 39. Her children are our age! We are very comfortable with this...I'm sure it has to do with "mother issues", but in 6 years of therapy, there haven't been any real transference issues there. We are, and have always been, really clear tht T s not "mom" is what I mean. However, it is also clear that we tend to look for a "mom" figure. A neighbor of ours is 66 and we have become quite close to her. We carpool to school with her because she works on campus, and get a lot of "mom type" nurturing from her. Examples are her asking how classes are going, celebrating with us when we do well on an exam or paper, listening to us vent about professors or whatever...she also puts our lunch in her office fridge and lets us leave things in her office that we don't want to carry around all day.

That was a bit of a left turn, so back to the topc...I don't think we would do well with a T that was younger than us, however, considering we have alters that actually come out and talk in t that are as young as 4 years...it would be pretty hard to have a T younger then that!

I don't know how old my T is. My impression is that she is older than I am--her children are grown and she has been married longer,... so she has been there done that. Experience is important to me at this point. I would have trouble listening to someone tell me how to parent, who hasn't actually experienced it themselves.

shes 50...im 38 going on 13

if I saw a female therapist much younger than me I wouldn't get much therapy done.....

I'm 31, T is 64. I definately could not see one younger than me - i'd feel like a TOTAL loser not having my act together and being older and I tend to not like ppl my age. I like people either 6-10 years older (or even older) or younger than me. Dunno why, it's always been that way. Same with medical staff - I'd freak if they are my age or younger. My first T was an idiot - we don't count him. My second t, i nearly fainted - I thought "It's like talking about sex with my grandma!!!" She looked about 140. Guess she just aged badly. 2 other t's were in their 40's and then current t - with her shock white hair - this is where i want to be. Old enough to not only have "been there" thru all the crap i have, but have the wisdom and also "mother hen"-ness when I need her too. (no offense Pink). but spunky enough to kick my ***** when i lose momentum.

I think my T is around my age, maybe a little older. I hope I don't insult her when I sometimes want her to be my mom.

My T is in her early fifties I believe, so she is more than 20 years older than me. My previous T was in her late fifties, and the T before that was in her early thirties.

My T is 20 years younger than me. I’m in my 50s, and he’s only had his PhD for 3 years. He’s worked in a hospital setting prior to that, and is quite intelligent. However, it is difficult sometimes. I started seeing therapists as a child, before he was born, and I’m dealing with things he’s not had to deal with, i.e., an elderly parent, husband with serious health issues, and long term therapy gone wrong. His solutions to my problems are very simplistic, and his approach is this solution oriented method, which really isn’t working well for me. He doesn’t seem to understand that I have feelings attached to these problems. For example, I know how to make to-do lists to get things done related to my mom’s dementia, but that doesn’t alleviate the anxiety and guilt that go along with making those decisions. I have multiple problems, much to do with past therapy, and he wants to hear nothing of the past because that isn’t how this solution approach works. Sometimes I just need to talk to work this stuff out, and he’ll make the comment that we can sit here and talk about this stuff, but I need to just be assertive, get things done, etc. If it doesn’t have to do with the “here and now,” or getting things done, he really doesn’t want to explore it. He can be very understanding at times, but that can change when he wants to get back into the structure of his method. I need to talk to him about my past therapy issues, but of course that is in the past. It affects my ability to talk to him now, but being as young as he is, I don’t know if he can understand. Anyway, I’m glad I saw this post, and realize it’s not just “me” who feels better with older therapists.

My t is like 65 or so and that was okay until I saw T in the gymn in this tiny pair of shorts.

Not a good look.

GAH!

My T is 38 and I am 21.