Hey, hey, nice to meet you on here Welcome!

My therapist keeps the boundaries strict, i.e., she never releases any personal information, stays very neutral and doesn't offer any biased opinions.

I read that a therapist who is professional should not be disclosing they're personal information to you, ideally, because it can trigger and/or the slate isn't clean so to speak.

If you're T is doing that, he or she might be overlooking boundaries. What kind of things does your T say if you don't mind me asking.

I've been in therapy for 7 months and I don't know the lingo fully. I've only read about it. But I must admit, though having a T who is neutral does give space for me to trust that she'll be neutral in all regards with any information I give her. She allows me to test the waters because it's about me and me only.

I might be wrong in some of what I'm saying here. I don't know. I'd like to see what others with more experience say as it interests me too.

My T has been fairly lenient about disclosure compared with other T's I've heard of, but even so she doesn't disclose a lot. If I ask her something specific about herself, she will answer it very briefly and then of course we will have to discuss why I wanted to know and how I feel after hearing it. I usually ask her how her weekend was but she will just say "Good" and then ask me about mine without elaborating further. At first I thought it was weird, but she is trying to keep the focus on me and that is actually a good thing.

She has shared a few stories about herself unprompted, but only when she felt they related directly to my own experience in some way. And she also kept it very general. For example, "When I was on vacation once, I felt blah blah blah..." rather than "When I was on vacation in Jamaica with my sisters and out drinking at a night club I felt blah blah..."

I think if my T started chatting a lot about her personal life, I might find it interesting but it wouldn't be good therapy anymore.

Yes, maybe she is illustrating to me that she is human and is trying to make points with her stories. I do know a lot about her though. I know about the family that she grew up in, the family issues she dealt with growing up, how many brothers and sisters she has, how many kids, how many husbands, her children's names, how many pets she has and approximately where she lives. She tells me that she has a boyfriend, where they've been and what they drink and that she met his family. I also know that we attended the same college (many years apart though), so we reminisce about certain things there. I know about what she dreamed of being when she was a teen. She has mentioned a couple of times about where she hangs out at once or twice a week after her late night work. We also have similar community interests and we talk about those and people we know in common.
We live in a city, yet it seems to be a rather small community in many ways.

Before going to sessions I have a list of topics that I want to talk about and she thanks me for that, so we stay focused. I have learned to listen to her stories a little bit and then steer the conversation back to me. A couple of my issues are not being assertive enough and setting boundaries, so maybe this is her brilliant way of helping me do that. I have trust issues, so maybe she is trying to help me with that too.
I usually only see her every 3 to 4 weeks and I rarely ever see her or talk to her in between sessions. A couple of months into our sessions she gave me her cell number, so I could contact her if I needed her. I've never called that number. I never felt the need to. Recently (within the past few weeks), I've had these overwhelming urges to call the number, but I focus my attention elsewhere instead or I reach out to friends.

During one of our sessions my T seemed like she wanted to talk about herself or had some issue going on, but I didn't let her go there. When we ended the session, I felt like it was unfinished and I wanted to figure out what was going on with her. On my way home from a meeting one night I decided to stop in at my T's hang out partly because I didn't want to go home yet and partly because I wanted to see her and see if we could finish our previous session in some way. Also, my boyfriend left nasty messages on my voicemail and I was debating whether or not to break up with him. Anyway, I talked to some people that I knew and some people that I didn't know for quite some time before T showed up. She sat by herself and I let her be and thought about not approaching her. I ended up going over and saying hi. I wasn't going to talk about my problems though. She started telling me her issues and I asked her questions, which she answered genuinely. My feelings from the last session seemed to be right. She then asked about me, but I didn't say much except to answer a couple of her questions (chit chat like). I knew she could tell something was going on with me too. We hugged (first hug) and said goodbye. We've never hugged in her office. Our session after that seemed to be great too.
Oddly enough though our recent session wasn't as wonderful. I felt very distant from her. I wasn't in the best of moods due to a lack of sleep and all the stress going on in my life. She had some tough questions for me and I started to shut down and couldn't think of answers. She rarely gives me assignments, but she gave me one last session. I think it's an assignment to gear up for termination.
I told her about how it bothers me that we are ending soon and that I still have urges to call her. She suggested that when I feel lonely to reach out to family or keep myself busy during the times I know I'm going to feel lonely.

ok...I would love to write more, but I need to go at the moment. Maybe I'll post more later.
Thank you all for your opinions and for reading!

Athenacus,

Just wanted to say Hi and Welcome! Your therapy story does sound quite confusing. It does seem as though she is blurring the boundaries quite a bit. Have you thought about getting a consult?

Liese

My T never talks about herself which means the focus is always on myself . The only thing I know about her after nearly two years is that she owms a dog . We do sometimes have a laugh with each other and I feel like she is my friend in the theraputic setting but it would be impossible to have contact with her outside because shes know more about me than anyone else . I think what I`m trying to say is because my T has firm boundaries I know exactly where I am with her and because of my trust issues I have been able to build a very good easy relationship with her and I know that even though my sessions don`t always go to plan I always know that she is there for me and not for me to take on any of her issues , I`ve got a good sense of her character , but thats only through her responses to me and I like that .

After 18 months I know 3 things about my T.

(1) she had emergency surgery (which was traumatic to her) to remove her ovaries and they left a little piece of one so she could hopefully have kids and she did, have a son, 3 years later (she shared this because I was talking about pelvic pain I had had for years and was tired of it....so I ended up pushing for exploratory surgery and got my OB/GYN to do it while I had great insurance)

(2) she lost her mom to cancer, I know the type and the extent and the experimental surgeries she had and complications and the suffering and when she recurred....she brought it up because I was having a lot of shame or guilt(?) about something I was thinking about my son and his cancer and 'what if it came back' and she told me my thought made me a good mom, not a bad mom, and that she could say that because she understood, watching someone she loved suffer with cancer even though it wasn't her child, and she has a son, and could not imagine watching him suffer with cancer

(3) she has 3 cats - she shared this during a phone session when my very loud cat was meowing....later, too, she would tell me to spend time petting my cats if it helped calm me and soothe me

That's all I know. I don't even know if she is married (she wears a ring, but it isn't a traditional wedding ring) and although H's T asked him if my T was married, I have no interest in knowing. I don't think her marital issues are relevant to mine and the direction she takes me. She is not opinionated; she takes me where I want to go in therapy. I'm really glad my T keeps the focus on me. Her boundaries are firm, too, like no out-of-session contact. Nothing is blurred and I don't feel confused or like she's my friend. I often feel like she's re-parenting me (and she did tell me that one time, that it was okay to be re-parented, even as adults), and sometimes I feel like she's a big sister (cuz she is maybe about 5-6 years older than me - guessing based on her education background). Not a friend, though. And, if I ever say to her that I need her, she will re-direct me to people in my life, outside of therapy. She doesn't want me dependent on her. If I need an extra session or something, though, and I ask, she is good about giving me what I need (I rarely ask for anything).

I do want to say, that I often think about T's mom, now, when I talk about my son and his cancer. Or if I am in session around mother's day, I think about her and her mom. I never say anything, but its in my head. I think about her son, too. And her cats. LOL So, it is a good thing I know nothing more....definitely distracting to me.

Hi Athenacus,

I really like the username you chose.

To answer your question, I don't think it causes dependency. I think if you have dependency issues, they will be there regardless of your therapists' disclosures.

I once had a therapist who was more like a friend than a therapist. I knew all about her life. But she didn't damage me, it was just the frame we had. She practiced like that because she was a humanistic therapist. (if you are familiar with the humanistic orientation, you can see why). She didn't help me much either in terms of long-term change, though I didn't know it at the time. I didn't know I had attachment issues. Still, it was nice to have a more objective opinion and support from someone.

So it could be her orientation. If you are in intense therapy-psychodynamic therapy, then boundaries like that could be an issue. Not everyone needs that type of therapy, though. Some people are fine with therapists who are more like coaches or friends.

I have trust issues too, so my therapist disclosed a lot in the beginning. For us, I think it was partly modeling-where his self-disclosures made me comfortable with my self disclosures. It normalized things too. He's actually told me some things about himself that were very suprising. From what I understand about psychodynamic therapy, it's only appropriate to self-disclose when it benefits the patient. This doesn't mean a therapist won't make mistakes in this department. Mine has. So that sort of approach can help for people who have trust issues.

quote:

Is your T creative and code stories for you to analyze?

I'm not sure what you mean here. Can you provide an example?

If you are uncomfortable with her self-disclosures, as with any feelings that come up, it's best to be honest and upfront about it. Talking about it has a way of sorting things out, as difficult as this is to do sometimes.

Why do you think she's preparing you for termination? This wasn't clear to me.

Thank you to all who have read and responded to my questions.
I had a chat with someone about my therapy sessions (without using my T's name). This person is in school training to be a therapist. This person asked me to consider ending with my T. She told me from what I told her that boundaries seem muddy. Her opinion is that T got into being a T in order to deal w/her own problems. T may be doing some good, but also is doing some harm.
Apparently, by ending the relationship I'll be less confused and I will grow from this experience.

I just feel sooooo attached to T that the thought of leaving is painful.

Here are some positives and negatives that I have had in therapy:

T has helped me a tremendous amount dealing with the breakup of my marriage. She has helped me in many more ways than my attorney ever did. T has also taught me by challenging my thinking. She has given me tools and advice on handling my children during the divorce process and the move. She has also helped me to be a stronger person in dealing with my ex and others in my life. She has nudged me to do certain things and has questioned me. She has shown me that she cares. A couple of my most memorable times were when: I was sobbing during session because hubby had said he was going to leave-told the children and they fell apart crying and clinging, but hubby had no emotion (was very robotic, cold and walked away). My T's eyes welled up with tears as I was crying. I was very moved that she was right there with me. I will never forget that. Also, the time when I came to great insight and she was taking down notes furiously. She had a surprised look on her face and then looked up at me and told me she loved what I just said. As I was leaving the parking lot she was heading out to lunch. She looked at me with her head cocked a bit to the side and a big smile (her proud look) and waved good bye to me. I waved good bye back. I will never forget that moment either.

Here are some of the negatives about our sessions.... A few times when T was in a bad mood (was in some sort of pain, had a bad day or something ticked her off), she was very snippy and short with me even though I swear I didn't do anything to provoke it. Sometimes I've felt like we were in some sort of competition. We've pressed each other's buttons. Once in a while I've felt like we have some jealousy issues. I dated a friend of hers without knowing she knew of him (maybe she even dated him..who knows). She made some sort of statement that made me want to rebel and see him again. I know that has caused some conflict in our relationship. T pouted about her own issues on several occasions and it felt like I needed to counsel her during those times. When I made a couple of horrible decisions T was really upset. Her whole body changed position, her nostrils flared, she took a deep breath and proceeded to tell me all the bad things that could have happened and asked why I did such an awful thing. I felt she was very disappointed in me and ashamed. Also, She has randomly interjected somethings about her own life that I couldn't figure out how it related to what I was talking about. She has said things that made it sound like she would have done certain things for me, because she does that for friends, but then changed and said that I should have family help me with that. That was confusing. Those are the types of messages that get me, I guess.
Some outside/observational type of info....T drives around in two different sports cars with personalized plates (I drive by her office on my way to work). I've heard from a couple of people that my T is "a real pistol". T seems to be a social drinker and doesn't mind talking about it..excepts tells me not to hang out at bars. She tends to swear a lot. I was taken back when I heard her use the "F" word (not at me) when I saw her outside of session.

ok...I've rambled on enough for tonight. I've got to get groceries out of the car. Thank you for reading!
You all have a great holiday season!

thank you xoxo! I like your name too. Mine is a wisdom/warrior name. :-)

Before I even started therapy I had been reading about humanistic theory, but not realizing it at the time. I think that's one of those things that helped T and I click. She uses an eclectic approach, so that might be why from time to time things go differently in session.

Coded stories....she'll use her pets or her relationships with her pets or others to illustrate things to me or to compare something that's going on in my life. Sometimes it takes me a while after session to analyze that and see why she said things that way. Sometimes she's not straightforward. It's difficult to explain.
I think she's explained my issues with boundaries by telling me stories about her dog and boundaries.

About terminating...she's mentioned the word a few times recently, yet it wasn't directly related to me. Then, we were looking at my insurance plan and we only have a few sessions left before that's up. Her assignment to me was to review what we've done up to this point, clarify my goals and what more I need from her. She seems to think I'm doing well. T basically said that there are others who need this more than I do.
I think she would be willing to see me for her regular price once my insurance doesn't cover it. I'm not sure about that though. One of my friends told me that maybe she is getting ready for termination because of the possible blurred boundaries and now realizes that she needs to get out of this. Hmmm...who knows....