#ive had therapists tell me i'm very self-aware and i dont mean that in a 'i got a good grade in therapy' type of way LMAO

[xannerz]

roblox death noise

[asynca]

(1/4)Hi auntie! I have a dilemma and I'd like your opinion as a professional and as someone who is also in therapy. I started seeing my therapist 2 years ago, and after a good year of being at rock fucking bottom I started seeing incredible results. Nowadays I'm functional for the first time in my life, I can finally be a good friend and a reliable person and I've taken hard but necessary decisions regarding my family. All that to say that therapy has been obviously good to me.

(2/4)However I’ve recently been feeling not so good about it. I’ve recently spaced out the sessions (which is great!) But I’ve started feeling bad about something and i dont know if it’s due to some projection or if it’s legit. My therapist is new to the job (which worked for me since I like his approach and ive had traumatizing experience with older mental health professionals). I’ve also had to educate him on queer issues which I dont mind that much since I have other support systems for that.

(¾)But because of that and the fact that I think I was one of his first patients, I feel like our dynamic changed recently and I’m not comfortable with it. Last time I saw him he talked about his own issues and although it was to paint a parallel with something I was talking about, I immediately felt queasy. Thing is I’ve been told by a lot of people that therapists would manipulate me and even though most days now I can tell its bs, this one shift in dynamic last time really shook me.

(4/4)Idk how to tell him I was uncomfortable, and also I have the suspicion he doesnt have a therapist himself (and something recent happened in his life) This is messy but I’ve had a hard time figuring out why i feel so bad and i think it’s that I’m afraid of being taken advantage of, which sounds far stretched but I come from a traumatized home with paranoid parents so yeah. Idk what level of familiarity is acceptable in this situation and what’s bad practice. Do you have any advice?

Okay I can tell you exactly what is happening here.

As a counsellor, it’s important to set boundaries with clients. I want my clients to see me as a professional, not really as a whole person. I am a resource to them and it’s not important for them to know very much about me beyond how I work and what I can do for them. I am careful not to be too familiar or casually friendly with clients. I am careful not to see them outside work. I am careful not to discuss my private life or my own issues except EXTREMELY sparingly where I think an example may be useful (and even then, I typically phrase my own discoveries as ‘something other people have found useful is …’). I am also careful to tell my clients what I can and can’t do for them, and police those limits. If you like a client, or if a client is particularly needy (which is not the case for you, but as an example), it’s extremely tempting to step over those boundary lines you set and either a) do things that are not within your role for a client, or b) get too friendly with them and step down from from being a professional service provider into a more friendship-peer role. 

That’s what’s happening here. You’re uncomfortable because you still see this person as your 100% professional therapist, but you can feel a boundary is being eroded because this person is beginning to either see you as a friend or see you as something other than a client. 

It seems as if they are overwhelmed by their own issues and it’s beginning to bleed into their work, too, which definitely necessitates some therapy themselves. I’d be extremely surprised if this personal doesn’t have their own counsellor/therapist, as for most registration bodies here you’re required to also have your own therapist to practice. This probably means they aren’t getting what they need from their own therapy or they’re overwhelmed by something in their own life and haven’t managed to realise that and contain it yet. 

As for you as a client, it is perfectly natural for you to feel uncomfortable when your therapist crosses a professional line! This is also very common for new therapists to make this mistake! I’m sorry it’s been made on you. Clients should typically never have to think about their own therapist’s personal lives or problems so it’s a pity that wall has been broken. 

It’s very unlikely your therapist is manipulating you. Your therapist just hasn’t set their own personal boundaries well. You’re only being taken advantage of in that you’re paying a therapist to also talk about their own issues - I don’t think your therapist may even be aware this is happening. 

What happens next is really up to you. This is a really tough one to address, because often if you say to someone, “I think a boundary has been eroded here,” they can get a bit defensive (although I’d like to think counsellors would be more self-reflective than this!). 

You could try, “Perhaps this is something you could discuss with your own therapist,” if they start bringing up their own issues, too. 

A sort of gentle way to continue service is to start the next session with your counsellor (if you’d like to continue with them) with, “I’d like to talk about what I need from this service, what goals I have, and how we reach them,” and remind your counsellor this is a professional session without actually saying it. You can even say, “I’ve had a think about what I need from this and I’ve written a list of techniques you use that I found really helpful, and things that I personally find less helpful,” and on the ‘less helpful’ list, you can include “too many personal examples from your own life” or something. This has the added benefit of also letting your therapist know what DOES work. 

It is possible to just change counsellors, or just openly say, “I don’t want to be too familiar with you, if that’s okay,” but again, that’s a really tough conversation to have with your counsellor. 

However, if you feel up to it, you can absolutely have an open and transparent discussion wiht them exactly like you’ve had with me. Just say it makes you uncomfortable and it doesn’t work for you. Hopefully addressing the issue won’t cause any problems in your therapeutic relationship. I’d like to think my clients would feel comfortable in openly telling me if I was getting too familiar! 

Anyway, I’m sorry you’ve had to go through this. As I mentioned, it’s very common with new therapists so please don’t feel like you contributed to it in any way except obviously by being a likeable person and easy to talk to :)