Posted by Tamar on July 5, 2005, at 15:09:41
In reply to What do you call your Therapist?, posted by cricket on July 5, 2005, at 13:11:47
I called my therapist by his first name because he left a voicemail message fairly early on in my therapy in which he called himself by his first name.
I’m familiar with the issue outside of therapy because I have a PhD and I teach college. Some of the students call me by my first name; others use Dr T. I know what Dinah means about using what people call you as a diagnostic: sometimes there’s an obvious attitude behind the choice of address. It’s very obvious to me when students use my first name as an attempt to establish themselves on an equal footing, and equally obvious when other students use Dr T as a way of showing respect and maintaining distance. The former are usually senior men; the latter are usually young men, but that’s a bit of a generalisation.
I find both of these approaches uncomfortable because I don’t want to set myself up as a superior but I also don’t want students to speak to me as if my PhD (and hence my experience and knowledge) were irrelevant. I guess I feel that some senior men are using my first name as a way to put me in my place, and some young men are using ‘Dr T’ to show more respect than is really necessary. Women don’t usually seem to have an attitude, but usually address me by my first name.
I’ve never told my students what to call me. When I talk to students about my colleagues I refer to them as Dr H or Professor J or whatever, but I leave it up to my students to call me whatever they’re comfortable with.
Having said that, I prefer it when students call me by my first name but without the attitude! Dr T sounds very formal in this day and age. I like being addressed by my first name as long as I don’t feel the student is using it to make a point.
I think teaching can be similar to therapy in that there’s often a high degree of transference. I don’t think I realised how much transference goes on in the classroom until I did therapy and read up on transference!
poster:Tamar
thread:523728
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20050628/msgs/523803.html