Posted by Recently on December 1, 2008, at 0:54:52
My new T is of the 'blank slate' variety - I know nearly nothing about her. My last T was also of this sort, and it was one aspect of the therapy that always bothered me. For that reason, among others, we never had any sort of alliance or connection. I was quite young when I went to my last T, so I regret to say I was not confident enough to confront her with these issues.
Cut to the present, with another relatively blank slate T. I asked her last week what school she went to for her doctoral degree and she asked "Why did you ask that?" My response was that I was simply curious (which I was). I know it all depends on the personal situation of the client, but for me, I would personally prefer a little more disclosure - I feel I will be better able to relate to and open up to my T if I knew a bit more about her. Nothing too personal of course, though I didn't think asking about college was a particularly personal question.
Regarding transference - that's probably some aspect of it, but I think it's more simply my curiosity. I don't want to be friends - but I wish she would be more 3-dimensional than a blank slate! For example, I want to ask her about her theoretical orientation, but I fear the time for that has come and gone as well (and it's likely psychoanalytic... lol). I also want to ask her simple things like where in that state she is from or how long she has lived in the city.
So has anyone been able to get their therapist to disclose a bit more over time (if that was what you wanted)? Or is it pretty constant throughout? I know the proper thing to do is just talk about this situation with my T, but I fear a negative reaction. Just wanted to get some input from others who may have been there.
poster:Recently
thread:866019
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20081120/msgs/866019.html