Posted by softheprairie on April 21, 2009, at 1:49:40
In reply to Re: family pictures, posted by Suedehead on April 19, 2009, at 18:56:22
> My therapist doesn't have any photos in the office I see him in; he has a home office, too, but I've never been there, so I don't know how it's decorated.
>
> Am I alone in thinking that a therapist's keeping photos on display might not always be such a bad thing? It's possible that I'd flip out if I ever really saw a picture of his family, but I *think* that I'd like to see them. I tend to like a lot of self-disclosure from him--it makes me feel more connected to him and humanizes him in an appealing way--so maybe that's not surprising. It does hurt to think about his life outside of the therapy room, of course, but the pain is mitigated by the feelings of closeness and trust that his disclosures engender.
Oh, I didn't mean to say I didn't want to know about him and his family. Quite the contrary. I already knew he was divorced and had a son and daughter. I am closer in age to his children than to him, and he reminds me of my deceased father. For a while I was looking up his child's Facebook account a lot to try to get to know more about my t. I think it was to try and find things we had in common to focus more on in what I say, and that I'd maybe not address as much things where our opinions differ. It was really consuming my thoughts. I finally admitted it to him. I was so nervous and had to be prepared for him to not want to see me anymore, but he took it fine. If he was mad he didn't let it show.
My interest has decreased, as I hoped. I had said the one child with the more public Facebook account could change the privacy setting, and around two months after I told t, I could no longer get to the one child's updates (the other had had the higher privacy setting all along, but I previously had been able to see both of their comments when they were on the wall of the more public one).
So, I was mighty interested, but I don't think I would want to have to see their pictures in the office.
poster:softheprairie
thread:891535
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20090328/msgs/891882.html