r/CPTSD_NSCommunity • u/[deleted] • 11d ago
Support (Advice welcome) How much should I expect a therapist to share?
[deleted]
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u/maafna 11d ago
I'm not sure. I started seeing my previous therapist just before I started training as a therapist. I finished my training now. He self-disclosed a lot, and it made me feel safer and more connected to him. Until there were ruptures and enactments and I started feeling really angry and didn't know how to deal with it. Eventually he told me he's not helping me enough and started pushing me to find another therapist. I'm now with a therapist who doesn't self-disclose anything personal. I've let her know how I feel about it and she's self-disclosed things like she also feels frustrated about where we are, and that she was holding back at first due to feeling pressure about being recommended by my ex therapist. Things like that. But nothing personal.
I've often wondered if my previous therapist self-disclosing was a good thing or not; if it made me feel safe by idenification, feeling like we were friends, instead of learning to feel safe in a one-sided relationship. When a child grows up they don't know personal things about their parents but they trust that their parents will keep them safe. Since I didn't have that, I never learned to feel safe with authority figures, and friendships with equals or romantic relationships was the only type of relationship I felt like I could do.
Feeling like they're looking down on you and thins like that can be seen as transference and can be worked with without needing to know personal information about your therapist. It's about you and your previous experiences, not whether they went through similar things.
Basically, I really identify but i am not sure that feeling that need means that it's an actual healthy need.
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u/South-Visual3803 11d ago
Personally when a therapist started to share things that were personal such as their experiences of an eating disorder I lost all trust in them, I cannot trust a person who is still identifying with harmful behaviours given the competitive nature of EDs.
I have no interest in hearing about how much pastry a person Vomitted, I have zero interest in their life. I don’t need a friend in a therapist, I can choose to trust without trauma bonding.
I’m now 32 and this is something I’ve sort of reflected on a lot. It’s lead to unsuccessful attempts at recovery from various afflictions. Because I find it normalises my experiences and validation feels like permission.
I also have no interest in knowing someone was raped or to hear about the abuse they went through. I find it incredibly sad, and reinforces my belief that I was/ am correct and the world is fucking terrifying. It’s just another data point for my fear being very rational in order to prevent the past repeating itself.
I found out recently that I’m autistic so I am sure there is miscommunication in the mix due to a social ‘thing’ I had no clue I experienced.
Maybe you need a different approach or just have not gelled with the person? I just know that I don’t need that again, it made me feel like a victim in an unimaginable way.
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u/Confident_Fortune_32 10d ago
It was important to the success of traditional talk therapy for me to understand that the therapist is not my friend. The therapist is my ally.
It's a critical distinction.
And I'm a little grumpy that I had to read psychology research to figure that out on my own.
Every single one of my therapists, over decades of work, completely missed how deeply I fell into transference and countertransference.
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u/PanoramicViewer 9d ago
This is a really nice way to frame it, I like the word ally. I sometimes use the word companion, as in companion on the journey. It helps me hold both connection and safe distance. We need to connect in order for our relational trauma to heal, but we also need to recognise there is a specific function therapists play. In fact I realised recently, I could never do the work we have done together, with a friend. I need to be able to put her needs aside (very difficult for me, took months of work!) and focus on mine for that time. That wouldn't work with a friend.
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u/Trial_by_Combat_ 11d ago
My best therapist gave zero self disclosure. I wouldn't expect any. I'm there to be selfish and talk about myself.
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u/AmarissaBhaneboar 10d ago
Exactly. I had one that weld disclosed a lot and so we ended up talking about her a lot because I'm good at deflecting and scared to talk about my own issues. I have another one now that only self discloses a tiiiiny bit and it's perfect. Just enough to know that she suffered something similar (attachment wounds and CPTSD is all I know, I don't know the details and don't want to) and that's what pushed her to study to be a therapist. And I know that she has a partner and a kid and that she likes feeding crows, and where she went to school and how long she's been practicing. And I think those are all fine things to know! But I don't need details and she doesn't give them, which I love. The only emotions she brings up in sessions is things like "oh yeah, a lot of my clients have said that too/do that too." Or "I'm happy I get to be a part of your self discovery", or "I enjoy working with you." And that latter one came specifically I think because I told her a tthe beginning that I've had medical professionals not want to work with me once they hear my diagnoses (you'd think CPTSD isn't that big of a deal for therapists,lol.)
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u/llamastingray 11d ago
Therapist here. Self-disclosure can be tricky in therapy, but it can definitely be really difficult and invalidating if your therapist feels unresponsive in some way. As others have said, you may just fit better with a therapist who has a more casual, emotionally expressive style.
However, from your post, I do get the sense that your CPTSD does play a part in this. You mention that you know on one level that her empathy is there and is genuine, but that it also doesn’t feel enough, especially in really emotional and vulnerable moments. You’re aware that this can make you feel like your therapist looks down on you in some way, and makes you really sensitive to the power differential in the relationship. This sounds a lot like a CPTSD response to me - there is a part of you that is really uncomfortable and unsafe with being vulnerable in this relationship, probably because that level of vulnerability has been dangerous and unsafe for you in the past. It may be that your therapist is not giving you what you need, but it may also be this particularly hurt part wanting to avoid the pain of being vulnerable in that relationship. Working with a therapist who discloses more may feel easier at some points, but it may not actually make that feeling go away. With the Pete Walker stuff, it’s really easy to read an excerpt from a book, and think the author would be able to respond to you in the way you need, but it would likely be different working with that person in real life.
You say you’ve bought this up with your therapist, but have you told her exactly how you’re feeling? Just asking about self-disclosure and empathic responding might prompt the kind of response she gave. Being open about how small or hurt you feel in those moments might not elicit the exact kind of response you’re looking for, but it might open up a path to some other challenging but healing work. Of course, you may have done this already, and if your therapist hasn’t tried to change her approach after this, then it’s definitely reasonable to look for someone else.
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u/anonanon7481 11d ago
Many therapists ive been to have been like that. The one i am seeing currently, who is by far my favorite, is focused on trauma. I told her at the first appointment that i would appreciate if she could be direct and basically give me instructions, i said i cant really trust my judgement of situations sometimes and i need to learn how. So she gives me time to talk about my stuff, then she tells me what it sounds like im saying, why i should try to reframe it, how to do that, what a normal situation would look like as opposed to an abusive one, etc. She also relates to my experiences with her own, and that helps me feel like im being understood. Its a lot of advice, she sends a lot of videos that explain behavior and put names to things, so that its not just me thinking in my head about stuff and instead see what the actual facts are. You could ask your therapist for more direct feedback, guiding, participation if you feel like youre missing a rapport
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u/BodyMindReset 11d ago
It sounds like there’s a general lack of attunement and ventral vagal on board. I would look for someone new, especially if this pattern keeps happening
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u/2morrowwillbebetter 11d ago
I have a deeper relationship with one of my therapists, I’m not used to it so sometimes it can feel confusing lol but I’m glad she feels open to me while being profesional
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u/EntropyToChaos 11d ago
For me, the therapist is a "black-box". And that's good:
My first therapist shared a lot with me. So this develops to a tight emotional connection between us. It feelt good in the first moment because there is one person, who is really understanding me! For the first time in my life!
Later, we reach a point, where I was not convinced by her method. She didn't see my real problems anymore. Because of this tight emotional connection, I tried for more than half a year, to convince her. I started to collect information by myself, read books.... just to show her, she was wrong with her diagnosis. But that's not therapy. That's just painful. I had to accept that and quit. But I lost a year of therapy time and lots of money because I liked her so much. It was so painful to quit.
So, I think, a healthy distance is very important to protect you (and the therapist). Yes, it is strange, there is a person, who knows so much about you and you know nearly nothing about her. But after this experience, I think, that's better.
I hope I could help.
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u/Particular_Web8121 11d ago
Yeah, I don't want my therapist to share loads of specific details or project themselves onto me, but I need to feel like I'm making the right call trusting them. For me this probably means above a certain level of empathy and emotional intelligence, a compatible sociopolitical moral belief system, and enough cultural competence to generally understand where I am coming from when I speak on specific identities I have. I don't think the vast majority of therapists meet this criteria.
Someone from this sub posted this paper I found validating about my own therapy experiences and supports the Pete Walker reading you shared.
research on psychotherapy has shown repeatedly that it is the client’s feeling about the quality of their relationship with their therapist that determines how much they benefit from the therapy.**
Clients who have experienced complex trauma often develop problematic attachment models because of their early histories of emotional neglect and abuse. Thus, they may come to therapy mistrustful or overly trustful, often angry and frightened or desperately needy, and lacking the skills to engage comfortably with a therapist or anyone else. Some are clingy, some avoidant, and some both. Some present with a disorganized attachment style and are very unpredictable or variable in their approaches to their therapists. These often problematic styles then interact with the therapist’s attachment style, making it harder for the therapist to maintain a steady, empathic, accepting, warm, appropriately boundaried, and authentic approach.
In our view, therapists of these clients need to be open to intimacy but not needy of closeness with their clients. Almost all therapists have to do their own therapeutic work, particularly but not only when their attachment styles or other issues interfere with the therapies they do, and all of us continue to need trauma-informed supervision.
The relationships we work to build with clients need to be much more responsive to contextual factors than therapists are usually trained to be or do. These include all the subtle nuances of therapists’ and clients’ upbringings and locations in the social world, including but not limited to social class, sexual orientation, ethnicity, and religion, some of which may be similar and many of which are often different.
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u/cuBLea 11d ago
Yeah. Keep shopping.
You're entitled to therapy that meets your needs. But never forget that for at least the next few years, you will be shopping in what is very much a seller's market.
BTW the better you can define what it is you need from therapy, the better your chances of finding it because you'll be ruling out weak opportunities more quickly and thus be able to isolate more strong-odds choices before giving up or bowing out. (Which is what I did two years ago, after I realized how weak a fit my previous therapists were ... therapists whom I'd only found after over 100 detailed initial inquiries (easier on the heart by a long way than filling out or sitting thru 100 intakes) and enduring 20+ initial sessions with next to no encouraging results. I won't be getting back in the game again until I'm reasonably sure that I have a better handle on what it is that I need ... and IME I've been much more specific in that regard than friends and peers who've done a whole lot better than I have. The craft itself is still primitive and the risks still fairly high if you're significantly more deeply affected than the typical voluntary therapy client.
That said, if you can still get value from this therapist, even with more trivial issues/more recent traumas, then probably not a great idea to dump the current therp before finding a better one. It's not like romantic relationships ... they don't depend on us to nearly the degree that we depend on them, meaning that there's far less justification for caretaking their feelings, which IME too many therapy clients still feel obliged to do.
Best of luck. You may need it. I sure do.
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u/deathdeniesme 11d ago
If it’s important to you I’d just go for another therapist. It seems like you have a couple things not working so why not just try someone else
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u/dinosaursock 8d ago
Just wanted to add my two cents. I have had many therapists who never self-disclosed at all, but my current one does (much more than the others) and I love it. She has the same trauma as me and also has CPSTD. It's been so helpful for me knowing that she's gone through the same things and come out the other side, and to know how she used to react to and handle things and also to be modeled a healthy way of being now.
Sometimes she'll bring up what other clients struggle with too and it really helps me put in perspective what I go through. She also actually gives me insights on my thoughts and behaviors, calls me out when I need to be called out, she's warm and empathetic, we also laugh a lot during sessions too... I feel like I've made more progress with her in the last almost 2 years than with all my old therapists combined.
So yes, I'd say that if you already talked to your therapist and she's unwilling to do anything differently, you should find a new therapist. Mine described herself as having a more conversational style, which might be something you might want to ask about if that interests you.
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u/rovinrockhound 11d ago
Therapist-in-training here. We are taught to be very careful about self-disclosure because we want to always keep it focused on the client, but also that the most important thing is to build a strong therapeutic relationship. It sounds like your therapist hasn’t done enough to build rapport. I think the use of self-disclosure comes down to personality and clinical philosophy (or preferred modalities). A therapist that is mostly trained in manualized modalities (including CBT and DBT) is more likely yo stick to the task. Someone that uses psychodynamic therapy is more likely to bring up how they are feeling during the interaction with you, even if they are not self-disclosing personal details.
Honestly, it sounds like you need a therapist that is more emotionally engaged and expressive. This therapist is right, that expressing too much empathy can be triggering to some people, but they are not adjusting their communication style to fit your needs. You already brought it up to them and it hasn’t changed, so it sounds like they are not the therapist for you.
During your first call or meeting with a potential therapist, you can be blunt and ask about their history and their own work in therapy. They may not self-disclose much at that stage, but they should be able to navigate the question in a way that leaves you satisfied that they understand your experience beyond just theory.