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Lrad123
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Default Mar 23, 2019 at 05:20 PM
  #1
My therapist has said that therapists become therapists to try to figure out their own issues, but has never said more about why he became a therapist. I suppose that topic would likely not be an ideal topic for therapy because it makes it all about the therapist, but I’m genuinely curious about his story. Have any of your therapists told you or given you hints about why they became therapists? I think knowing this (maybe without too many details) might help me feel more connected to him without making it all about him.
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Default Mar 23, 2019 at 05:25 PM
  #2
My guess is the first woman because it was indoors, required no lifting, and very little math or reading. She also wanted very badly to be loved and thought her other clients but me at least liked her.

The second woman was an artist so I believe it was to have a way to make money and have a flexible schedule. And of course, indoors with little math.

They both admitted to having endured therapy

For all of them it is a way to have autonomy, make money, and not really have to do anything much but sit there.

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Default Mar 23, 2019 at 05:28 PM
  #3
I’ve asked 5 of the 7.

Three said because when they were younger people opened up to them easily and sought them out for advice. So they figured they would be good at it.

One said the attraction was purely intellectual. She’d never been to therapy herself.

One said the attraction was partly intellectual and partly because she had been a mental health patient herself.

Last edited by atisketatasket; Mar 23, 2019 at 06:26 PM.. Reason: Typo
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Default Mar 23, 2019 at 05:48 PM
  #4
over the years ex-T shared bits of his own trauma stories with me and talked briefly that he had been in therapy when he experienced a dark time in his early adult years. he made it sound like it was his experience from that early experience of therapy that inspired him to become a T. i definitely reckon a big reason for him becoming a T was using it to help him heal from his own issues and even more so for his own personal fulfilment. he admitted to me that for him he often found the therapeutic relationship more 'intimate' and closer than most of his relationships with family and friends, and that aspect of the work is what nourished him.

the times when he disclosed his personal traumas, i did find it helpful and i feel it helped to strengthen the relationship and the trust. it helped me feel that he could relate to me and my issues better.
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Default Mar 23, 2019 at 05:49 PM
  #5
When I first met mine he said he had been in therapy (psychoanalysis) 4 days/week for 5 years. That gave him credibility in my mind which is probably why he disclosed this. But I don’t know if this was before he decided to become a therapist or after or what the reasons were.
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Default Mar 23, 2019 at 06:15 PM
  #6
My current therapist and I have never spoken about it, but some things he's written have talked about that part of his career trajectory. It seems he didn't initially intend to focus on therapy, but became interested in psychoanalysis during his psychiatry residency. Now that I'm thinking about this, I'm also curious what he'd say if I asked him about it.

I asked a past therapist about this while I was seeing her, and she said she became a therapist because she'd been helped by therapy.
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Default Mar 23, 2019 at 06:43 PM
  #7
Mine said it wasn’t intentional. He just fell into it.
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Default Mar 23, 2019 at 07:00 PM
  #8
Yes, although she didn't tell me directly. She explains why on her part of the website that includes other ts she is in a practice with.

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Default Mar 23, 2019 at 09:24 PM
  #9
I have asked both.

T said she was always the go to person when people needed somebody to talk to. Everybody said she was good at it and she enjoyed it. So she figured she mine as well get paid for it.

EMDR T thoght early on she wanted to become a therapist. She wasn't sure so rather than spending all the money on grad school she became a camp counselor for a couple of years. It is during that time she realized it was what she enjoyed doing

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Default Mar 23, 2019 at 10:58 PM
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yes. even as a teenager her friends came to her and asked her for advice. she is natural at it.
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Default Mar 24, 2019 at 12:50 AM
  #11
I have my guesses. Therapy is not just sitting there, btw. That’s a naïve and tainted view, like if I said lawyers just argue for money. Also, quite a few psychologists do research on the side which is math/statistics heavy.

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Default Mar 24, 2019 at 01:03 AM
  #12
Both of the women I hired who just sat there said the little to no math part themselves.

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Default Mar 24, 2019 at 07:28 AM
  #13
I've always asked this question when I've been interviewing therapists, and when I was looking for someone a decade ago, I interviewed about a dozen. I'm sure at least one said something uninspiring about just having to sit there for a living, and I didn't choose that one. My T said that he returned to school in his early 30's to get his MSW (after many unspecified vaguely professional jobs) because he'd entered therapy and found it helpful to him. Later I understood some of his difficulties growing up in a not-too-detailed way.

I think it's a perfectly fine question to ask your therapist.
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Default Mar 24, 2019 at 07:47 AM
  #14
I'm not sure about my current T. At one point I made a comment about assuming he hadn't personally dealt with any of the things I do (anxiety, OCD, depression), as he seems fairly pulled together. So I wondered if he could truly understand. And he said he wasn't going to tell me what he'd dealt with, but said something to the effect of "everyone deals with something." He also said he feels that from having worked with so many clients (he's been a T for about 20 years) combined with his studies that he has a pretty good sense of what people deal with, what anxiety and depression can be like, etc.

With my ex-marriage counselor, I think he fits the idea of someone becoming a T to work on their own stuff. He shared very early on that he has an anxiety disorder and later talked some about his issues with his father. He also seems like someone who has a need to be needed.
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Default Mar 24, 2019 at 07:53 AM
  #15
R told me that whilst it may appear that he had everything together, that was only because he had spent years in therapy, and it was more than I had currently spent (2 years, 3 months so far).

He's said something before that made me think that he did get my depression.

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Default Mar 24, 2019 at 09:40 AM
  #16
I never asked. I think it's because she believes so much in that rather nebulous "process", she finds the human psyche fascinating and also I suspect a little bit that it's a way she gets to never leave therapy. It's a spiritual practice for her, she has said in the past.
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Default Mar 24, 2019 at 10:43 AM
  #17
Quote:
Originally Posted by ArtieSwimsOn View Post
It's a spiritual practice for her, she has said in the past.
That's an interesting way to put it. I wonder if she means that it is more a "calling" for her than a job. I think about my work in this way, not because any religious entity has called me to do it in some super special way, but because I believe I am right for my work and it is right for me, in some way that goes beyond having an unusual specialty or niche that fits. I don't think this is unusual for people in the helping professions (or not). My T is a very spiritual person, but I don't think he would identify with this.
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Default Mar 24, 2019 at 10:59 AM
  #18
1st Therapist: Started with an education degree and moved into counseling. Ended up has director of counseling eventually for my university.

2nd Therapist: Started as a theologian and pastor for a major denomination. As he started working with church members, he saw a need for more training and skill in working with members dealing with their mental health needs. He went back to school to add a degree in counselling, etc.

3rd Therapist: He told me the story that he started college as a business major (if I remember right). One weekend, he helped his best friend's mother move from one office to another; she happened to be a psychologist. He started talking to her about it and became fascinated by the topic . . . and the rest was history.
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Default Mar 24, 2019 at 11:54 AM
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Originally Posted by Lrad123 View Post
When I first met mine he said he had been in therapy (psychoanalysis) 4 days/week for 5 years. That gave him credibility in my mind which is probably why he disclosed this. But I don’t know if this was before he decided to become a therapist or after or what the reasons were.
My therapist did 4 days a week of analysis for 5 years too. It's required for their psychoanalytic training and is a large part of the training contributing to their competence. (As I side note, it makes me wonder if I will need 20 years of this therapy at my frequency of 1 x week. 🤔 )

He didn't tell why he became a therapist but he has told me that this is his chosen profession and that he loves the work.
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Default Mar 24, 2019 at 12:01 PM
  #20
After reading Lonesome's post, I wonder how my T's needs played into his decision to become a T. If I had to guess, I'd say maybe he was the rescuer type, likes the power that can come with the role, or a way to get intimacy needs fulfilled at a safe distance.

These are all my projections of course, as he doesn't show his needs and they don't get revealed indirectly through his patterns either. It's interesting to guess at, and sort of fun. Lrad, do you have ideas in mind if you were to take a guess?
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