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Default Jun 14, 2019 at 07:13 AM
  #41
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Originally Posted by LonesomeTonight View Post
Having been trained in journalism (and having worked in the field), I certainly know how to ask follow-up questions. But generally, "Do you have any pets?" isn't replied to with "yes." Someone might say "I have a cat" or "Not now, but I used to have a dog" or whatever. He knows me--he knows I want specifics. He could have just shared. I took his reply as being that he didn't want to share.
The other points in this thread suggest that the issue is not your professional training or competence, which I'm sure you are terrific at. I find it difficult to believe that you can't see the problem with your assumption about how people "generally" reply. This is something you have clung to before ("this is how people are supposed to communicate") and I think starting out from such problem assumptions is going to mess up communication with others.

Your attitude that "he could have just shared" removes any responsibility you have for asking for what you want to know, rather than feeling entitled to receive it. Exactly how difficult would it have been for you to ask a simple question, "what kinds of pets do you have?" Seems much simpler to me than blaming your t for "not disclosing."

Point is, you could have shared more of yourself by asking a question. Communication with your T's and the problems surrounding that have been a repeated theme in your therapy. It seems like mostly this centers around what you get back from T.

My experience has been that if I want more intimate, satisfying, and less conflicted relationships, I need to look at what I put out there and what I can do differently. Those are the things that I can control and changing them does change the way people respond to me.

If you want your relationships to be different, you have to be different. This is a concrete example of something small you could have done differently. Maybe it's not worthwhile at this point to do it differently, but IMO understanding that you could have done it differently and that it might have made a different makes sense to do. Your mileage may vary.
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Default Jun 14, 2019 at 07:20 AM
  #42
In fairness he just may not have followed up with "I have a dog/cat/snake" because he didn't wanna talk about himself in your session.
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Default Jun 14, 2019 at 07:30 AM
  #43
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Originally Posted by Xynesthesia2 View Post
I agree with the above. Part of the reason why therapy was not truly therapy-like with my second T was that the sessions were a lot like normal conversations, I would say >80% of the time. I certainly enjoyed them as the T was a very good conversation partner, but so are many other people in my life, and paying for that and calling it therapy?! That T managed it much better in email interactions. But even in normal conversations, some people are just more generous with information than others. For example, I tend to be on the minimalistic/frugal side with personal info when I talk with colleagues, clients, in most work-related interactions. My thinking is that a lot of that info is usually just not relevant there and it can easily divert the talk and turn it less productive when there are time constraints. I think it can be a form of art to find a good balance in this, not to appear too standoffish but keep the focus. As for therapists, what I know is that many do not answer questions because they want to use it to explore why the client is interested in that piece of info instead. For me personally, that can turn quite annoying if excessive but it can also be interesting, why do I want to know and why am I preoccupied with it, even with the fact that they are not so generous? I've learned interesting things about myself and good ways to draw people out that way, not so much in therapy but when interacting with people in everyday life (especially one who was my romantic partner for a while) that tend to be quite minimalistic (often also avoidant at least somewhat). One thing I've found is that people who tend to give one-liners as answers are often more than willing to reveal more but they do need follow-up questions and the other person to engage them more because they rarely do that by themselves. I've also learned that I am actually good at the engaging and it can be mutually quite stimulating, even just for the sake of figuring out how to do it effectively with a specific person. Of course therapists can remain quite resistant to this as they regulate their style on purpose, but I still think one can learn from these situations about own communication strengths and weaknesses.
Lots of good stuff in here about how people have interesting variations in conversational engagements with other people. One of the things I've seen change over the course of my nearly 10 year therapy is examining how and what my T is engaged in. If I drone on for some time, I often get a response that translates to "I hear you." Which is normal when I don't leave the other person a lot of room to engage with me. He shares more deeply with me (though his self disclosure is not so much about facts but about the nature of his own experiences in whatever domain we are in) when I am more open and vulnerable with him. Observing how what I communicate gets what kind of response has been a useful but mostly un-talked about part of my therapy. Sometimes his responses seem more eager and sometimes they seem more reluctant, but there are many variations within those two categories. With friends or loved ones outside of therapy, reluctance has sometimes been about a kind of disbelief that I'd really want to know about their experience in the past, or they are unsure whether it's really okay with me to talk about this thing. My T's carefulness in his responding sometimes feels like reluctance to me, and I have to check my reactions to this.

I also think T's ask that question "why are you interested in knowing" not as a roadblock to disclosure, but because the motivation underlying the question reveals something about the asker. This probably is more complicated when there are transference/obsessional issues involved. There is a difference between asking a question because you are generally curious about your T as a human being as opposed to asking a question to feed a desire to know more about his life. I think T's will answer the first one but not the second.

My T has never asked me why I wanted to know, but maybe that's because over the years there has been an increasing natural and conversational flow between us, as opposed to the earlier years where I talked and he responded. But I don't think this is about the loosening of boundaries or a de-professionalization of the therapy itself, but reflects that the way I engage with him now is different than I did before. I notice a similar kind of change in my close relationships-- a more open kind of communication, with less conflict and greater intimacy.
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Default Jun 14, 2019 at 07:31 AM
  #44
Maybe he just isn't a big pet person and going into details just isn't his thing. Like me, I could discuss my dog for hrs to anyone but some people are just like, ya I have a pet.

Anyway with long term T, nothing really. I could have probably got him to tell me details of his sex life if I tried, he was very open with me. The only thing he never wanted to tell me was what part of something I wrote, made him cry, he admitted he cried but not over what.

With Baby t and T3, I asked both of them not to share stuff with me and openly told them I didn't care but sometimes things came out in stories thankfully it was very little. I think Baby T since he is more chatty would have shared more if I allowed it or asked... T3 is very stoic and I doubt he would share much at all and honestly it's the best choice ever. So much better for me mentally not getting involved emotionally with them

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Default Jun 14, 2019 at 07:33 AM
  #45
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Originally Posted by Anne2.0 View Post
The other points in this thread suggest that the issue is not your professional training or competence, which I'm sure you are terrific at. I find it difficult to believe that you can't see the problem with your assumption about how people "generally" reply. This is something you have clung to before ("this is how people are supposed to communicate") and I think starting out from such problem assumptions is going to mess up communication with others.

Your attitude that "he could have just shared" removes any responsibility you have for asking for what you want to know, rather than feeling entitled to receive it. Exactly how difficult would it have been for you to ask a simple question, "what kinds of pets do you have?" Seems much simpler to me than blaming your t for "not disclosing."

Point is, you could have shared more of yourself by asking a question. Communication with your T's and the problems surrounding that have been a repeated theme in your therapy. It seems like mostly this centers around what you get back from T.

My experience has been that if I want more intimate, satisfying, and less conflicted relationships, I need to look at what I put out there and what I can do differently. Those are the things that I can control and changing them does change the way people respond to me.

If you want your relationships to be different, you have to be different. This is a concrete example of something small you could have done differently. Maybe it's not worthwhile at this point to do it differently, but IMO understanding that you could have done it differently and that it might have made a different makes sense to do. Your mileage may vary.

This is spot on and well put. I also could take a few things from this.

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Default Jun 14, 2019 at 07:47 AM
  #46
I also agree with most of what Anne said above. In addition to those observations, what came to my mind is another theme that is somewhat recurring in your stories: on the one hand wanting to know exact rules and behaving properly (out of fear of rejection), on the other hand a tendency to push those limitations (at least a wish). I think you have pointed out yourself that it might relate to your upbringing and relationship with your mom. Of course an inquiry about pets is a very mild example but perhaps a meaningful example. I actually have the impression, based on your posts, that you practice that art of not being intrusive (so respectful) but sometimes challenging (taking risks) quite well, maybe the only thing is that it gives you discomfort at times and a form of ambivalence. Thus, perhaps a question I would ask myself is why communication tend to bring out such discomfort and unsatisfied feelings? But I actually think it is pretty normal and everyone experiences them in some forms - would a more profound awareness of its normalcy help you accept it? I certainly don't have the impression on this forum that you are not a good communicator and I know that part of the reason I like to respond on your threads is because I feel you have a quite pleasant balance between providing a lot of "meat" about your therapy and an ability to handle people's responses very respectfully, without overreactions and extremes. I would be quite surprised if your T did not enjoy interacting with you, in part, for the same reasons. But maybe next time just go ahead and ask what exactly you want to know - I don't think there are any real risks with that in your therapy.
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Default Jun 14, 2019 at 02:46 PM
  #47
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Originally Posted by Anne2.0 View Post
The other points in this thread suggest that the issue is not your professional training or competence, which I'm sure you are terrific at. I find it difficult to believe that you can't see the problem with your assumption about how people "generally" reply. This is something you have clung to before ("this is how people are supposed to communicate") and I think starting out from such problem assumptions is going to mess up communication with others.

Your attitude that "he could have just shared" removes any responsibility you have for asking for what you want to know, rather than feeling entitled to receive it. Exactly how difficult would it have been for you to ask a simple question, "what kinds of pets do you have?" Seems much simpler to me than blaming your t for "not disclosing."

Point is, you could have shared more of yourself by asking a question. Communication with your T's and the problems surrounding that have been a repeated theme in your therapy. It seems like mostly this centers around what you get back from T.

My experience has been that if I want more intimate, satisfying, and less conflicted relationships, I need to look at what I put out there and what I can do differently. Those are the things that I can control and changing them does change the way people respond to me.

If you want your relationships to be different, you have to be different. This is a concrete example of something small you could have done differently. Maybe it's not worthwhile at this point to do it differently, but IMO understanding that you could have done it differently and that it might have made a different makes sense to do. Your mileage may vary.
"Do you have pets?" versus "What kind of pets do you have?": the ultimate battle between casual conversation and achieving the ultimate intimate connection. What a world.

... And by that, I mean what a convoluted nonsense. Therapists are capable of having chit-chat conversations like the rest of us. Unless he is an absolute idiot, LT's question was an invitation to talk about pets. When the waiter asks, "Are you ready to order?", do you sit there like a lump and just say "Yes", or do you tell the poor soul that you want burger and fries, no pickles but with cheese?

Is the rest of the world communicating on a whole different level from me?!?
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Default Jun 14, 2019 at 03:32 PM
  #48
I agree that "Do you have any pets?" can be understood as an invitation for the other person to talk about their pets in greater detail. But as someone said above, this is therapy and not casual conversation. The therapist might be trying to focus on the client, rather than deliberately withholding information. Of course, LT could just ask her T why he didn't answer the question more fully.

I'm reminded of the scene in Parks and Rec when Leslie meets with a political consultant and asks some normal small talk question, and the consultant says something like "You're paying me $200 for this hour, do you really want to spend that time talking about the weather?"
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Default Jun 14, 2019 at 03:42 PM
  #49
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Is the rest of the world communicating on a whole different level from me?!?
I know, everybody is out of step except you!

But LT is TELLING us its not a simple question, because she DID take it to mean she overstepped boundaries. In the words of The Little Prince, its the meaning she gives to her little rose. No?
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Default Jun 14, 2019 at 03:46 PM
  #50
Actually - the first woman kept trying to get me to engage in chatting with her because she mistakenly thought it meant we would bond. Those guys need to be a lot clearer about what they are doing at clients with this sort of crap.

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Default Jun 14, 2019 at 04:42 PM
  #51
I think they probably make it up as they go along. Mine won't disclose much but will randomly throw me the odd crumb occasionally... for instance, last year he told me where he was going on holiday. I once asked him what he did before he became a therapist and he wouldn't answer. He said that him answering might inflame my ET, but I couldn't work out whether he meant my ET could be inflamed by the simple act of him answering my questions or by me knowing what his job was before becoming a therapist.... I mean, what could he have possibly done that would be that good?!

More recently we had a small rupture because he left something out that wasn't supposed to be and it answered another question which I'd asked him a while back, which he had refused to answer. I found it the whole thing quite upsetting, not the thing so much but the hiding and the pretence and the not being able to know the person. I've been seeing him for a really long time and I feel close to him but this whole charade kills me. I've nearly left a couple of times because of it.

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Default Jun 14, 2019 at 05:34 PM
  #52
I don't ask my T much about her life, since we're usually focused on my problems. I've asked some questions but can't remember if there were any she directly refused to answer. Sometimes I wish I knew more about her but other times I'm glad I do not.

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Default Jun 14, 2019 at 07:55 PM
  #53
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Actually - the first woman kept trying to get me to engage in chatting with her because she mistakenly thought it meant we would bond. Those guys need to be a lot clearer about what they are doing at clients with this sort of crap.

That's the thing, my T will often chat with me about stuff. Even today, I was saying something and he was like, "Oh that reminds me of this funny commercial." So I asked about it, and he shared. We've chatted about movies, TV shows, political stuff (once he finally revealed he shared views with me). Honestly, I think that's what's difficult about it, how we can just chat about things some of the time, and it can just feel like a normal relationship, then suddenly I'll say or ask something, and it's like BOUNDARIES UP! I suppose that can happen in a friendship or romantic relationship, too, but this just seems especially glaring.
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Default Jun 14, 2019 at 08:08 PM
  #54
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Originally Posted by comrademoomoo View Post
"Do you have pets?" versus "What kind of pets do you have?": the ultimate battle between casual conversation and achieving the ultimate intimate connection. What a world.

... And by that, I mean what a convoluted nonsense. Therapists are capable of having chit-chat conversations like the rest of us. Unless he is an absolute idiot, LT's question was an invitation to talk about pets. When the waiter asks, "Are you ready to order?", do you sit there like a lump and just say "Yes", or do you tell the poor soul that you want burger and fries, no pickles but with cheese?

Is the rest of the world communicating on a whole different level from me?!?
yeah
if someone asks if you have pets it’s pretty well implied they want to know more details than “yes,” and if a client asks a question it is obvious they don’t see the therapist answering that question with 6 or even 10 more words as an imposition on their therapy time. just “yes” is so awkward. Less awkward maybe because it is your therapist but in regular conversation I would expect a little bit of elaboration

however if my conversation partner didn’t understand this I would simply just ask what kind as a follow up, even my therapist

Last edited by blackocean; Jun 14, 2019 at 08:23 PM..
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Default Jun 14, 2019 at 08:14 PM
  #55
oops! double post
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Default Jun 14, 2019 at 08:17 PM
  #56
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He said that him answering might inflame my ET, but I couldn't work out whether he meant my ET could be inflamed by the simple act of him answering my questions or by me knowing what his job was before becoming a therapist.... I mean, what could he have possibly done that would be that good?!
wtf?!?

this absolutely just made my day!
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Default Jun 14, 2019 at 08:38 PM
  #57
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I think they probably make it up as they go along. Mine won't disclose much but will randomly throw me the odd crumb occasionally... for instance, last year he told me where he was going on holiday. I once asked him what he did before he became a therapist and he wouldn't answer. He said that him answering might inflame my ET, but I couldn't work out whether he meant my ET could be inflamed by the simple act of him answering my questions or by me knowing what his job was before becoming a therapist.... I mean, what could he have possibly done that would be that good?!
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wtf?!?

this absolutely just made my day!

Exactly! Was he a masseur? Underwear model? Porn star?
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Default Jun 14, 2019 at 08:47 PM
  #58
I've never asked my T a personal question. she discloses fairly easily, though. I want the focus on me!
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Default Jun 14, 2019 at 08:55 PM
  #59
also to answer your question, not much. he has been cagey about a few things but I don’t remember what now. usually he answers and elaborates. last time he was telling me an anecdote that involved a gun and i asked if he had guns and he said yes and told me all the types and models and where tbey came from. He shares a lot.
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Default Jun 15, 2019 at 07:03 AM
  #60
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it can just feel like a normal relationship, then suddenly I'll say or ask something, and it's like BOUNDARIES UP! I suppose that can happen in a friendship or romantic relationship, too, but this just seems especially glaring.
That's how they build rapport and trust. They learn all this in schooling. It isn't a friendship but being a rock who just sits there quietly, isn't very helpful either. So they usually at least try to be engaging. They do it with everyone, sadly.

It's the sad part of therapy but the part I remind myself constantly so I don't get sucked into the fantasy of it all

And it's harder for you because you are strongly attached. Thats the perk of lessening the distance/attachment, it's hard at first but it does get easier to deal with stuff like this.Ya this is a weird boundary but to be fair, he doesn't have many with you, so I guess I'd be happy with that. He's obviously not the type to share loads of stuff, so I guess just be aware and try not to ask much about it, stay focused on the things you need to work on.

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