FAQ/Help |
Calendar |
Search |
Magnate
WishfulThinker66
has no updates.
Member Since: Jun 2018
Location: Canada
Posts: 2,285
117 hugs
given |
#1
Another thread made mention of a therapist's ability to relate to our particular life experiences. It occurred to me to ask, how do we relate to theirs? Are we able to respect them then or do our own frustrations negate this?
As my psychiatrist seems totally unable to comprehend what it is like to be destitute I have a hard time accepting the fact that his own life is without problems. It must be so however. Even the filthy rich have their own problems and bills to pay. However, I still have a hard time respecting that my psychiatrist will have problems I myself cannot comprehend. I wonder if he realises this? My psychologist too seems to have what I have assumed to be a pretty great life and I've been frustrated at times with the assumption she just doesn't get this or that or that she can't appreciate my situation. But then I hear through the grapevine that all is in fact not perfect in her life and that she is dealing wish some pretty heavy stuff. I feel now guilty and full of regret for my assumptions. I suddenly then have some respect I had not felt before. |
Reply With Quote |
autonoe
|
Grand Magnate
DP_2017
has no updates.
Member Since: Aug 2017
Location: A house
Posts: 4,412
665 hugs
given |
#2
I have respect for everyone unless there is a drastic reason to stop. T's are flawed, they are not perfect. I am well aware they are basically just actors getting paid to help people. I try to remind myself of that and see beyond the show they give me.
__________________ Grief is the price you pay for love. |
Reply With Quote |
Grand Member
Misery Business
has no updates.
Member Since: Jun 2019
Location: USA
Posts: 750
240 hugs
given |
#3
I respect her as deep down I believe she is trying to help with with her schooling and knowledge that she has. She also tries to make me as comfortable as I can be while in therapy so I also respect that in her. She includes things I enjoy in therapy including music and art which I think is really cool.
|
Reply With Quote |
Poohbah
Salmon77
has no updates.
Member Since: Mar 2014
Location: PNW
Posts: 1,394
106 hugs
given |
#4
My T has mentioned some of his difficult life experiences (a parent's death) so I know he has gone through some stuff I haven't yet.
The older I get, the more it becomes clear that everybody has probably gone through some hard times, and if they haven't, they will someday. It makes me feel a lot more sympathetic to people than I used to. There are some experiences that are hard to "get" from outside, but I try to respect people who have dealt with those things even if I can't fully comprehend it. |
Reply With Quote |
Grand Magnate
Omers
has no updates.
Member Since: Nov 2010
Location: Crimson cattery
Posts: 3,512
3,133 hugs
given |
#5
I have a lot of respect for T. He has not had the same struggles I have had but he has had different ones. He certainly has a great deal of empathy even if he doesn’t understand my struggles. Right now I am super upset with him and yet still have respect for him. Yes, he has gender and economic privileges I don’t but we both have racial privileges others do not.
I know T struggled relating to how I felt safe sleeping in a horse barn on a 15 degree below zero night when H told me to leave... I’ve been homeless, I had walls, a roof, a soft place for a bed and good blankets in a safe area. T couldn’t relate or understand why I didn’t refuse to leave, go to a friends (no friends to go to) or get a hotel (the ones I could afford that night were sketchier than the animals in the barn). But... we got there. Pdoc, although she makes even more, I respect and relate to even more. She gets where I am at and understands even though it is not where she is at. I do not know what struggles she may or may not have had to be able to understand where I come from. __________________ There’s been many a crooked path that has landed me here Tired, broken and wearing rags Wild eyed with fear -Blackmoores Night |
Reply With Quote |
Anonymous45127
|
Magnate
Rive.
has no updates.
Member Since: Sep 2013
Posts: 2,002
|
#6
I do not have respect solely for people who have gone through the same experiences as I did/do.
If T treats me humanely, I would have respect for them. Even if our life circumstances were very very different. For me, different life circumstances are not what determine whether I ought to respect someone or not. If they are a good, decent, human being I will automatically respect them. |
Reply With Quote |
autonoe, feralkittymom, Omers
|
Member
autonoe
has no updates.
Member Since: Apr 2018
Location: US
Posts: 118
28 hugs
given |
#7
Relatability and respect don't really have much to do with each other for me. I don't really care if a therapist has been through the same struggles I have as long as they try to be empathetic and understanding of my feelings about it. But yeah, I do respect my current therapist because he doesn't put on a big show. He's pretty straightforward and will also share some information about himself that makes him seem more like a regular person. He's not trying to be a god or a profound "healer." I feel like he's just a normal guy.
I've had a bad experience with a therapist who did have a god complex and didn't like it if I disagreed with something she said. It ended badly. The more I learned about her over the years, the less I respected her because I came to see it was all a big production. She was no better than a TV preacher in the end. |
Reply With Quote |
Magnate
WishfulThinker66
has no updates.
Member Since: Jun 2018
Location: Canada
Posts: 2,285
117 hugs
given |
#8
gee thx. Positive.
|
Reply With Quote |
Grand Magnate
nottrustin
has no updates.
Member Since: Jan 2014
Location: n/a
Posts: 4,819
375 hugs
given |
#9
Unless they tell you otherwise how do you know they haven't struggled financially.
My husband and I in a good place financially however early in our marriage we were crazy poor. At the age of 13 I would babysit and used a portion of the money to buy food. A friend of mine is a doctor. During medical school he had a wife and child and worried about the next meal would come from. __________________ |
Reply With Quote |
Grand Magnate
nottrustin
has no updates.
Member Since: Jan 2014
Location: n/a
Posts: 4,819
375 hugs
given |
#10
I have no reason to not respect them. They are wonderful caring people who want to help me live a better life. Neither of them had the same struggles as me but especially T had some other areas.
This week when I talked about anger over not having a dad and my kids taking for granted their amazing dad. EMDR T admitted she took for granted her amazing dad until she was working as a T. After that she was emotional for a few moments and almost hid the tears. __________________ |
Reply With Quote |
healing from trauma
Taylor27
has no updates.
Member Since: Dec 2017
Location: Alberta
Posts: 30,425
(SuperPoster!)
24.3k hugs
given |
#11
I have more respect for my new therapist because so far she totally is down to earth and shows that she cares about me and i know she wants to help me get better. I have respected all my other t's too I think sometimes they forget or have not experienced some of the things we have as clients, im sure they struggle too in areas like the rest of us. Every therapist has a different life some are better financial then other therapist it all depends on a number of factors
|
Reply With Quote |
Guest
Anonymous43207
has no updates.
Edit
Posts: n/a
|
#12
I respect her a lot.
|
Reply With Quote |
Veteran Member
Xynesthesia2
has no updates.
Member Since: Mar 2019
Location: USA
Posts: 540
55 hugs
given |
#13
I personally think it is quite naive to assume someone hasn’t been great hardship or are not currently struggling with difficult challenges just because they have good education, seemingly successful career, wealth etc. No one can closely relate to everyone’s problems on a personal level but it is still possible to understand at least intellectually, and that’s more what Ts are trying to do, I think.
I have respect for professionals based on their competency, not on their position relative to me, social status, or whatever life experiences they had been through. They need to demonstrate and earn it with the work they do and their attitude. They can lose it if they are sloppy, unprofessional, incompetent, manipulative etc repeatedly. My first T completely lost my respect with those things. I did have respect for my 2nd T but nowhere near on the levels close to many colleagues I had and a few other service providers I hired in my life. |
Reply With Quote |
koru_kiwi, UnderRugSwept
|
Veteran Member
koru_kiwi
has awakened
Member Since: Oct 2011
Location: the sunny side of the street
Posts: 672
1,231 hugs
given |
#14
Quote:
and having integrity is definilty a big deciding factor for me as well |
|
Reply With Quote |
Xynesthesia2
|
Member
Misterpain
has no updates.
Member Since: May 2016
Location: USA
Posts: 487
|
#15
I had the same guy for 8 years ,and honestly the more time I spent with him the more I respected him, he was originaly just a "safety valve" I have 500 mental health people on speed dial,i grew up with them as they were students of my mother's ( she and i were incredibly close,when she died ,it was crisis time) so to insure i had a safe place locally to ***** & moan ,and question my place in the universe without her ,this guy got the job by accident ( god if you belive in one works in weird ways) in my case ,after working thru both grief and gratitude ( gratitude being the more toxic ,which is why my friends insisted I have that safe space).
Right at the end of my work for which he was hired,i had an even more immense challenge dropped on me ,that fortunately most people never have to work through ( i went to bed and woke up dead ) what I thought was waking up was actually emerging from a coma ,i had a cardiac arrest ,resuscitated, gone straight into a coma, and had brain injury . I was a Paramedic Firefighter,saw plenty of life and death ,talked to people who i had worked on and survived ,never understanding the deeper things they questioned ,until it was me looking for answers . As fate would have my therapist for my grief over loseing my mom,doesn't hang out a shingle about it ,but i soon found he himself died during heart surgery ,and had to travel really far to find someone that could help him deal with it ,so I got lucky ,i had an existing trust relationship with someone expert in what I work I now needed to desperately do . Accidents aren't always bad, sometimes they fix things you hadn't broken yet ! |
Reply With Quote |
Member
Spirit of Trees
is still here
Member Since: May 2019
Location: Earth
Posts: 189
111 hugs
given |
#16
I respect my T as a therapist and as a person. So far, I haven't experienced anything that would cause me to lose respect for her.
|
Reply With Quote |
Legendary Wise Elder
divine1966
Tired!!!
Member Since: Dec 2014
Location: US
Posts: 22,302
(SuperPoster!)
1,274 hugs
given |
#17
My t is just a regular person, I have no reason to disrespect her. I don’t put her on pedestal though.
I don’t put any particular weight on how many hardships people had because it’s honestly no one’s business. I had ton of hardships in life but I don’t walk around advertising it. Whatever I have financially speaking is earned by me and I don’t feel guilty. My husband has a disability, which makes every day at work rather difficult and he came from poverty in the middle of nowhere but he obtained education and has a good career. It would be ridiculous for someone to say “oh look at this guy and his nice car, he can’t relate to us poor folk”. But what if someone really never had hardships and is in good health and was born into money. Do they not deserve respect? Must one suffer to be a good human being? I don’t subscribe to this notion. I also don’t equate poverty with goodness and wealth with evil. |
Reply With Quote |
Veteran Member
Merope
has no updates.
Member Since: Jan 2018
Location: Somewhere in a cloud
Posts: 719
479 hugs
given |
#18
I don't think I could trust him with my deepest, darkest secrets if I didn't respect him.
|
Reply With Quote |
nottrustin
|
Junior Member
tabhady
has no updates.
Member Since: Jun 2019
Location: Neptune
Posts: 13
|
#19
I respect my therapist. I think we have very different experiences, but I respect him for how he treats me. I respect him as a professional.
|
Reply With Quote |
Guest
Anonymous47147
has no updates.
Edit
Posts: n/a
|
#20
I have great respect for her. She has a hard life yet she is amazing at her job. I dont know how she does it all.
|
Reply With Quote |