How do you know its the right therapist if you simply don't trust anyone

So i find it incredibly hard to open up and trust therapist, more so then friends. I am hesitant to say it is because i have not met the right therapist because I have the feeling it would be any therapist on the basis of their profession.


To given an example I was in therapy for 4 years and barely touched the service. I can put this down to how traumatised I am, that the therapist i saw i found unreliable and who was very old and in many respects out of touch, i can put it down to it not being the right therapy for me etc etc, but ultimately it took me a long time to realise any of that because i find it hard to open up.


So here I am 3rd session in with a new therapist, they have the skills and experience related to what i think i need, they are more relatable and i would say in touch with the things that are important to me but it doesn't seem to matter i am still adverse to opening up to them and feel the same patterns repeating. I am avoidant in session, i feel scared and i often keep them at arms length or dismiss them if they raise the elephant in the room. I don't want these old habbits repeating themselves this time because it inhibited my progress in therapy before and meant that i got something out of it but not alot.

So I don't really know when to stop therapy with a therapist and move on or how do i encourage myself to open up??

If our trust in someone has been damaged , it's understandable to shut down and close up because we don't want that to happen again , or be hurt again. A good T would understand this and be able to work with. We don't trust in five minutes , just like that , it has to be gained and worked on. Talk to your T about how you feel , I know the temptation is to avoid or leave though.

Do you know what sorts of things would help you open up more? Could the T say or do some of those to demonstrate they are reliable? If yes, maybe ask. Have you tried focusing on smaller, safer topics for a while and see how the T handles those? I'm thinking perhaps if they prove to be safe and decent with those, maybe that would help you go in baby steps into the bigger things?

Do you tend to have these trust/avoidance issues with everyone or only with certain kinds of people that share some characteristics or role in your life? If the latter, and you find you habitually choose Ts that fall within that pattern, maybe try to consciously choose different kind. E.g. some people here say they tend to have the same blocks with one gender but still keep choosing them. For me, one thing that sometimes blocks me from being emotionally really open and vulnerable with someone is when I have a strong motivation to show the best version of myself to them. This can be very beneficial with work colleagues and employers, for example, but much less so with a close friend, romantic partner or therapist. For me, it is related to some of my own values and and how they can manifest in human traits, traits that some people have or I just project onto them. I don't want to be (or appear) less than in those cases. I can imagine similar being actually related to this profession, as you say. In that case, I would maybe try other sources help. Does it help you if the people you talk to are clearly familiar with and share some of your hardships? I usually find that very helpful, why I like peer support better than therapy; I also love the company of people who think and have personalities similar to me. If that's relatable but you still want an "expert" , maybe consider group therapy? That is even harder for many people but, for some, it can make it easier to open up in the company of others with similar challenges - we are never completely alike, and can learn useful coping tools from each-other, often they can be more effective than some theoretical prescription from a detached expert, and it feels more personal.

I used to have this problem with therapists, particularly the first one I had. I'd have all kinds of things that I thought I wanted to talk about with her during the week, but then once I got in there I was afraid to say any of them. I felt like she was going to reject me. Or I wouldn't be able to say it right. There was a lot of silence in that relationship, and I learned way too much about her cat too.

Later I figured out that it was much easier for me to write out things. That way I had as much time as I needed to figure out the words. Also, since the therapist wasn't there when I was writing it was much less intense. I'd write stuff down and then bring it in and hand it to the therapist. She'd read it and usually have questions for me. Sometimes I have read stuff out loud to them too. Now I don't really need that anymore, but it helped a lot at first.

I don't know if you can.
I had, a, strong determination in therapy.
Swop that due say yoga and I would, barely turn up.
It's just not my ting

Why would you open up to a stranger? What is the basis for trusting a therapist with your sensitive personal business? Most people give in to implied coercion in this situation and just start spilling their guts out.

Therapists are always preaching about boundaries, but this scenario is textbook muddling of boundaries. The therapist reveals almost nothing and expects you to say everything... and the sooner the better.

How do you know, for example, that the therapist is not a voyeur who gets off on hearing your painful confessions and secrets? Or that they won't turn your vulnerability against you to shore up their own weakness or hurts? What if you say the wrong thing and they decide you are unsafe or unstable? What if what you say causes them to poison you with some terrible diagnosis that you will never get out of your head? And so on...

I guess it comes down to having to risk taking a chance on being hurt by the therapist. But you don't have to dive in head first and just divulge everything to them. You can take an iterative approach. Start small with a disclosure, monitor their response, and go from there. If they respond in an untrustworthy manner, move on. If their response is ok, you have the option of giving another disclosure and again monitoring the response. I also am very averse to opening up and don't really trust anyone. I have only just started opening up a bit to the one I see, and this is the strategy I have used. It helps. I wouldn't say I wholeheartedly trust the therapist, but I can also say that her responses to my disclosures have been appropriate and do not indicate to me that she cannot be trusted. My trust is growing slowly. I do often panic at having opened up and it is honestly extremely uncomfortable a lot of the time. It feels really anxiety provoking to know that she knows the things she does because it's like I've lost control or something. But there are also benefits.

Anyway, like I said, I think it comes down to deciding to take a risk. You can mitigate the degree of risk to yourself by using the strategy I described, but it is still a risk.

It's okay to take time to get to know the therapist.

Think about it this way - you wouldn't bare your soul, share your deepest traumas, etc. with someone you'd only met 3 hours ago.

It's okay. Start small - how was your week, some annoying thing that someone said to you, that kind of thing. There's "grist for the mill" in those things.


I've been seeing my T for about 4 years. I still can't talk to her about a lot of things. She says it's okay - she helps me see how I have become more vulnerable. She points out that it is dysfunctional to have no boundaries.

You may need to push yourself to share - you could even tell the T that. But honestly, I'd just give it some time for now. It's really okay to do that.

You know it's the right therapist if they take the time to build trust with you. It's not something that can be forced, it's something that is earned. I am currently in school with the goal of becoming a therapist and it is something that is discussed from day one. I have been seeing my T for 3 years and we have finally reached a point where I have trust in him and we can discuss things openly.

The right therapist will a) be okay with you not trusting them, and b) give you all the space and time you need to build that trust.

I also think that if this therapist is a good therapist who can help you, they will give you as much time and space as you need to build trust.

I agree. I have fou that telling my therapists about my trust issues really helps. Early on with EMDR T she asked me something that I didnt want to answer. I told her that that we needed to build trust more before I could discuss that topic. She was amazing and appreciated my honesty so we worked more of trust building. The way she handled the conversation, really helped me.

Ask yourself what is wrong with the old habits? Are they acceptable social norms? Self love is very important and in general acceptance.