Posted by pandora on May 19, 2001, at 0:47:17
In reply to smart or strange?, posted by sar on May 16, 2001, at 21:41:58
> By the way, when I was younger I didn’t want to know a lot about my therapist. I felt a pressing need to focus on myself and not be distracted by knowledge about the therapist’s life. I also didn’t want them to take time away from me in the session by talking about themselves.
Ok, here's one therapist's two cents worth... the above lines actually capture pretty well the reason I don't divulge much of my personal life to clients... in a way, it's unethical to "compare notes" - it would be using the client's time for my own personal gratification (on the benign side) or therapy (on the really unethical side). I have known many in my profession that choose the population they work with based on personal experiences of their own (i.e. the person who works at a women's shelter in part because she was a battered wife herself). It can be detrimental to the therapeutic relationship to bring too much of that out.Empathy is a very important part of good therapy, but taking the focus off the client's problems is not helpful. Basically, a good therapist needs to feel that they can be as objective as possible in order to help their client, and to do this, it is sometimes necessary to draw the line when it comes to personal information.
Hope this makes some sense...
Erin
poster:pandora
thread:5977
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20010511/msgs/6068.html