What if your therapist holds profound respect for your bravery, but never tells you? In this thought-provoking episode of Psychologist Say, I, Dr. Tammy, unpack the fascinating article "10 Things Your Therapist Probably Won't Tell You" by Gerlach from Psychology Today. We dive into the sacred and intimate relationship between therapist and patient, exploring how therapist disclosures, when done right, can build a bridge of trust and rapport. Walking into a therapist's office takes immense courage, and this episode acknowledges that bravery while providing insights into the qualities to look for in a therapist and addressing common questions that arise during therapy.
Join me as we talk about the stigma around mental health and the strides we are making to overcome it. Understand that therapists view their clients with utmost respect and recognize that some truths take time to surface. This heartfelt episode provides a closer look at the unseen yet deeply felt aspects of psychotherapy, emphasizing the courage it takes to seek help and the respect therapists hold for their clients. Tune in and gain a deeper understanding of what makes the therapeutic process both challenging and incredibly rewarding.
Your support matters to us! Please give us a follow on each of our platforms to stay updated on what we're doing at PsychologistSay.
What if your therapist holds profound respect for your bravery, but never tells you? In this thought-provoking episode of Psychologist Say, I, Dr. Tammy, unpack the fascinating article "10 Things Your Therapist Probably Won't Tell You" by Gerlach from Psychology Today. We dive into the sacred and intimate relationship between therapist and patient, exploring how therapist disclosures, when done right, can build a bridge of trust and rapport. Walking into a therapist's office takes immense courage, and this episode acknowledges that bravery while providing insights into the qualities to look for in a therapist and addressing common questions that arise during therapy.
Join me as we talk about the stigma around mental health and the strides we are making to overcome it. Understand that therapists view their clients with utmost respect and recognize that some truths take time to surface. This heartfelt episode provides a closer look at the unseen yet deeply felt aspects of psychotherapy, emphasizing the courage it takes to seek help and the respect therapists hold for their clients. Tune in and gain a deeper understanding of what makes the therapeutic process both challenging and incredibly rewarding.
Your support matters to us! Please give us a follow on each of our platforms to stay updated on what we're doing at PsychologistSay.
The following is a series of candid conversations. The content is intended for informational purposes only and is not a substitute for seeking help from a mental health care professional. To learn more info regarding additional disclaimers, privacy policies and terms and conditions, please visit HelloDrTammycom. Bonjour, welcome to Psychologist Say, a podcast where I talk about the psychology of everyday living. I'm your host, dr Tammy. Today I'm going to be talking a little bit about an article that caught my eye from Gerlach. It's in Psychology Today and it was titled 10 Things your Therapist Probably Won't Tell you. So let's get started.
Speaker 1:
When we think about your therapist, we are trained. We know that psychotherapy is a really sacred profession. It connects with individuals on an emotional and intimate level, and we're able to ask individuals all sorts of questions that range from simple yes or no to very open-ended, deep questions about your past, your present, your future, your thoughts, your feelings, your behavior, the way you relate to yourself and others. These questions can definitely feel like an invasion of times of privacy. Yet that's the part of developing that helping relationship and building what we call rapport, but building a comfortable relationship with your therapist so that these questions that are being asked with your therapist, so that these questions that are being asked, that it allows us to see this part of you maybe it's hidden from the rest of the world or hidden from other certain individuals and to be developing this area of trust. And that your information will be taken and held sacred by your therapist so that we can get to the core of what's bringing you in for that therapy. So, as therapists, we're trained to be definitely focused and monitoring our own level of sharing with our patients. So in our training, that's called your disclosures. So if a therapist discloses something to you, it should be very well thought out and it should be part of what they feel is going to actually benefit the rapport, the building of your relationship together. So it's something that could enter into your therapy. However, it should never be like a switch where all of a sudden, your therapist is telling you more information than you need to know about themselves, oversharing their information. It should always have an intention where it is to help your experience and your level of comfort and back and forth with your therapist.
Speaker 1:
So that's something I always talk to people about, whether it just be a regular conversation about seeking therapy. A lot of people will wonder like how do I find a therapist that works for me? What are some of the qualities? That is something that we would definitely want to have a bigger conversation on in one of our follow-up podcasts, because those are great questions and, in terms of, for those of you who may already have a therapist or you're getting into therapy and thinking about it, some of the things that patients may be wondering or clients is wondering, like what some of the views are, and we want you to know that definitely we're very aware that it takes courage and we respect our patients so much for that ability to come into our office, seek out our services and utilize the therapy process, because it can be something that is a pretty maybe unknown or unfamiliar task.
Speaker 1:
There is still stigma associated with it. I wish there were no stigma. I know that it's getting better, it's getting much better, and so I think that's the piece of it that's allowing more people to seek out therapy, but to realize that your therapist is always viewing you in a respectful manner and that we know that it does take courage to come in and share some of your most intimate and personal details about yourself with somebody on this other end and that you're able to trust that they know how to guide and help you through that process. So maybe that's something they may not openly share with you that feedback that maybe some of you may need. That we know. We know it takes strength and courage to do the work, and so we're already holding that in mind whenever we meet you and we continue to work with you in mind whenever we meet you and we continue to work with you. And another thing is we recognize that there is a lot of work that maybe hasn't been revealed to other therapists, or even in the work that you're currently working on, maybe there has been no previous therapist.
Speaker 1:
We recognize that there are things that maybe you're still not ready to share and that is not an uncommon. That's actually very likely that when individuals seek therapy, there is something underlying, something at their core that maybe they're not ready to share yet. Maybe they're not ready to share yet so that we may spend a lot of time talking about other things that are going on besides. Maybe the thing that they're not ready to share because it could be something that's very painful, something that they're scared to open up about, and we understand that that's part of this process, that it's taking time to build up this back and forth before and I'm sure and I know that there are many patients I've worked with that probably never did tell me exactly what some of those inner core things are. They may have never pulled them out, and so I think this is part of knowing that. Yes, we know that that's going on. We know that's a common struggle.
Speaker 1:
We still want to see you, we still want to work with you and work on the areas that you're ready to talk about. So I hope that helps. We may not be able to say it, we may not know exactly that in that moment. You're not telling us something. So I just hope that helps for those of you who are. So I just hope that helps for those of you who are maybe in this situation and just keep going and even talking to your therapist about that is a great discussion to have. That helps that you're thinking about things or you have stuff that you're not ready to talk about or that you're having trouble with. To me would be a great session just to explore that and to be able to have an open conversation about that feeling and that reluctance or that fear, without still having to actually go there. So those are just some great things to think about if you're in the therapy process or thinking about it, and we always consider our clients as valuable, and therapy will only work if you're at your sessions and that we can work together and do the back and forth.
Speaker 1:
And it's about our goal. Our role is to help you make the change, identify the areas of change that you want to make in your life or you want to confront. That's our whole goal is to help you get there and ultimately to lead to some level of healing. Help you get there and ultimately to lead to some level of healing. That's worth more than anything to your therapist is that, when you walk out of their office, that you're on a journey to feeling that healing, that you're starting to feel better and that something about your sessions are really working for you. And so sometimes people who are in certain settings they may get really worried about their co-pays or the money involved with therapy, and so that's always again a really good conversation to just have up front with your therapist, because we're definitely focusing on the session and the content and how we're helping you, and so our mind is not focusing on co-pays or anything like insurance, but those are all important questions that you and your therapist definitely need to have and go back and forth about. But your therapist always wants to see you and they want to have these conversations with you, especially if your mind is thinking about them and you're getting like a little preoccupied and they're not sure why. These are all really great places to just say I'm wondering about this.
Speaker 1:
Many therapists are willing to work with you and develop plans for you, especially if financial situations are coming up. I know for myself and my clinic, yes, we'd much rather have you here talking to us about this and finding solutions, because the goal is to get you into your therapy sessions with your provider so that we can keep working on helping you. So something like insurance payments or anything of that nature. We would not want that to stand in the way of us developing a plan that you felt really comfortable with moving ahead with. Also, in between sessions, we do work to prepare for the next session. So it's not just, you know, one hour or 45 minutes once a week or every other week we do.
Speaker 1:
We put a lot of thought into what we're going to do our next session, what we're planning for in terms of your treatment overall, and this may be something that we may not be directly sharing with you, and so every session, I guess one thing I think about a lot of my, a lot of patients will tell me I wasn't sure if I was going to come in today, because I wasn't sure if I what I would talk about. And I is one area where I realized, oh, I need to reassure them that I always want them to come in and that I have a plan, so I would never just be expectant on my client to make sure that the therapy session was moving. And so I think those are really good conversations to say just come in, come in and we'll begin talking and something will come up that you really need to focus on and let me worry about the session, and I just want, I want to make sure you're here, and so having that conversation where I'm prepared. I have other things that we can do, especially on weeks when patients don't have a lot to share or they're just really fatigued with doing some of that emotional work. In my practice, we will end up doing more relaxation, going through more of the exercises that they can implement at home, increasing their toolbox so that they can leave session with something that is, um, something they can practice and use.
Speaker 1:
So it's definitely on your therapist to make sure they know how to plan a session and then to stick to their treatment plan. Those are great conversations. They may not talk to you about their treatment plan, but every therapist should have a treatment plan, and I think it's a great conversation that you should, every patient should, have with their therapist what are my treatment plans? What are my goals? How long are we expecting this to take? When will we know if I'm making improvement? All of those are part of a treatment plan, and sometimes we don't detail those out up front or be real clear about them, because we're treatment planning all the time, and so that's just another great conversation to have that we may not be just fully telling you that we're doing all of the work that we're putting in behind the scenes, and so I just want to let you know that your therapist committed to you. We're thinking about your next session and, in the long run, we're thinking about your long-term treatment plan, and so I just want you to think about that, the importance and the dedication that's coming from your therapist, and then the next thing is to just realize that we love feedback.
Speaker 1:
Personally, I guess I love getting feedback and one thing is that your therapeutic alliance it's the best predictor of the outcome of therapy. So being able to really align with your therapist, feel like you're a team, feel like that relationship is really solid and that there's a genuine back and forth and that vehicle for change really comes in that therapeutic relationship. So that's an important conversation that you and your therapist may not actually be talking about, but it may be an unsaid, where you can feel the session is going well, that you can feel that your therapist is invested, they're motivated, they're helpful. Invested, they're motivated, they're helpful, they're in tune with you, they can align with certain needs that's definitely what you would want to see in a therapist. Yet they may not just tell you boy, this has been a really great therapeutic relationship, and so that's one of the things that they may also be feeling and not sharing with you.
Speaker 1:
Also, just honesty, be as honest as you can, and there's no right or wrong in therapy. It's being able to talk about anything without getting that checkbox of that was a right or a wrong answer. That's the beauty of therapy is to explore all of the thoughts or possibilities and to be able to have somebody who's listening to you, who's non-biased, who doesn't have judgment and who isn't personally invested in you and knows you and is so close to you that they wouldn't be able to be objective to you, that they wouldn't be able to be objective, and so that's the main goal of finding that in your therapist. They may not be telling you all of this, but yet it's there. It's part of what we do as therapists. And then again, just a reminder, we're as human as everybody else. We've had our training. We have our own struggles. There are areas where, of course, we seek out our own therapy or our supervision to help us guide our work, and those are things that we are not sharing with our patients or our clients.
Speaker 1:
It's part of what your therapist is doing in terms of taking care of themselves and their needs, so that they're able to show up for you in a way that you can really feel is healthy and genuine and working for you. And so there are just so many other areas I feel like we can talk about, but this was a good beginning discussion into looking at some things that your therapists. They're processing in their brain. They're having emotion, they're thinking, but they're not specifically just opening up and telling you these certain things. So I hope you enjoyed this conversation and check back in with us next week for more content. Don't forget to download and follow us on social media and give us a shout out if you've enjoyed the Psychologist A podcast. Ps therapy is definitely a great resource to use, and having a therapist that you feel you have a good relationship with can definitely be a game changer. Miigwech, thanks for listening.
