# being totally honest with your therapist



## orchdorch925 (Aug 26, 2010)

How do you manage to bare your soul and be totally truthful with your therapist? Because, while I can share with my therapist and tell her the positive things, but I can't manage to bring myself to tell her some of the negative things happening. Like I haven't told her about my avoidance of the telephone or about my panic attacks and crying jags or about my school stress and stuff like that. I just don't know how to overcome my anxiety and tell the person who can help me the most about my most personal struggles. :afr


----------



## VagueResemblance (Apr 17, 2010)

Those things you mention aren't anything shameful, not from an outsider's perspective.. though I do understand. I've been utterly unable to talk about this fear of people with several of my therapists, and as a result they were utterly unable to help me, it turned out a complete waste of time...

Your therapist is a professional. Non-judgmental, supportive.
Your therapist has probably heard worse, in other cases or in med school, than anything you have to say.

You could try approaching it like this. Tell her "there are things I need to talk about and simply can't; help me," and let her persuade you or put you at ease enough.


----------



## Lasair (Jan 25, 2010)

I can't but I have a meeting coming up where I plan to try a little harder! I know if I don't put some form of effort in she can't do anything for me!


----------



## VC132 (Sep 1, 2010)

Ok, I'm not an expert, I'll tell you from my experience.

It takes time for your therapist to build sort of a 'relationship' with you. That's mostly on your therapist, because he/she knows we are very guarded about our thoughts. That might not happen with your first, second or even third doctor which is fine.

Also, find out if you're more comfortable with older therapists or younger ones if you feel like they can relate to you more. I was terrified with my first therapist who was a younger woman whom I only told half-truths and vented to. For whatever reason, I found I was more comfortable around therapists that looked like they could be my second father.


----------



## Giraffe (Sep 7, 2010)

Perhaps write your therapist an email and tell her that you haven't been entirely honest with her. Ask her in your email to ask you about your crying jags, avoidance of the phone, etc. at your next appointment. This is sure to be extremely anxiety-provoking. But I think it could be a bit of a break-through. 

Or perhaps if, like me, you enjoy games and experimentation, you could do as I do and turn your therapy sessions into a mental game/experiment which is meant to find out what happens when I don't care what someone thinks of me. (I mean, I'm obviously still courteous, of course, I just mean that I don't care how they judge my life.) There's no safer place than a therapist's office to experiment with this. You know what though? It feels great. And there's no way I could have told her some of the more unglamorous parts of my SA without "playing" this little "game."

(Also, and I hope you don't feel like I'm nagging at you, but I think at the root of this is perfectionism again...)


----------



## orchdorch925 (Aug 26, 2010)

Giraffe said:


> Perhaps write your therapist an email and tell her that you haven't been entirely honest with her. Ask her in your email to ask you about your crying jags, avoidance of the phone, etc. at your next appointment. This is sure to be extremely anxiety-provoking. But I think it could be a bit of a break-through. (Also, and I hope you don't feel like I'm nagging at you, but I think at the root of this is perfectionism again...)


Giraffe, I think you're right. I think that, by sending her an e-mail, I'm forcing myself to admit my imperfections and forcing her to really get to the root of things. And you're absolutely right that it's the perfectionism. I hold myself up to this high standard mentally and, when I don't meet those standards, it's devastating. After all, I'm supposed to be the one who's put together. I'm supposed to be invincible to these little problems that get to other people. I'm better than that. Well, that's what I tell myself. Anyways, the e-mail thing is also better because I can't avoid it and plus it gives me the power of the written word (which I'm good at).


----------



## Giraffe (Sep 7, 2010)

orchdorch925 said:


> I hold myself up to this high standard mentally and, when I don't meet those standards, it's devastating. After all, I'm supposed to be the one who's put together. I'm supposed to be invincible to these little problems that get to other people. I'm better than that. Well, that's what I tell myself.


Me too, Orch. Me too.


----------



## allie j (Nov 11, 2010)

I think its helpful to write things down before I go to talk to my therapist. Then when I have the piece of paper in my hand and tell her that I listed out what I need to tell her, it makes it easier for me to read down the list. 

If you can correspond with her over email, that is definitely good too.

Of course.. this is coming from someone who is hiding a lot of things from her therapist right now, haha.


----------



## Daktoria (Sep 21, 2010)

She's a professional who gets paid. If you don't take advantage of the chance to be honest, you're only ripping yourself off.

When I first saw shrinks, trust wasn't an issue because the biggest problems I had were with school and my parents. I've always been very morally grounded, so wanting to understand why others weren't honest at a higher level was what we usually talked about. That lead into my interest in game theory when I was younger. Unfortunately, it also lead to an interest in formal politics which continued my laziness and killed my math skills. Before that, my interest in politics was extremely practical, so math when hand in hand in order to solve problems. Looking at ideology and ethics proper destroyed that because I wondered more about whether problems should be solved rather than how to solve them.

When I got a bit older, trust became more of a problem because I had more pride and a sense of shame. Ultimately, I left that guy, but it was partially because it beat around the bush too much.

At college, trust became less of an issue because I knew my livelihood was on the line, and there were never trust issues. Initially however, there were anticipation issues because the first couple people I saw were not very bright and made lots of presumptions. Eventually, I found someone who was bright, openminded, and direct. That balance let me communicate more easily because I didn't have to worry about making a wrong first impression.


----------



## percyblueraincoat (Jun 2, 2009)

*hmm*

Avoidance of the phone and the other stuff is an imperfection is it? The email thing is a good idea. So is talking as much or as little as you want to about whatever you want to. We, as therapists, kind of get that it takes time to develop a relationship and you're not gonna trust us with the deeper issues until you're ready to work with them.


----------



## Black_Widow (May 23, 2008)

I know where you're coming from Orchdorch925. ;-) Been there myself in the past.

I don't know if this will help. But a couple of times, because of feeling strongly anxious in advance of attending therapy related appointments (because of experiencing the kind of feelings you described above) I resorted to just typing out everything I needed to get out on a PC document, printing it out, and handing it to the person when I went to see them and letting them read it. Though this was still pretty hard, I found it alot easier than coming out with what I knew I needed (but was reluctant/scared) to admit. I found this was fine in both instances. The people in question didn't mind at all. They were both fine about it. You might find doing something like that helps. At least to start with.


----------



## orchdorch925 (Aug 26, 2010)

Black_Widow said:


> I resorted to just typing out everything I needed to get out on a PC document, printing it out, and handing it to the person when I went to see them and letting them read it.


Thanks, Black Widow. I never thought of making HER read what I thought. I had considered writing it down, but I worried that I wouldn't have the cahones to read it to her. I did e-mail her, which now makes me super nervous and I wish I could take back because the anticipation is killing me. And yes, joinmartin, I understand that she's just waiting for me to open up and she's being patient, but I don't think I can continue working with her if I won't be honest with myself about my shortcomings. I don't know how to approach her about reading things on the web because I worry that she'll comment about the unreliability of web resources. I know I don't have to tell her everything right away, but, if she's gunna help me, I can't keep pretending to be so perfect. Giraffe, you're right, I need to address this perfectionism issue, which I think might be OCPD (see my thread under secondary disorders). I'm working on just being myself around everyone- a semi-normal person with ups and downs like everyone else.


----------



## percyblueraincoat (Jun 2, 2009)

*hmm*



orchdorch925 said:


> Thanks, Black Widow. I never thought of making HER read what I thought. I had considered writing it down, but I worried that I wouldn't have the cahones to read it to her. I did e-mail her, which now makes me super nervous and I wish I could take back because the anticipation is killing me. And yes, joinmartin, I understand that she's just waiting for me to open up and she's being patient, but I don't think I can continue working with her if I won't be honest with myself about my shortcomings. I don't know how to approach her about reading things on the web because I worry that she'll comment about the unreliability of web resources. I know I don't have to tell her everything right away, but, if she's gunna help me, I can't keep pretending to be so perfect. Giraffe, you're right, I need to address this perfectionism issue, which I think might be OCPD (see my thread under secondary disorders). I'm working on just being myself around everyone- a semi-normal person with ups and downs like everyone else.


Originally, I wasn't going to apply for my therapy course. I'd broken my elbow and my confidence was low and I could hardly move most days so I spent time on the bed reading through the course manual and the stuff I'd got about the training after five years of research. The stuff talked so much about having a first degree and the importance of that and how you needed to show this and that and I thought I'd never get in. I worried about it. But in the end, I went to the open day and applied and had the interview. And, much to my surprise, they accepted me onto the course.

I was having trouble taking on the role of the therapist first in some of the training exercises as the stuff we had to do was often so complicated and we had to remember so much whilst also concentrating on working with the person in the client role. But I eventually just thought: "let's go for it" and I took on the role of the therapist first in an exercise and learned a lot and other people on the course were quite impressed.

It's not being honest about your "shortcomings". It's being honest about what is going on with you and you are in control of what you share and what you don't share. These things take time and that's natural and good. You share what you want to share. In the training I'm undertaking, we are taught to ask clients whether they want to share what their troubles are or what their bad memories are or whatever or whether they want to keep them to themselves and use our sessions to inform their own changework on what could well be very, very private issues.

I am always conscious as a therapist that I am in a position of trust and I have to earn that trust. Tackling everything in one go might not be the best route for a healing process for you and so sharing little bits here and there may well work for you and that's cool. Whatever works for you. Your life remains your own life and the therapist helps when and where they are needed.

Are your pretending to be perfect? The therapist isn't perfect. It's not about being perfect. It's about working on the issues and things and stuff that you want to work on.


----------



## Black_Widow (May 23, 2008)

orchdorch925 said:


> Thanks, Black Widow. I never thought of making HER read what I thought. I had considered writing it down, but I worried that I wouldn't have the cahones to read it to her. I did e-mail her, which now makes me super nervous and I wish I could take back because the anticipation is killing me.


No probs at all.  I may have given you a slightly misleading idea of what I was getting at there lol! Probably how I should have phrased things in my last post, was that it wasn't exactly a case of walking into my therapists office and insisting she read anything. More that when we first sat down at the start of the appointment, and she asked me how things had been since I'd last seen her, I used that as an opportunity to admit I'd thought of some things I needed to tell her but had written it all down in notes becuse I felt very uncomfortable speaking about it. 
From there I asked if it was ok to hand her the notes, which it was. I still remember that, like you, I was super nervous (even scared) not just ahead of time, but while she was reading through them. Because I was so paranoid about receiving a negative reaction. But things didn't turn out like that at all. It turned out my negative anticipation was totally wrong. Although you'd have never convinced me ahead of time, on that occasion, that there was a real possibility of things turning out how they actually did!

Wishing you the best of luck with the email situation. Hoping that things turn out positive!


----------



## senrab (Apr 23, 2006)

It has taken me 9 years to be completely "real" with her. It all started a month ago when I finally worked up the nerve to tell her that I had been experiencing a very high sex drive for a while. Then I started writing really painful, personal stuff down that I had never really told anyone. It just came out of me. I wasn't comfortable bringing that stuff up out of the blue, so I just mailed it all to her. She introduced some of the stuff she was able to read (in the time she had) in the next session. She told me I had been doing "some really deep work here" and that she was excited for me. So, I would suggest going that route.


----------



## Banana Cream (Aug 22, 2010)

I try to be as honest as possible, but face it, I don't trust anyone unless it's built from the ground up. So some things I keep to myself, and just work on the issues most pressing at the moment.


----------

