# Giving a Gift to your Therapist?



## Monroee (Aug 26, 2009)

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## puffins (Mar 9, 2011)

ive heard alot of doctors arent allowed to accept gifts...as much as some of us feel they deserve to at times.


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## SilentWitness (Dec 27, 2009)

Hmmm, probably not okay, idk.:stu 

I gave my therapist a Christmas Card though.


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## atticusfinch (Dec 18, 2010)

depends on how you are with your therapist. but personally, i wouldn't care- i'd give my psychiatrist a gift regardless of concerns!


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## nonethemore (Oct 18, 2010)

When I was leaving therapy, I was thinking of giving my therapist a hug lol but that didn't happen, I think it would've been awkward anyway. The process of therapy is an odd one, you divulge your entire life story to this person so you feel a certain closeness, but at the same time, it's their job to sit there and listen to you so it's not necessarily a friendship.


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## LostPancake (Apr 8, 2009)

The only thing I ever gave to a therapist was a postcard - I wanted it to be of a shell (which represented introversion/insanity to me), but the closest thing I could find was of a starfish sitting on the beach in Shi Shi, Washington - I thought the name was appropriate.

When I got back it was propped up against the wall on her desk, and it stayed there the rest of the time I saw her - it made me happy to see it there. 

Personally I think it would be nice to do - if he doesn't think it's appropriate the worst he could do is say sorry, I can't take it. 

But maybe those rules are in place more for gifts of monetary value, rather than symbolic ones, like you were thinking of.


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## LALoner (Dec 3, 2008)

Monroee said:


> Would it be weird if I gave a small gift to my therapist?
> 
> I've been having a lot of trouble lately. Seeing him twice a week. He gives up a lot of energy to call me all the time and make sure I'm okay. He's really a great therapist, so I thought I'd give him something that represented something to me and that he could put in his office. I was thinking a small, tiny dream catcher. Because to me that symbolizes capturing all the bad things that are around and promoting healing. Dream catchers are something I collect. Actually, the only thing I "collect".
> 
> Do you guys think it would be weird? Me and therapist don't really have any boundaries anyway.


It sounds like a cool idea. I don't know any shrinks but my dad is a doctor and he accepts gifts all the time and so do all his doctor friends.


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## Ramondo (Feb 16, 2011)

Monroee said:


> Me and therapist don't really have any boundaries anyway.


I'm sure your therapist would disagree about no boundaries.

Since you ask for opinions, here's mine:
Giving a gift wouldn't be weird. It would be a highly typical act of some personality types. Whatever surface reason for it, it's part of a transference reaction, and will probably be conceptualised that way if your therapist has any analytic background at all. You feel the need to have something permanent in his office to remind him that you are special among his patients. Again, that's not weird; it's characteristic. If nothing else, it will add some more content for interpretation. :yes
On the other hand, he might just accept it and put it on their desk.


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## Monroee (Aug 26, 2009)

Ramondo said:


> I'm sure your therapist would disagree about no boundaries..


He's the one that says that.

Anyway.. seems like I'm getting mixed opinions here. I think I'll wait awhile before I do something like that. I'm getting some anxiety about it anyways.


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## Donnie in the Dark (Mar 15, 2011)

I think a therapist would accept a gift as long as it wasn't money/of high monetary value. Just something nice and sentimental, I think a dreamcatcher would be fine.


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## Kon (Oct 21, 2010)

I think therapists, doctors and many health professionals often get gift offers. I wonder how often plumbers, carpenters, mechanics, etc. get offered gifts for doing good jobs? This always bothered me.


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## Ramondo (Feb 16, 2011)

About "no boundaries"


Monroee said:


> He's the one that says that.


OK, as long as you both mean the same thing by "boundaries". It's a rather nebulous word with several meanings in psychology. To me, it normally means the boundary between one person's ego and another's. So, we say that when a schizophrenic thinks others can read their minds, they have delusions about where the ego boundaries are between themselves and other people. In this sense, in a borderline personality for example, the boundaries between people can become fluid, and the therapist really needs to make clear where the boundary between "me" and "you" is. But he obviously doesn't mean this.

Boundaries can also be limits or rules on personal space. I can't imagine a therapist working with no boundaries in this sense either. If he let his patients walk into his office during another patient's session and listen, or drive over to his place in the night to hop into bed with him because the patient was lonely, etc. he would be practising very close to the edge. I don't think it's possible for any two people to live together without at least the right to assert boundaries.

It's very possible that he has never had to assert boundaries because you've never pushed them too far yet. It would be true in that case that no boundaries have been explicitly set - but if you ever, say, attacked him with a knife, I think you'd found that there are at least implicit boundaries there.


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## LALoner (Dec 3, 2008)

Monroee said:


> He's the one that says that.


Maybe he's got the hots for you.


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## Pam (Feb 14, 2009)

I don't see anything wrong with it at all. I gave my one therapist a wooden frog box that perfectly matched his eclectic style office, and I was lucky to see that he displayed it. I gave him other things too. 

When giving a gift to anyone, nevermind your therapist, you can't worry about what they will do with it. You might want him to hang it in his office, but what if he doesn't? Will that bother you? If not, I say go for it.


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## senrab (Apr 23, 2006)

I used to at Christmas time, but I don't anymore. She always accepted them though, probably because they were made by me and not something store-bought. I decided on my own to stop giving gifts because I feel like our relationship is so rock-solid, I don't need to give her any token. We've worked together for so long...she just knows how I feel about her.


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