Posted by allisonm on May 14, 2000, at 18:11:36
In reply to How Well Do You Know Your Therapist?, posted by Kay on May 12, 2000, at 15:47:06
An interesting question. I'm glad you asked. This subject has been on my mind a lot lately.
I know little about my therapist save for that he teaches at the university here. I kind of know where he was educated from the shingles on the wall. He reads a lot (no duh, allison). He doesn't read newspapers. I can get a feel for what he reads by the books he pulls out and reads from for examples and from what I see on the shelves. He likes wolves and from the examples he has used, seems to have an interest in Native American lore. We both work at the university, so sometimes we share pessimism about the university system and great distain for the managed health care system.
He seems to like to travel to out-of -the-ordinary warm places in the winter (don't we all)? I saw him once seated on a plane I was getting on about two months after I started seeing him and I got kind of paranoid -- as though he wasn't supposed to be out in public, and certainly not on the same plane.
He doesn't know a thing about gardening or painting, or some of the other things I know about, so sometimes I have to take time to explain. He's just getting into computers, I think. I get the impression he likes nature very much but he doesn't know the difference between a juniper and a poplar.
I think he struggles sometimes with understanding how I feel as a woman. Sometimes I have to tell him he's off-base and redirect him. Lately, I have been somewhat puzzled because he has been asking about our relationship in relation to other relationships I have with men -- asking about their differences, also asking about differences between our relationship and a previous relationship I had with a female therapist. I would like to know what he's getting at. In my most paranoid moments, I wonder whether he's trying to get rid of me.
There really is no difference re gender, except for my earlier mention about not quite understanding some aspects of how it feels to be a woman, which I will bring up this week. Otherwise, he is extremely perceptive and I greatly value his observations. We are in our third year of therapy.
It is becoming apparent that I seem to have problems with people close to me (such as my dad and my ex-husband) and having to depend upon them for things because they have let me down in important circumstances. So for the most part, I don't depend on men - or anyone, for that matter. I have made it my business to know how to do a lot of things: I changed a zone valve motor on my boiler a few weeks ago, changed the oil, air filter and spark plug on my lawn mower last week. I know how to weld and soldier, glaze windows, paint and varnish, use power tools but especially saws, I know a ton about house renovation and a fair amount about woodworking, etc.) What gets me irritated is not being able to do some of the heavy physical or involved mechanical work and having to depend on someone else to do it. (Another example: I've been waiting for more than a year for my dad to clean the carburetor in a truck I have that I want to sell, and now he's lost the new diaphragm so I have to get another one.) What especially pisses me off are condescending attitudes and sexist stereotypes I run into from men out in public (especially in places like hardware stores and car repair shops). I don't see those at all in my therapist.
So we have discussed our relationship in this way. I figure I could have seen a woman or a man as a therapist. I pay him for his expertise, which frankly I know little about, but it's expertise both genders can have.
I would be interested to know his age, background, and hobbies, but I get the impression that it's not a topic of conversation and he'd tell me if it were relevant.
I know there's transference, and expect there's countertransference but don't know the nature of it. I try hard not to have a crush on him. If I ever have feelings that veer in that direction, they evaporate immediately as soon as we get to work. In the end, I'm glad I don't know much about him because it makes it easier to get down to the business at hand.
I would be interested to hear from others who have therapists of a different gender. Are they able to understand how you feel in the gender you are?
poster:allisonm
thread:33299
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20000508/msgs/33433.html