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Does your psychologist do this?

PatoSenior Contributor12 June 2021, 6:49 pm AEST

Does your psychologist do this?

Hi all,

So I'm super curious to learn of other people's experiences with their psychologist. I've become a bit confused about where the boundaries lie sometimes and get caught by surprise that X is ok by Y is off limits.

Does your psychologist...

1) tell you that they care about you? Mine does.

2) hug you? Mine doesn't.

3) self disclose their mental health challenges to build bonds and peer work? Mine does.

4) let you call them outside of appointments? mine doesn't.

Would appreciate your perspectives.

Thanks,

Pato

13 replies

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In response to: Does your psychologist do this?

chibamSenior Contributor13 June 2021, 3:47 pm AEST

Re: Does your psychologist do this?

@Pato wrote:
Does your psychologist...

1) tell you that they care about you? Mine does.
2) hug you? Mine doesn't.
3) self disclose their mental health challenges to build bonds and peer work? Mine does.
4) let you call them outside of appointments? mine doesn't.

1. I think she did, but I wouldn't have (and still don't) believe her if she ever did. It was implied, at least.

2. Nope! (Thank god!)

3. No.

4. Never tried, but I doubt it. I never even had a direct number for her, only the clinic. She made me send her daily emails, but I know that she didn't read all of them.

In response to: Does your psychologist do this?

TheVorticonSenior Contributor13 June 2021, 4:09 pm AEST

Re: Does your psychologist do this?

1) tell you that they care about you? Not really. I had a really hard time with this and they totally bungled it at the start. But sometimes I can think that maybe they care about me slightly more than a piece of garbage.

2) hug you? No, thankfully.

3) self disclose their mental health challenges to build bonds and peer work? No. They share some small things about their life but usually if they're talking about something challenging it's in relation to things they've helped other clients with.

4) let you call them outside of appointments? Ehhhhh. They allow emails but don't respond with any regularity, and would sometimes allow a call if things are difficult but sometimes wouldn't respond if I asked for one. Therefore I've put up a boundary on my side that none of that's happening because the inconsistency is way too triggering with respect to question 1.

In response to: Does your psychologist do this?

wellwellwellnezSenior Contributor13 June 2021, 6:06 pm AEST

Re: Does your psychologist do this?

3) One particular one, yes. At first it was comforting, after a while it started blurring the clinical lines. Got to a point where I wasn't sure who was helping who.

Comparitively with another practitioner, I got an inkling of this person's religion through our discourse. I started asking about their faith to confirm my curiosity and inform my connection. Surprisingly this person drew such a beautiful clinical line and said it doesn't matter what their faith was, but if I wanted to use my faith to work through my process, then that's the faith they would use to relate to me. Not everyone can do that. I was pretty impressed.

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