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January 23, 2020 11:53 pm  #1


I accidentally made my therapist cry

I've been seeing a therapist (m) for about 2 years now. He's around my own age I guess.

In the past 2 years I've seen him cry about 2/3 times. It wasn't always full crying, sometimes just a tear or two. But nonetheless. The obs aren't in chronological order though. Anyway here they are:

1. I was talking to him about some events that happened in my past, and I was in the middle of my story when I noticed him wiping his eye. Initially I didn't think much of it, but a few minutes later I saw a few tears streaming down his face. 

2. This isn't really an obs though. One day I was telling him about the fact that I find it really difficult to tell/show people around me how I feel. We actually ended up having a whole discussion about crying, which was already surprising enough since it's not really a topic I think most men like to talk about.
During this discussion he managed to tell me that he himself has no shame in crying. I told him that I could never imagine myself having his job, since I can imagine that it can be though at times. He then said that i was right about that, and that he had also broken down about a case once when he was at home, but that he feels that they're humans with feelings too, even though they try to remain as professional as possible at work. It was a very interesting discussion.

3. Apparently I had hit a button unknowingly during one of our talks. As I was speaking, I saw that his eyes were getting wet and a bit of red too. I paused for a brief moment, and he told me to please continue talking, not to mind him at that moment. So as I went on with my story, I noticed that he was occasionally putting a hand over his eyes briefly, but not in a disturbing manner. By the time I was done talking, he was silently crying. Not sobbing, but I did notice that his shoulders were shaking a tiny bit.  He apologized, but as it turned out he'd experienced the same kind of situation himself and he could totally imagine what I was going through at that moment.

But in all these instances I never felt like he was being unprofessional, I only thought of him as being human.


Happiness can be found,  even in the darkest of times, if one only remembers to turn on the light.
 

January 24, 2020 6:18 am  #2


Re: I accidentally made my therapist cry

Thank you Myfanwy for sharing, seems he is quite confident and in touch with his feelings.

Have you cried in front of him? If so, how does he react when you cry?

 

February 11, 2020 11:52 am  #3


Re: I accidentally made my therapist cry

Is your therapist a psychoanalyst? There is a book about crying therapists. It is more likely for an analyst to shed tears because that’s the way he is working with his patients. He feels the transference of the patient and considers why he is feeling in this special way at that specific moment. Sometimes patients can’t express what their problem is but the therapist can feel the underlying emotions. For example a patient was hiding under his bed cover when his parents were fighting. Telling his therapist about his childhood the therapist always felt like falling asleep. This is because the patient covered his feelings under „the bed cover“ like he did as a child.
A therapist has to be aware of his feelings all the time during therapy and finding out if they belong to him or to the patient. Obviously your therapist felt his own sadness when he cried in front of you but wasn’t completely breaking down and still appreciated what you were telling. Such moments are very precious  in therapy.

 

February 21, 2020 1:52 pm  #4


Re: I accidentally made my therapist cry

Amans lacrimae wrote:

Thank you Myfanwy for sharing, seems he is quite confident and in touch with his feelings.

Have you cried in front of him? If so, how does he react when you cry?

No I haven't yet, so I've got no idea as how he would react to it.


Happiness can be found,  even in the darkest of times, if one only remembers to turn on the light.
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