Therapists Who Talk About Themselves A Lot

[MainerMikeBrown]

Years ago I was in group therapy. And one person who was also in the group was complaining to me that one of the therapists talked about herself a fair amount of the time.

But looking back, I don't think a provider talking about themselves is necessarily a bad thing.

For example, a psychiatrist I currently see talks about himself sometimes. And I actually often find it to be helpful when he does that. The last time I saw him, he was telling me how he was down and out years before when he was my age. He told me that he turned things around and got his life together.

I found that what he told me was rather inspirational.

I don't want to be working with a mental health professional who constantly talks about himself or herself. However, I think it can actually be a good thing if the person tells me about themselves some.

[Rick(amateur)]

I feel there are just different approaches to dealing with issues. One method might work for some but not for others. I personally would rather talk about my issues to better know myself and others might want to hear inspiration from others. If there was a clear and simple method to these therapies, then we'd have a lot less anxiety and depression. I hope the inspiration you got helped you somewhat.

[1Killerolds]

New here so this is one of my first posts but I agree that listening to a therapist who has some related experiences to share can be beneficial. However, I did ditch my 2nd therapist because I felt he was talking about his past life experiences that were completely unrelated, e.g. dating experiences is the late 70's and early 80's. That and I felt he betrayed his other patients by talking about their issues. Not to mention he was pretty much a major dork and continually made gross throat noises. Ugh.

[TuesdayBlue]

I find therapy such a paradox... you're meant to develop a close meaningful relationship to learn that relationships can be good and safe spaces, but actually its not real. for it to work, I think there needs to be a lot of transparency about that.

[iwanttobeok]

Maybe it's so that someone is always talking so that everyone feels like progress is being made / the discussion doesn't feel like it's losing momentum. If it is bothersome, like it could be for example too overpowering, the therapist can be spoken to individually or with the group pitching in their feelings. They are there for YOU, so they themselves also would have something to work on with the group :) It could also allow for branching off in conversation or to allow for the session to feel like it is somewhere you can relate to someone or just have a normal dialogue with another person who does things :P They may kinda want to play leader too instead of mediator, but I suppose a healthy mix is ideal.