Has Your Therapist Been to Therapy?

How would you feel if you learned your therapist was also in therapy? In the Sacramento Street Psychiatry blog of Psychology Today, Dr. Steven Reidbord explores the implications of therapists who seek therapy.

Recently a patient asked whether I’d ever been in therapy myself. Without answering his question directly (see my thoughts on psychotherapist disclosure and privacy), I replied that many of us have, and asked what it meant to him. It would be a bad sign: “How can you help if you need help too?” We went on to discuss his feeling that being in psychotherapy marked him as defective or deficient. He would naturally prefer a therapist who did not share similar defects and deficiencies.

Many patients take the opposite view. They believe a doctor who knows what it’s like to be a patient can better empathize with them. So this patient’s concern stood out in my mind — he truly feels his psychotherapy is a mark against him, a kind of declaration or admission that he is damaged.

I later reminded myself that professionals — and others, everyone really — regularly use services offered by others in the same field. Lawyers have their own lawyers, doctors see their own doctors. Chefs eat meals made by other chefs, barbers get haircuts from other barbers. The only problematic examples that come to mind are when the condition being treated is shameful or morally repugnant, or when the condition could directly affect the service being offered. Examples of the former: police officers who require the “services” of other police officers after committing crimes, and clergy who need spiritual or moral counseling for their own transgressions. Examples of the latter: a neurologist with brain damage, and a business consultant who cannot maintain his or her own business and needs outside help. How does this apply to psychotherapists, and what light does it shed on patients’ feelings about seeing therapists themselves?

Read the full column, “Have You Seen a Therapist Yourself?” on Psychology Today, and then please join the discussion below.