My therapist seems politically opposed to my feminist views

Sounds like pretending to be non judgemental, while secretly judging. Isn't it healthier for people to be honest?

It's not advised for women to have counselling with an abusive partner, is it? Because they can exploit the dynamic and vulnerability and use it to their advantage.

OPs therapist sounds like an abusive male to me. What kind of man protests against women's rights?

Hello,

I thought it might be useful to hear my cursory thoughts on here. I am a therapist and have had the inverse experience recently. When the supreme court decision came out, quite unexpectedly, a few of my clients spoke about their heartache and disbelief about it, when in honestly I felt relief that finally people in power were speaking sense.

As I was caught almost wholly unawares by the first client, and then increasing wary as the week went on, I said very little. The point is to centre the person and hold the space for them. I didn't look at it politically (they would want to restrict my rights etc, and I know that doesn't work exactly as the power flows differently between client and therapist) but it was much like dealing with religion. I know that some of my religious clients must logically feel I am condemned to hell as I don't follow their religion as those teachings dictate that, I wouldn't ever take it personally, it is part of a belief system for them, I am completely non-judgemental. Your therapist was very probably trained that way, too.

About social media, I don't have any for that reason. I actually disclose some personal details to my clients as a way to enrich our therapeutic relationship (I have kids, I have a partner, I live close by). Politics has come up (Israel / Gaza for eg) and I just contribute what must be universally agreed (the civilians are all innocent and the world would be better off without wars). I actually have very pronounced views on it (I think Israel's actions are outrageous, it's a genocide driven by racism) but I would never disclose that and would never bring it into any part of therapy with a client.

Remember, we are trained to work with all sorts of people whose behaviours we might take a moral stance on outside of the therapeutic setting (people who cheat is incredibly common), I often have Tory supporters in my clinic and EVEN them I can hold unconditional regard for!!!!

So, this is really how you feel about him. IF you no longer trust him, you can end things with this therapist. I would likely do that in your situation as you appear to feel so strongly. However, there is likely something to be gained in you learning to work through and persevere with a relationship with someone who likely respects you and has a true level of care for you, but whom you vehemently disagree with - that might be one of the gains you make in therapy?

You are a strange one @Unrulyscrumptious .

It’s not about debate or opinion or advice.

You made a really silly comparison between your Jewish clients and the OP being ‘triggered’ by the FWS judgement which managed to blank the whole premise of the thread. I’m sure your Jewish clients would be distressed and questioning their trust in you if they had discovered pictures of you at a protest holding a banner they felt to be anti-semitic.

Your posts do read as though you haven’t read or understood the SC ruling. And what it means to protest against that.

Ok well we disagree and I gave my reasoning for my opinion and advice from my perspective of what OP should do i.e. talk with her therapist. If you feel OP should end a relationship that's otherwise felt safe and beneficial for her, you're welcome to post so. I'm not interested in getting into a debate with you.

Just for children. They did do it for anyone but in 2023 I think they removed it for adults as it was unworkable.

But for children it is still the case in England that you have to register with Ofsted.

I assume the work context makes a difference. I know in my job we are quite restricted in what type of question we can answer. To be fair, it is very rare to be asked such questions.

In my experience yes, ( I haven't always asked, espeically when I was younger and had no choice on picking a therapist). But more recently all of the ones I've done a 15 minute phone call and/or intake with have. However I now only look for therapists in speicifc modalities (the modalities tend to lean more towards the consensus of self disclosure and disclosure of political views when initially meeting a client or after depending on how it impact what they talk about). Different therpay modalities do disagree and lean more against this, so I'm guessing that those therapist's may decline - I however am not looking for those modalities (because I don't like how they work and the structure, having done some of them before). So that's my take, a lot of my friends have asked and gotten pretty fair and detailed summaries as well.

@Arran2024 I never knew that Adoption counsellor are required to ofsted registered. I suspect this isn't common knowledge.

I'm curious do therapist actually give their personal opinions?

Yes of course, I was the same, when through school and other services I got therapy (I knew none of this and had no choice on who I got then either). But during that, some therapists I had (had a few as some left, waitlists etc), harmed me directly through ignorance, some gaslighting me and others just not knowing anything. It wasn't the main reason why the services/professionals referred me but it did come up quite often and it impacted how helpful they were. So now I'm more informed going into it.

As an aside, when you say integrative therapy what key modalities is he putting together for that?

Bollocks.

It's entirely natural for a client to want to know they can trust their therapist. The first thing to do would be to google them. A sensible professional working in a caring role would have their personal life locked down, not open to view.

I'd say OP is taking reasonable steps to ensure she could trust her therapist. She's trusted her instinct.

She has now bravely raised all the issues with him.

OP, wishing you all the very best going forward. There are plenty of other therapists out there. Trust your instincts. I'd say all of this process could be looked at as part of the therapeutic process. Learning how to stick up for yourself, what's important to you, learning boundaries. What you've done is consider and set out your reasonable boundaries and requirements (to yourself, as much as the therapist). Well done.

@Unrulyscrumptious

No.
The SC ruling is not similar for the OP.

Her therapist attended a protest waving a banner decrying the ruling.
What does that say about him to you?
Do you have publicly available social media showing yourself waving banners at protests that would be extremely upsetting (to say the least) to clients who have confided in you?

Thought this might make for interesting reading OP!

Navigating thorny topics in therapy

By primary and secondary I mean in relation to the OPs experience, so the things we have personally directly gone through and the things happening outside of us that trigger them. It's important work with a primary trauma to slowly eventually be able to go through the experience, it's details and specifics, in full in order to process it and begin to live along with it. When a client is triggered by a secondary issue (so seeing a news item that brings up feelings) it's then not actually got any therapeutic benefit to focus too much on the specifics of that secondary trigger without directing it back to the client and their experiences. For example, I have had some jewish clients triggered by and wanting to discuss Oct 7th, because it's understandably brought up things they have experienced in their lives but it's a secondary issue, so the discussion can't be spent too long on the geopolitics or horrific specifics of what happened on October 7th, instead we want to dig into what that's brought up in their own personal experiences and emotions, or any core beliefs it's triggering. I feel the SC ruling is similar to OP. Her feelings and it being in her thoughts is understandably relevent due to her past experience, but discussing it as a ruling or the sides for or against it is less helpful than figuring out what it's touching for her on a deeper level.

Definitely a lack of education on key demographics can be a deal-breaker because the therapist can unconsciously be dismissive or not recognise their impact. In OPs case if she has seen this before starting work with her therapist, I'd probably advise her to look for someone else because from the start there could be a potential issue of OP feeling unsafe or uncomfortable. However because she's got an established relationship that's working for her I really believe it's something they can work through and actually could be really beneficial work for the OP for them to talk about it openly. Especially for disclosing that she did look up his social media because although very normal and common, there could be really useful information in the particular time or headspace that led her to do so.

I'm sorry again you've encountered those who have been uneducated on keys things for you but I'm glad you sound like you really know what you're looking for in a therapist and I wish you all the best finding your next one.

How do you know what's a primary or secondary issue though? Surely many people go into therapy thinking they have a primary issue but it turns out to be something completely different?

Yes you're right, for me I've had therapists who lacked education on things around disability (which I didn't plan on discussing but it impacts my life so it obviously came up quite a bit) and it did make it more difficult for me. I also leave quite a bit of these questions for intake as I'm aware 15 minutes is not a lot of time.

Of course these are secondary issues (not all of them for me personally, the race, disability and gender stuff impacts me a lot day to day and has impacted my primary trauma issues or how it was dealt with after, which is also now traumatic for me) - so I don't spend time asking about it in sessions that I'm paying for - I do however want to know for safety issues and also building a therapeutic relationship that's strong so ask before we start in the 15 minute phone call and/or intake. Yes I do think some of what you're saying makes sense regarding the OP - she should, and in my earlier posts I also said this, be honest with how what she found makes her feel (which she's done and I think is good) as it can he good for repair work with a therapist and also important as she's making strong progress with a therapist whose good aside from this issue and it's better to repair the relationship by taking about how it affected her etc than start all over again (other than if its a major unethical thing the therapist has done and OP may think - depending on his response yhis is too much for her to ignore). She may decide to bring up how she found it - I recommend this because then he will know she saw the post - and can have the opportunity to explain more personally how he still respects her, why he did it. Whereas now he think they're still talking more generally. But looking at SM on its own, is normal and shows normal curiosity - I've done it before (normally near starting with a therapist, as I learn to trust them) or when looking for a new therapist.

I think it's great you know what you're looking for and I really hope you find a good therapist next time you look. I can understand from a screening perspective if you know these issues are going to be interconnected with what you'll be discussing it sounds like it's really helpful for you to assess therapists (which is bloody hard in 15 minutes!!) in that way especially if it's found you a good match in the past. I think for some of your list it's surely more about finding out how educated your therapist is on the issues rather than if they affirm/ agree. I'm not sure I think anyone who disagrees with disability rights for example should ever be a therapist 😟 but I can see how someone being very familiar with the impacts a disability has is more valuable than a therapist that doesn't know much on the issue.

I still professionally believe that in the course of therapy it's not helpful to discuss these issues in the details and specifics as we would with primary trauma so I'm not sure within the work when it would be helpful to discuss if you agree/disagree on a particular issue because with secondary issues the work in therapy needs to be about it's impact on you personally and your mental health, rather than going over the abstract itself if that makes sense. It might be cathartic to talk about what's going on in the world and want your therapist to agree or disagree with you in the room, unless you're digging into the topic with it's focus being on you and the issues that have brought you to therapy and how they tie together it's not good work and I'd expect any therapist worth their salt to be redirecting the discussion rather than engaging regularly in talking about stances on political issues without directing it back to the clients issues.

It doesn't sound like you're doing this, you've explained you are more wanting to match with a therapist on that basis, but in OPs case she has been doing good work with this therapist and making progress which is why I recommended her full disclosing what she found out so the discussion with her therapist can be more fruitful 😊

I've only read your updates, OP, so I don't know if this has been mentioned. But I read the 'Ask A Therapist' sub over on Reddit sometimes, and a client looking up a therapist's social media is an issue that comes up fairly often. Most of the therapists on that sub say that it's not intrusive at all, and in fact they pretty much expect clients to look them up -- it's just natural curiosity about someone you're sharing so much with.

You haven't done anything wrong. It's on your therapist to lock down his SM if it has things on there he wouldn't want his clients to see. As a vaguely similar relationship in terms of the power dynamics, I'm a writing teacher who also has a career as an author, and I'm not surprised or offended in the least when students check out my social media (though they're probably disappointed as I don't have much of a presence anymore!).

Good luck. I think you're handling this beautifully and I admire your courage in tackling this with him.