May I ask a personal question?

Personal disclosure is an issue that comes up now and again for therapists and patients — patients wonder if it is intrusive to ask the therapist personal questions, therapists wonder how much to disclose. I have never found this to be an especially difficult issue. Taking a page from an early supervisor, I tell patients early in our work that they should feel free to ask any questio ns that they like of me. I tell them I will answer any that I feel comfortable with *and* that I think it also important that we consider what the question is about for them. Very rarely has anyone asked anything that felt intrusive or that I felt I couldn't or shouldn't answer. But this issue touches into boundaries and frame. And needs to be handled thoughtfully rather than automatically.Years ago, when I was trying to sort out just what was the nature of my relationship with my analyst and wishing that I could know that we would or could be friends when our work was over, he told me that he considered the analytic relationship to be very personal, as personal as any. That puzzled me because I knew the boundaries -- we wouldn't have dinner together or any of the kinds of things that friends do. Yet the relationship was very close. Therapeutic relationships occupy their own niche -- neither friendship nor distantly professional, but a space which is both intimate and follows its own etiquette.  The therapist is not the subject of the therapy and that is one reason that there may be some relu...
Source: Jung At Heart - Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: blogs