Questions about therapy

[MiloR]

Hi everyone,

I would love to have advice on therapy issues.

I am currently working with a therapist and I've been seeing her for a year now. To be honest she's great and really helped me a lot with many things going on with my life. But, even if she's very open-minded about that and has no problem treating LBGTQ patients, she's not a gender therapist. When I first went to her I didn't know gender would take so much space in my issues, but I feel now like the things I discuss with her don't go fast or deep enough. She's willing to help on this issue, because the says the most important for me is to know what I want to be regardless of wanting to fit in any gender category, which is great... And I totally agree with her views. Thing is, I think more and more every day that I'm a trans man, and I feel like somehow she doesn't want me to go that way? It's not something that she did say, but it's a feeling, you know?

Maybe she's scared that I might jump to conclusions too fast and make some rash decision, I don't know... Is it me, am I too impatient? Because it makes me so uncomfortable to think I am seen as a woman, and considering I might still be one makes me feel so bad... Also, she tries to explain why I would want to be free of feminity by analysing the way I was raised. It's not that I find it ininteresting, really not, but somehow... I find this a bit irrelevant? Like to me it feels like it would be as irrelevant to try to understand one's sexual orientation with just childhood traumas?

Thing is, I don't know how a gender therapist would see and analyse stuff, so I'm just wondering if I'm on the right path on that matter. It would be interesting for me to have any thoughts on this... Because I feel like it's confusing, and I really want to get to a place where I just feel like I'm myself.

[VickySGV]

All gender therapists start out as the "garden variety" of psychologist and family counselor that yours appears to be, so it could be to both your advantages to stick with it if the therapist is reaching out to colleagues who are GT's which will improve things for the pair of you rather quickly.  I have some friends in training as GT's and they get hung up on the childhood trauma themselves so your therapist is in good company, but there are indeed Non Trans people with the trauma issues who do fantasize about what life would be like "if they had been _________" and they do need to be weeded out of Trans ideas for their health. 

We do get impatient for a concrete diagnosis of being Trans, but those diagnoses are individual for each of us.  It is not one size fits all, and it requires adjustments and exploration of ourselves, and the real truth which may be something neither of you have discussed is still just a bit ahead.  You can be assertive with the therapist on what you want to talk about, and the direction you want to go, but in the end, you will know who you are and where you are in the gender spectrum.

[MiloR]

Okay @VickySGV, thank you for your answer. It's reassuring to know I'm not on the wrong path or anything. I might just be getting impatient, that's probable. And thank you for telling me how gender therapists work, it's good to know. I'll see how things go for a little while then.

[Trista1]

Just remember your therapist works for you. If there is something that you feel needs to be covered and isn't tell them.  

[MiloR]

2 hours ago, unknown said:

Just remember your therapist works for you. If there is something that you feel needs to be covered and isn't tell them.  

That's a good reminder, you're perfectly right. I'll think about it when I see her next time.