My therapist and I have talked about my involvement on Quora and the fact that I do write about my therapy there. He has consistently told me I have every right to do this. He can’t, but I can.
My disclosures about Quora have intrigued him and he’s mentioned a potential interest in getting more involved on Quora. I think what draws him is the fact that there is so much amazing content related to the mental health field as well as plenty of innovation.
Last week I brought Quora up again with him, this time focusing on how I wanted him to handle it for now if he were to come across anything I’d written. I told him this is not my final view on it, and I’d like to tell him more once he’s familiar with the platform. But for now, while he’s getting familiar with the platform, if he comes across any of my content, to please skip reading it. Anything that I want him to read I will send to him in an email or read out loud in session. He said he would absolutely honor this request, that this is what he would do anyway. I told him that once he felt familiar with it, to let me know, and then we could talk about it again. If he never does get involved, then that’s as far as the conversation will need to go.
My actual desire regarding him coming across my content is more complex. The way I look at it, there is a lot of innovation going on in the mental health field that’s happening right here on Quora. And I’m part of some of this innovation, driving it, even. I wouldn’t want him to be excluded from all that just because I’m his client and got here first.
For example, I would want him to become familiar with the therapy diary as a concept. I believe the therapy diary has helped a lot of people move their therapies forward at a much quicker pace than would otherwise happen without it. For example, two people commented on my “Celebrating the therapy diary” post saying that because of the diary they were able to bring up their feelings of attachment to their therapists much sooner than they otherwise would. Considering feelings of attachment can happen very early on in the process and also quite instantly, like imprinting, the fact that a client can bring it up much sooner is huge and has powerful implications for the therapy. For this reason, the innovation of the therapy diary is something that any high quality therapist would want to know about, and possibly replicate in some fashion in his own network and practice. Yes, I have ideas for this!
With that said, I am also one of the most prolific contributors to the therapy diary. So, for my therapist to know the therapy diary would mean that he would have to read at least some of what I contribute to it. How to balance that against the very legitimate concern of not biasing his view of me through getting to know me outside of the therapeutic framework? That’s the sort of thing he and I are going to need to hash out further if and when he gets to the point of being involved on Quora enough where exposing him to things like the therapy diary would make sense.
I focus on the therapy diary in this answer, but the same applies to other ways in which I feel I have contributed to the innovation going on in the mental health field. I’ve answered a lot of questions about therapy and how it works as well as shared much about it on my own space and I feel that my perspective as a client is invaluable, that therapists would want to read it and think about it. Again, why should my own therapist be excluded from access to that?
If my therapist and I ever get to the point where having these conversations makes sense (no need to if he never gets involved on Quora—it’s not the only source of innovation I’m sure!), then one resource I’m going to look towards for wisdom is AKS and her therapist. AKS’s therapist has a public social media profile that AKS follows and interacts with. The two of them have figured out a way to make it work where AKS is never outed as her client. AKS believes this additional interaction with her therapist helps shore up her sense of connection with her and enhances their work together. That is all I know about it right now, but I definitely have made a note to learn more if there’s going to be any possibility of M and I bumping into each other on social media, namely Quora.
In the mean time, a good default option is that he stays away from reading my content unless I specifically share it with him.