Paranoid verus hypervigilence

[malt2018]

It does make perfect sense Malt, I wondered if she was just being a bit casual, perhaps not realizing that as a T her words carry more import than they would if it were with a friend or acquaintance. I'm betting she she will choose her words more carefully now and that's not a bad thing. 

Anyway, bravo to you for seeing her as a human being who makes mistakes, and for listening to your gut and checking things out with her and here.      

Thanks. I totally understand if it was just a casual comment like lots of us say from time to time. I guess that is where the confusion was. Was she saying it as a therapist or as an off the cuff remark from one person to another? Had I known for sure it was off the cuff it possibly wouldn't have bothered me as much. A therapist saying it does carry far more weight. In the moment it was actually hard to tell and it was said more than once.  Anyway, despite it bothering me and causing me to post here I've actually found it somewhat useful to explore and talk about. I hope she doesn't censor everything she says based on this though (although I'm sure a lot of the time she already does).  I find it more important to have an authentic T who challenges me and may say something that upsets or bothers me from time to time than one who just nods and agrees and hides their thoughts. Obviously, I know a T can't reveal all her thoughts but some are helpful

[malt2018]

Well done Malt for dealing with this situation so well!  I do wonder though if it's in the therapist's manual to apologise for causing some confusion in their clients by their choice of words.  Clearly you are not paranoid in the very reasonable way you handled this, and hopefully she'll see this.  Personally I would hate for a therapist to hold such an inaccurate description of myself (this has happened to me)

I do hope that she understands about  the effects of trauma.  Unless you've experienced it, 'get it' it can be hard to understand.  Is there a requirement for therapists to have experience adverse situations, or to have undergone therapy themselves?  Not as far as I know.  It's a choice of career only.  Even if they advertise as such.

Wishing you all the best

Thanks. She does have lots of experience with trauma so she is well versed on hypervigilance and effects of childhood trauma etc. She didn't really apologise for what she said per se. I didn't really expect her to. She did try to explain her choice of words which was good enough for me. It seems her interpretation of paranoid and hypervigilance differ slightly than those we have posted above (or mine now). She did have a reasonably good explanation of what she felt paranoid meant and how she thought it differed from hypervigilance yet also wasn't the same as paranoia (although did mention it was possibly still on the same scale). I still don't necessarily fully agree with her definition or understanding of it but I did see the angle she was coming from with it but that's okay it is not really black and white.

[malt2018]

I hope she doesn't censor everything she says based on this though (although I'm sure a lot of the time she already does).

HHHmm... I wonder does this mean I am in fact actually paranoid?