A Knowledge Lacking

In talking to one of the Graduate Assistants at my internship this afternoon, I came to an odd realization.

As therapists, we are privy to incredibly intimate information about our clients. We know so much about them that they often haven't entrusted to anyone else. We know not only that they were raped, or that they hate themselves, or that they feel like they are going crazy, but also are allowed far enough into their emotional world to know what these experiences feel like for them. We know their fears, their insecurities, their secrets, their emptinesses, their loneliness, their inadequacies, their delusions, their anxieties, their shames, and their obsessions. We have been with them as they cried, become angry, or found themselves struck silent by a shattering realization. We are trusted with the parts of themselves which they believe make them horrible people. As therapists, we are allowed to know the most intimate, dangerous, vulnerable, and personal information possible about our clients.

However, if asked, we often could not tell you our clients' birthdays, pets, or favorite TV shows.

Does that seem odd to anyone else?