Advice on Talking to Therapists About Tulpas

[Glaurung26]

Next Monday I'm going to talk to someone about general life issues and my life my tulpa Jaina. Anyone have advice for talking to counselors/therapists about tulpamancy? Any things to keep in mind to prepare us? Preparations to make beforehand?

[suhail Al ketbi]

Some doctors  don't  encourage  us to tulpamancy, may be in middle east 

 

Not all of them understand  our lifestyle...

 

We are piece of moving  art 🎨🤣

[Flandre]

Unless you specifically stand to benefit somehow, I usually wouldn't recommend mentioning tulpamancy. Our therapist is perfectly helpful without knowing about us.

 

If you really want to tell them, rehearse ahead of time how you'll convey that your experience with tulpas has been purely positive, grounded in reality (you have full awareness of them being a psychological phenomenon), and that it does not influence you in any bad ways.

 

Some therapists are going to automatically take a stance, though. Some will adamantly state that it's not good for you, and then you'll forever have your therapist thinking about that unless you manage to lie that your tulpa is gone, which is a MUCH worse scenario than just never having told them. Some will say "Whatever helps is good!", some will actually listen and be open minded.

 

However, you should be prepared for a competent therapist to listen, agree, but then bring up that reliance on an internal companion may be hindering your desire for real socializing/relationships.

 

Overall I don't recommend talking to your therapist about tulpamancy, unless you're actually experiencing tulpamancy-related stress (considered by the community almost universally as invasive thoughts). Tulpa.info can give you better advice than any therapist on tulpas, so it's not worth talking to them for that. Therapists will give you better advice on actual mental problems, like "invasive thoughts" and stuff people tend to mistake for tulpamancy.

 

If you're willing to risk telling your therapist about your tulpas just to have a perfectly transparent relationship with them, just make sure you're prepared for their response.

[Glaurung26]

I'm probably being a bit impatient. Maybe I'll play it cool and suss them out  a bit first.

[Ranger]

Once Gray warmed up to his therapist, he told his therapist about me. She took it pretty well, and a few sessions later I awkwardly introduced myself by saying I was possessing for the entire session.

 

I don't recommend doing a surprise possession, but I don't think it's a bad thing to want to bring up Jania to your therapist. I have found it to be really helpful because now I can talk about what I'm struggling with and do so comfortably. It also made things a lot easier for Gray because he could talk about tulpamancy and ask for help about in-system problems.

 

While there is a big risk as Flandre pointed out, I think it's worth taking it if you have the resources to find another therapist. We essentially won the lottery by finding a therapist who was accepting first try, but we could have changed therapists if it didn't go well. Not everyone has the resources for finding a therapist easily or may have a preexisting relationship they don't want to ruin, and in those cases choosing to keep quiet about it may be the better option.

 

As for how to go about it- I think rehearsal is good, but you'll probably do that every time you think about bringing Jania up automatically. Don't do it if you don't feel ready- spend time to build some trust if you need too. I think it would be better to talk about Jania in a vague context and slowly introduce more information as you build more trust, but otherwise I don't think there's a wrong way to do it, just an awkward and less awkward way. In the end, your therapist will either be accepting or not, and it's up to you to decide if you want to stay with that therapist or not.

[Glaurung26]

6 minutes ago, Ranger said:

Once Gray warmed up to his therapist, he told his therapist about me. She took it pretty well, and a few sessions later I awkwardly introduced myself by saying I was possessing for the entire session.

 

I don't recommend doing a surprise possession, but I don't think it's a bad thing to want to bring up Jania to your therapist. I have found it to be really helpful because now I can talk about what I'm struggling with and do so comfortably. It also made things a lot easier for Gray because he could talk about tulpamancy and ask for help about in-system problems.

 

While there is a big risk as Flandre pointed out, I think it's worth taking it if you have the resources to find another therapist. We essentially won the lottery by finding a therapist who was accepting first try, but we could have changed therapists if it didn't go well. Not everyone has the resources for finding a therapist easily or may have a preexisting relationship they don't want to ruin, and in those cases choosing to keep quiet about it may be the better option.

 

As for how to go about it- I think rehearsal is good, but you'll probably do that every time you think about bringing Jania up automatically. Don't do it if you don't feel ready- spend time to build some trust if you need too. I think it would be better to talk about Jania in a vague context and slowly introduce more information as you build more trust, but otherwise I don't think there's a wrong way to do it, just an awkward and less awkward way. In the end, your therapist will either be accepting or not, and it's up to you to decide if you want to stay with that therapist or not.

That's a good approach. I didn't mention her yet. Just winded myself talking out my life story. Typical first session catch-up here is my entire life story btw. Next session should be more structured. Therapist seems friendly and welcoming so far. Casual enough to make me feel comfortable. My best guess is that the therapist will have no experience with plurals/tulpas but will be interested to learn and patiently listen. Going to build up to it slowly. 

 

Besides that'll give him more time to work on his cover story, which is his energy and motivation issues. 😊 Either way it'll be good for him and for us.

[Ice909]

I agree with all said here, but I thought I'd share my experiences-- 

 

I had a pretty similar experience as Shadow System save that we haven't done possession/switching during a session. We basically explained it to him and he said, "hey that's pretty neat tell me more" which def worked in our favor. ofc, not everyone is gonna be so lucky so try to maybe ease into the idea by throwing out hypotheticals or asking for his opinion on things. Maybe talk about similar topics and see how he responds/reacts. Best of luck! 

[Glaurung26]

Cautiously optimistic. Therapist didn't seem to know anything about them. Seems to be of the opinion that my tulpa is my conscience, like my own Jimminy Cricket. So that's something at least. Looks like I'm on my own for walking the ball all the way to the basket by myself. But that's fine. It's miles better than an immediate "REEE DID! I must fix you with MEDS!" reaction. 

[Ice909]

Verily. I wish you luck. Try to direct him to some educational resources, ie, this site.