Hope you are feeling a little better today. My old therapist didn't have any photos around his office. I never asked why but I assumed it was because of his privacy concerns although, towards the end of my therapy, he did say something along the lines of that's why he didn't have any pics of his family displayed. He didn't mention anything about blank slate or contamination although that could have been a consideration at one time.
I totally agree with you that having his wife nearby contaminates the therapy as much if not more than if he had photos. I agree with Yaku that it was probably their plan that no one would find out she was his wife. However, I think he would be safe in assuming, in this digital age, that at the very least some people would find out. It would be naive of him to think otherwise.
It also seems to me that the thinking re: non-disclosure/contamination/blank slate is evolving. He was trained about the time my old therapist was trained, I think, from what you have written. I read a NY Times article and the therapist wrote that people aren't putting up with non-disclosure any more. The internet changes all that anyway. It's harder to control the contamination of the therapy now than it was in the past - if it ever was possible at all. Maybe he is like my therapist and doesn't like to disclose much and that is the real reason. The contamination explanation just gives him a more textbook type of answer to fall back on.
That being said, maybe it never occurred to him that sharing the suite with his wife could have be a "contamination" issue as well. I do get the senes that you are very analytical and looking at everything with fresh eyes while he came up with his therapy frame ages ago and doesn't give it another thought until someone brings something up. You have a good head on your shoulders and, even if he disagreed yesterday with you, you are not wrong. He might have been taken off-guard and felt defensive.
Do you have any idea why his wife shares the suite? Do they save money that way or is the rent the same regardless? I am not a therapist but it does seem odd to me that they would share a suite and I am not sure how happy I would be if that was the setup where I went. My guess is that he is trying to help her get on her feet professionally but that would only make sense if they save rent money? Or to spend more time together?
Would you prefer that he display photo's? Or do you not really care about the photos one way or another and the real issue is why no photos but wifey is sharing suite?
What if the answer really is because he doesn't want to share family photos with his clients AND he wants to see his wife as much as he can but either can't or doesn't want to admit it to himself or to you or both? I watch my kids try to find the inconsistencies in each others explanations such as, "why don't you want to do that?" They try so hard to poke holes in each other's justifications when the "true" answer sometimes is, "I just don't want to."
I feel like I fell into a similar trap with my old therapist - always looking for the inconsistencies in why he did what he did and always finding them. With my therapist, it was the fact that I didn't think he would go for whatever training he needed in order to competently treat me although I never asked him to. I always suspected he would just say, "Liese, I can't do it. I don't have the time, the money or the interest so, basically, accept me the way I am or find a new therapist."
That gnawed at me. And gnawed at me. It didn't matter what he did for me, how many emails he answered, how quickly he got back to me, etc. etc., that thought in my head took away from every kind act he did for me, so much so that really nothing he could do for me would ever have been enough except if he had gone for the training to help me. That would have proven to me he cared about me. Perhaps, that's what is eating at you? That if he really cared about you, he would ask her to find other office space? But in the back of your mind, you might feel that if you ever made that demand of him, either she goes or I go, you are afraid that he would say, "sorry, she is staying"? And so it defeats all the hard work the two of you do towards trust building? Just thought I would throw it out there.
