Confused about situation with my therapist

@TerracottaWorrier Have you spoken to him about the way he schedules appointments? My psychiatrist used to be the same and we'd make the next appointment at the end of the previous one and it could be any day/time. I found this quite hard though so we spoke about it and he now reserves me the same slot every week. It does move from time to time if one of us is busy but I never get bumped for other clients and it's much more reassuring to have something booked in the diary and have that certainty. I think I'm the only person who he does it with but is happy to do it because he knows it helps me and has repaired some of the trust in our relationship after we had a shaky time.

He’s just a human who put a family member before his job. Something we’ve all done. 🤷‍♀️

I think you are overwhelmed with the move and possibly overreacting. You are his job, not his life. He is allowed to prioritise and attend to family matters. He is allowed to ignore work matters during his weekend.

I do get it. It’s great you could discuss with him openly after the fact. I hope also that you can acknowledge that sometimes things happen in other people’s life that they have to prioritize for a short time and it’s nothing personal to you (ie his mother’s fall).

Glad it helped.

And as it did, it’s worth shelving away for future. There’s a time and place for being accommodating, but in almost every circumstance you can still do that with a few boundaries that can make things a lot easier for you to accommodate.

Mayve doesn’t apply to a last minute opportunity for an audience with the Queen, but for scheduling stuff it’s useful and helps protect yourself a bit.

Good luck with the move!

I think sticking with him is a golden opportunity of where your "work" lies. Trust/ boundaries/ what you can and should accept for yourself/ where you overreact.

Speaking as someone who has been through a LOT of therapists over the years, I think you are massively (though understandably) overreacting. Your therapist isn't your personal property and undoubtedly has other clients/patients plus a life outside of being your therapist.

But only you can decide if this relationship is salvageable. Good luck with your move.

You are expecting your therapist to be perfect and superhuman. Therefore, when he does something that ‘falls short’ you feel let down and angry because ‘someone has let you down again’. In fact, he has not done anything other than be human and have a life outside your therapeutic relationship.

It is up to you whether you continue with this therapist or another or disengage with therapy completely. Your responsibility to make this choice, not their responsibility to be perfect. Your response to this situation may be indicative of the expectations you have of others, and maybe yourself too: if something goes wrong, it’s imperfect and therefore unwanted / should be discarded.

You could have gone ahead and booked your nails and eyebrow appointments and then, when he contacted you with an appointment, negotiated a time around this or cancelled the appointment altogether as it’s a busy time for you. It is not his fault. He’s not a mind reader. In future therapy (if you go down this route) look at the pattern of these expectations of others as maintaining them will mean you always feel let down and will sabotage your friendships and relationships.

You are willing to throw away what sounds like a good therapeutic relationship based on one miscommunication. Recognising this sits with you, not him, would be a valuable step forward.

Your relationship is professional, not personal, but the tone of your post makes it sound as though you are communicating with him in a very personal way, as you would a friend. Telling him off for using ChatGPT - did he really deserve that? Again, this sits with you and your expectations of others rather than anything he has actually done.

He’s a human being with all the flaws of every human being. As are you.

After your reaction to him cancelling the session, why have you booked the next one for a time that you're almost certain to need to cancel? Seems like a strange decision on your part.

Hang on in there, OP. It’s a chance to work on this stuff in real life, as it were. Take him up on his offer to tell him exactly how you feel and also what you think of him for letting you down.

Also, you can't expect him to always be available to answer your messages. This is his job, and if he has good boundaries he'll have art times (most weeks) when he will deal with messages. I find therapists are usually very rigorous in sticking to these sorts of boundaries. It might help you though if he communicated what these are to you.

I think you are being triggered. This is really normal and happens to me in all therapeutic relationships usually after a few weeks/months. For me, a small thing happens (something like what you have described) and I attribute all sorts of motivations to it that are likely not there and get get very angry. My anger is just a defence mechanism.

My gut reaction is to run (flight) in these situations but have found a better way to deal with it is to try to work through the feelings with the therapist concerned. I now recognise it when this happens and always try to do this instead.

Some countries allow people to claim they are therapists without formal professional registration. I ask because he seems so chill and has not contained your relationship.

What, like the UK - literally anyone can set up a counselling/psychotherapy practice here, it’s a completely unregulated profession.

I think your therapist has been very clumsy with his recent treatment of you, especially if there is a psychodynamic element to your therapy.

You shouldn't have to spend your therapy session sorting out issues with your therapist.

Time for a new therapist.

Therapist here - hi!
I don’t think you are overreacting. A lot of transference is at play here. Especially with what you said about projecting anger that’s better aimed at your father but you are keeping the peace there before you leave.
I would bring all of this to your therapist to work through. I think it’s a good opportunity for rupture and repair and for your therapist to sit with you in this. I think it needs unpicking over a good few sessions.

On another note, are you able to request a set certain time/day as this would suit you better. Or whether you can block book for a few weeks at a regular time?

It sounds to be that it was a genuine emergency on his end but I do think he needs to be mindful about projecting this onto you. And mindful about the repercussions of his emergency on you. This is all rich fertile soil for you to explore.

I feel like you pushed it so much and your reaction to the lack of communication Friday to Monday was so extreme, that he took the decision to explain to you that real life had prevented him on this occasion from his usual reliability. Whether it suits you to acknowledge or not, he is a person whose life outside work may sometimes impact his ability to be there for you. He gave you the real life detail so you would understand that it was only because of a serious family accident that he was unable to communicate. I can't see any suggestion whatsoever that he was trying to burden you with his own life problems. He was explaining why he'd been out of communication.

The arrangement that at the end of each session, he checks when would be good for you for the next session is a method I have also encountered. I think it is intended to make the person feel less pressured, and that they are able to speak up if they have real life events that might have to take priority over their therapy time. Generally it sounds like you usually have the same days, and it's just a question of checking the hour?

if he is a good therapist who works for you and you are able to explore all that has happened with him, I really wouldn't throw him out after all this work and progress. He has not, in my opinion, really done anything wrong.

I think if you cancel him, you then have to try to find someone else and start all over again. I would really suggest you just frame this and understand that your anxiety over access to him is what seems to have driven this reaction to his not being there. And you didn't want him to have a real life situation that took priority over you. But that's the reality here. You are aligning him with men who you have been in a relationship with you, who have lied/gaslighted/let you down. But you are NOT in a relationship with him. He is a professional, providing you with a service, which is generally totally reliable, but on this occasion there was a family problem and he was out of communication. He didn't offer that information until he was pressed by you.

He did not lie, or gaslight you. He was out of communication about your appointment. He is 'yours', but only up to a point. If his mother has an accident then she comes first, as she absolutely should.

I don't think it is him who has the boundaries issue. I think, understandably, you have bonded with him as a man you can trust and who respects and listens to you, sympathises, supports, wants to help you feel better. So when he wasn't there, you felt as let down as you would have by a man who is in a romantic love bond with you, as by previous men. This is the bit that is wrong, and I think you shouldn't drop him because of your reaction. You should carry on, but maybe discuss with him how you felt betrayed, so he can be aware how you have bonded to him. Because that seems to me to be the only thing that could actually be an issue here.

You've found someone you can talk to. I would keep going. I am so sorry, by the way, for what you have been through. Unfortunately, I understand that, too.

Flip it round.

You had a booking with a professional for an appointment. An unusual and unforeseen event happened that meant they couldn’t honour that appointment. They notified you in advance and offered an alternative.

You rejected that alternative, and suggested something else. At that point that was a suggestion, and a normal response time for most things is 1-2 working days. We sometimes forget that when we have a lot of instant communication tools. You didn’t get a fast response to that alternative you proposed, but you chose to keep it available anyway. That’s very flexing and accommodating of you, but wasn’t necessary as reasonable client behaviour. You could have instead gone back again and said that Monday only worked with sufficient notice and it now doesn’t, here’s some options that work for me. Please confirm and give me at least x much notice.

He’s not done anything outrageous. You’ve probably cancelled appointments or meetings at short notice in your professional life. You’ve probably had other professionals cancel on you. You’ve probably read work related communications and not instantly replied. Especially if you were doing a quick check outside your normal work time.

It’s a normal ‘occasional interruption’. It needs keeping in that perspective. If it becomes a regular issue then that’s different. No professional in 100% infallible in their work. We accept that for everything else.

i missed this update. If you haven’t got the energy then have a break. I think, though, it might be helpful to go back to work through this even if it’s just to end it more carefully. I honestly believe though that going back and allowing the repair could be really healing. This abrupt ending because of less than perfect care might be part of your usual threat response and so unpicking that and working through it (even if you don’t process anymore trauma) could be really helpful.

I think if this is the only time that he’s got it wrong for you then it’s worth working through it. I think it could be really healing if he can hold the space for you to do that.

He is a human and he will have life stuff and he is fallible. That doesn’t make him a bad therapist. He had a crisis, was trying to hold the space for you at the same time and it sounds like he did his best.

You imagining him as not having feelings was a falsehood. He will have an emotional reaction to what he hears because of that fundamental human connection. But he can take it. He can hold that space.

Only you can know if you can get past this rupture but if you can work it through and it can be repaired it could be really good for you. Check yourself in case you are going into threat response and try and make the decision from the wisest part of you.