Confused about situation with my therapist

This happened exactly because it is this week, you are reenacting patterns which is what therapy is all about and it's safe to be furious with him. But I seriously recommend you work it through in therapy and not outside therapy, for the best healing. It's absolutely safe to be angry, to leave, to work it through. Talk to him. This is the work.

He did share about her mother falling, not to share his problems or his emotional baggage with you, or to worry you or to give you any problems, it was just quite basic and objective information so you knew that he could not keep the appointment due to a family emergency. It is a therapist,a professional relationship and not a personal relationship, friend or boyfriend. Him having a family emergency, a fall from his mother, is just pretty basic objective information without sharing any emotions there, so you knew why he could not keep the appointment . He didn't share any worries he had about his situation either or any emotions regarding the situation. Therapists are just doing a job. They care professionally but not in a deep emotional level as much as it appear they do. You should not expect an emotional connection from a therapist and neither for them to put your needs before their own family on an emergency . It is a job for them, that's all. As much as they care, and they can demonstrate that, it is professionally they care. Not any other way. It isn't even a friend, just a therapist. They don't carry your emotional baggage back home just because you share it with them , because if they did that for every client, they would go crazy with carrying everybody's problems . They just tend to emotionally detach after they do their job every day , their real emotions are for their love ones, not for their clients. That's how it is. If you are expecting him to feel emotions to worth your problems, instead of just supporting you in helping you with finding your own solutions , maybe you are with the wrong therapist because he can't give you or feel those emotions about your baggage , he isn't your friend. And the baggage is yours not his to also feel it. He is just there to help you to learn how to help yourself get rid of your baggage.

Respectfully, this feels like all of your ‘stuff’ influencing your experience here. Your therapist is human too and he got some things wrong here. But you appear to be holding his humanness against him, which is unfair. You said you were distressed, and that he was surprised at your reaction, and in trying to explain what happened by sharing his mother had fallen, I presume to help explain his reasons for cancelling and failing to quickly reschedule your session, you’ve been left feeling like he’s unloaded onto you.

You absolutely can end your sessions if the rupture is too severe; but consider if working through the difficulties that happen in an imperfect relationship can have benefits for you.

I think you should push through and work out what you can learn through the process.

He clearly had an emergency with his mum and that’s ok, he’s human and of course family have to come first. I think you should consider how he has been over the last 6 months rather than the last 3 days. He has a great track record. The last 6 months have been a great support to you, while the last three days have been a challenge. Please don’t put him in the same group as the gaslighting blokes, there’s a massive difference between someone having a brief genuine emergency and someone taking the piss.

Oh OP, this all sounds very tough. Something has changed in the way you know therapy and that’s understandably going to impact how you feel about it. It’s great that you’ve told him and you’ve identified how similar this feels to previous relationships. What will shape the therapy now is what happens next and how this is handled. I really understand that by imagining your therapist as completely robust and able to manage his owns responses, you can share your trauma and feel safe enough to do so. However, it’s not necessarily a bad thing that you have seen his humanity. There’s a lovely quote “we are hurt in relationship and we can heal in relationship”. Therapy is essentially experiencing relationship, rupturing in relationship and knowing repair is possible. I hope you find a way to move forward with your therapist as there could be something very significant in what this has brought up for you. Best of luck my luv x

Rupture and repair is where progress happens.

I agree with this. Who wouldn't run to their mum?

My therapist has shared things with me like this to reassure me that he is not rejecting me. Just an emergency has come up.

Repairing relationship ruptures does make you stronger. I'm more secure in this relationship than I've ever been in my life. He's going nowhere, no matter what I say. 'We' are the default. But good god, one thing this relationship has never been short of is conflict! I've 'quit' like 3 times and every time he just sends me the zoom invite anyway. 😂

You will have conflict too. All good therapy has ruptures and repairs. That's what it's teaching you I guess. To work out your differences in a healthy way.

It's good that you got so upset about this, in a way. If you weren't forming an attachment, you wouldn't have cared. That attachment is what will get you through the hard painful, vulnerable parts.

You're going to be fine, it's all part of the process.

Also, do not be surprised if you fall in love with him, just go with it, use it, its fine, it's normal. A year down the line you'll know him so much better, realise you'd kill him after like a week and those romantic feels will make like Cillit Bang.

He is veggie, I couldn't live without pigs in blankets, I'm not capable of loving anyone that much

Hmmm, see the thing is, you're reacting like a spurned lover and conflating him with all these other men who have hurt you. He's your therapist, it's a totally different situation and you sound like you are coming to overly rely on him. This is his job. He had to look after his elderly mother, it was an emergency.

Wanting to 'dehumanise' him does actually sound awful to be honest. But it's at odds with you worrying about him working too much, etc.

It sounds to me like you could do with a different therapist. This all sounds like you are confused about the situation and that won't be helpful to you.

I feel so vulnerable having therapy. I want to be a good patient and work hard to get better and recognise how I'm fucking up my own life. And I know this relies on me reflecting on the dynamics I find myself in. But I feel really scared that I need to trust him when trusting people has been my downfall.

Thats the very work of therapy, learning to trust someone to have your best interests at heart even when the relationship hits a bump in the road. When trusting people has meant they’ve hurt and abused you it can be very difficult to know what a safe relationship looks like. To trust when someone is vulnerable with you (as he was in telling you his mum fell), because abusers use their vulnerability to draw you in and abuse you more.

It’s good you were able to go back to him, and to explore the feelings you had. Yes it makes you feel very exposed, but you need to feel that and then observe how the therapist responds and learn what a healthy response looks like. You can then use that as a measure of what a safe relationship looks like outside of therapy.

Thats the part of healing from trauma that things like CBT and EMDR can’t do, having a hear and now safe relationship to learn how that feels (not just what safe boundaries are but how it feels to set a boundary and have that respected, to know how to safely deal with conflict and what that feels like). You can always change therapist when you move, but it sounds like you’re working hard with him.

I think this will make you stronger.

In the past you'd have crumbled when a therapist let you down. You felt let down this time. Yet no crumbling. You're even thinking of dumping him you're so strong! You've come a long way.

I'd keep him. Try another couple of sessions. See how you feel. You can always dump him later if needs be.

He shared private info so you understood it wasn't personal that he (like many of us) would put a mum falling first. That was kind of him. He didn't have to.

See how you feel. If you can't move past it dump and move on.

If my mum fell I'd drop everything and run to her. And pick up the pierces later. It's normal for many people.

It's hard when you realise they're not perfect. But ultimately its for the best. Therapy is a relationship and you won't progress by dehumanising him. It isn't healthy and honestly you'll gain no more from it than you would talking to your dog.

The idea is to form a trusting relationship with this one person and be able to talk about it with them. Its not about just getting the words out.

I can zone right out, tell my therapist about being raped, not look at him and feel nothing. That doesn't help me heal though. That isn't therapy, it's just talking at someone.

Being able to tell him only bits of it, alluding to others if necessary and engaging with him emotionally during it was a more healing experience. His very human reaction was a big part of that. It takes longer to get to that point but it is worth the effort.

I think the session thing is a bit overblown. You knew Friday wasn't happening as he told you by text. The automated reminders, you should have just ignored. I also wouldn't have expected a reply as if he was unavailable for session then he was unlikely to be reachable.

Chatgpt, yeah that's a bit not good but if English is his second language I can see why he would.

You're kind of projecting on him a bit, I think. Other men have gaslighted and treated you badly and you're trying to replay that dynamic in therapy. It's really common, I do it myself occasionally in a slightly different way.

It's good that you talked about it, he needs to know what is happening between you and recognise it when it happens.

OP, my therapist messed up a year in, and it turned out to be a breakthrough for me

I was shocked, hurt and furious initially. She wholeheartedly apologised, took responsibility and it was really healing for someone who had harmed me (albeit not seriously) to take responsibility.

It actually helped me to see her as a flawed human, as we all are and I removed her from the pedestal I'd had her on.

It's been a further two years and I never think of it, my trust is reinstated and I continue to benefit from therapy with her.

I agree, he should have kept the reason at a more general level and not so personal and he should not have used obvious ChatGPT in a message, that's really unprofessional.

Based on all the other things you’ve mentioned I'd also be looking for another (female) counsellor. It's quite normal for a therapeutic relationships to run its course or change and this sounds like it has come to an end for you at least.

Good luck OP, you've clearly had an incredibly difficult time and I hope the move works out well.

I think you're overreacting too, I'm afraid. It sounds like the relationship with your therapist has become quite complicated and I wonder if it's still the right fit for you. I think it's important to understand the boundaries of the therapeutic relationship which also includes acknowledging that you are not the centre of your therapist's world other than in the 50 mins that you're talking to them. My therapist had to cancel my last session because of a close family member being in hospital. My only thought was to wish him/them well. It wasn't about me at all,

I’m sorry about the problems you have in your background, OP. Like others here have stated, I also think you are overreacting. Therapists are human and occasionally have emergencies which mean their usual level of service may be impacted.
So what you describe was absolutely a problem for you, but it was caused by a family emergency in his life. He was honest with you and paid you respect by explaining the true situation.
I second that you should discuss your need to dehumanise him, because this is an issue you do have to deal with. It’s not a very healthy way to deal with your lack of trust in men. Therapists aren’t superheroes, they are kind, professional, caring humans who also have lives.
I think it is good that you’re working with a male therapist, so you can see that there are men who are kind and good (usually) at communicating. think about what your best hopes are for the situation and work towards those.

I agree with this.
Being human is part of dealing with other humans. Rightly or wrongly. You needing to dehumanise him says a lot about where you are in your therapy journey. Not far. I feel you have massively overreacted and I say this as someone who has been raped multiple times and experienced terrible things. I feel that you have been unfair. He has made a mistake certainly, and you should get a new therapist. I am not sure this relationship can work.

I had a male therapist who tried to suggest my ex left because I wouldn't have sex enough... When I said actually it was him who had ED and me who felt rejected, he suggested I "take my anger out in the bedroom". This was after he moved sessions about and got very shirty about payment which wasn't even late because he had been on holiday in the Maldives and was the final straw for me. Reading your OP it really bought this back to me and your observations about being gaslit by men resonated as I also felt almost irrationally hurt by him, after being so open and trusting him. I'm not sure if it's helpful but I thought I'd share a similar story as it's really put me off having a male therapist again. It's hard enough trying to build the trust but not trusting your own gut about him gaslighting etc compounds a lot of the issues with trust and other men, IMO.

I can see both sides. You want the perfect therapist to open up to and be 100% on point for you.

But he’s a real person and cocked up the admin.

I think, as the customer, the ball is in your court.

Why don’t you take some time to cool off before you do anything hasty. Moving is stressful, which won’t be helping. Take some time to settle and then have a think about whether you can move on from his error.

Often, dynamics that play out in relationships often end up playing out in the therapy room too. As it sounds as though you have the type of relationship with your therapist where you can be honest about your feelings (as you have been today) then I would see if you feel able to continue with him during this period that seems to have triggered a lot of your past stuff, because actually you would probably benefit greatly from it, even though it may feel extremely difficult and painful. The desire to run/stop therapy is often (in my experience) the time when you are about to make the most progress.

I think he told you the reason he had to cancel to reassure you that it was a genuine emergency and they were not messing around with your emotions/time etc.

Personally I think it is one of those unfortunate things and you are overreacting. Thry may have had to travel.to be with their parent, look after other family members, be at a hospital etc... You probably were not their top priority.

I think this incident will stay in your head now and reappear when/if your therapist irritates you in the future. Perhaps with your move you also look to a new therapist (you ca stic with yours until settled in)?

Do you have a fixed time for your usual Friday/Monday sessions? If so in your shoes I’d assume we were meeting at X time on Monday as usual and planned my other tasks around that. If not he may have needed to put things in place for his mum before agreeing a time for Monday - it’s not ideal but therapists are humans with everything that goes with.

And while “family emergency” is an explanation sometimes you do need to give a bit more context as to why you’re not as predictable or reliable as usual. It might be important to explore why you need to dehumanise him to do the work you need to do. It may be another therapist (and I’d look for a woman) might be helpful to you if you’re struggling - someone with a psychodynamic background would be more blank slate if that’s your preference.

Honestly though it sounds like one of those things, his crisis coincided with a huge time of change for you but I don’t think he’s done anything that could have been avoided easily.

Gently, I don’t think you are being rational about this (totally understandable after what you have been through)