Therapist won’t let me cancel!

My partner had therapy years ago before he met me it was with a sex therapist. He felt at the time he was a sex addict. The last session he had with her he shagged her. I wonder what he accomplished at the end of his therapy and whether he felt he could move on.

We had a similar experience with my DC's therapist - she would not let us stop their therapy even when it seemed to have reached a plateau. She kept saying that our DC was in a far worse state than we could possibly envisage (because, according to the therapist, they were hiding it from us) and she had reached a crucial stage in their recovery. It was really hard to get rid of her, partly because we were so worried that we would be jeopardising our DC's mental health. It dragged on for at least 18 months after we had initially tried to cancel

If you want to co tinge with her until May, then every time she tries to derail your session, you need to pull her back on track...'I've already explained that situation to you, can we please focus on my session today'.

she is selling you a service that you no longer want to buy. Just tell her.

She’s “employed” by you. If you’re not happy, just don’t book her any more.

Find out who she's accreditated with and report her. This is extremely unprofessional.

That does sound like something went badly wrong in the therapy, sorry to hear that you had that experience.

The sessions are for the benefit of the client, not the therapist! So if it were for theoretical reasons the therapist would be of the view that every other week sessions won't be of benefit. If it were for diary/room issues, the therapist likely has another potential client on the waiting list who can fill the slot every week and the therapist can't afford to have an empty slot every other week, especially if they have to pay for the room every week.

Good god, OP, text her immediately and tell her you won't be attending or paying for any more appts with her!
I've only read your first post and am wondering who the heck is the therapist and who is the patient here. You're having your ear bent by HER!!! Wrong way round, sunshine. Block her and stand up for yourself. That's ridiculous.

@Moocow1995 - I haven't read the whole thread but can I put forward a word of caution before you cancel immediately and without notice?

You may think you haven't a contract but remember that a contract doesn't have to be in writing and you don't need to have signed anything. If she has notified you of T&Cs or she has T&Cs on her website you could be taken to have agreed to those terms by continuing to see her since - whenever you started seeing her.

I suggest you check whether this therapist has any T&Cs and, if so, what they say about you cancelling, particularly any notice period.

I notice that the BACP ethical framework linked to by a previous poster explicitly says on page 17 that:

"31. We will give careful consideration to how we reach agreement with clients and will contract with them about the terms on which our services will be provided. Attention will be given to:
a. reaching an agreement or contract that takes account of each client’s expressed needs and choices so far as possible
b. communicating terms and conditions of the agreement or contract in ways easily understood by the client and appropriate to their context
c. stating clearly how a client’s confidentiality and privacy will be protected and any circumstances in which confidential or private information will be communicated to others
d. providing the client with a record or easy access to a record of what has been agreed
e. keeping a record of what has been agreed and of any changes or clarifications when they occur
f. being watchful for any potential contractual incompatibilities between agreements with our clients and any other contractual agreements applicable to the work being undertaken and proactively strive to avoid these wherever possible or promptly alert the people with the power or responsibility to resolve these contradictions."

So under this ethical framework your therapist ought already to have an agreed contract with you covering how you can terminate the agreement.

Of course you might be able to argue that you are justified in terminating the contract (or arrangement) immediately and without notice because the therapist has been, by her conduct, in breach of any agreement there might be and in breach of the BACP's ethical guideleines. (I suggest you go through them and list her non-compliance.

I would also complain to the BACP

bacp-ethical-framework-for-the-counselling-professions-2018.pdf

Send an email today and say you are cancelling. This is wrong.

I am having weekly therapy and she asks me at the end if I'd like to meet up next week. There's no assumptions or pressure.

Yous is very unprofessional. You're paying her to let her complain to you!

I agree. Shocking.

Yes this! And obviously cancel all future appointments and find a decent therapist not one who guilt trips you into spending more money than you can afford. May I suggest you work on boundaries and self esteem with your future therapist? Because they must be quite low to put up your current "therapist". Wishing you well in your healing.

It's your right to cancel. The only justification for her encouraging you to continue is if you are in the middle of a challenging piece of therapy work, or having a crisis, and it's therefore a bad time to stop. By the sound of it neither of these is true. Just send her an email saying you are stopping therapy as from now. But check what the cancellation period is for individual sessions so you don't get billed for the final one. Good luck.

Also you might benefit more from a different approach at this stage - person-centred, psychodynamic...

I'm a therapist and that's definitely not okay. Due to financial pressures many of my clients are having forthrightly sessions and I'm fine with that. Continuity is important, especially early on, but unless the client is really struggling, seeing your therapist once every two weeks is fine. Don't let her bully you. She's not putting your interest first, but hers, it seems.

I find what your therapist is doing really nasty. You’ve put your trust in her and now she’s using what she knows about you to make you doubt yourself and coerce you into staying. The benefit is for herself and not you. An ethical therapist would encourage you to explore other areas of therapy or come back to her if you ever need to. Please don’t be too hard on yourself for not standing up to her sooner, you’re doing it now!

CBT shouldn't require to be conducted over a period of years.
She's a grifter. Cancel any planned sessions and block her.

I agree with what everyone else is saying, let her know you’re not coming back, and then block her.

Hi, I am a psychoanalytic psychotherapist and I would agree with a previous poster, CBT does not normally take more than a few sessions. The fact that your therapist is BACP registered does not mean that she is not a therapist. Psychoanalytic people can register with BPC, UKCP or BACP and they may well choose to register with BACP (like I did), it’s largely a formality. You might have move on to psychoanalitic or integrative work, and the nature of psychoanalytic work is that you explore in most (if not all) sessions the relationship between you and the therapist because it reflects various aspects of your relationship between you and the world. A therapist would be negligent if they didn’t try to explore if there’s anything deeper that makes a patient feel dissatisfied with the session and reduce the number of sessions or cancel altogether. And such exploration can be uncomfortable, to say the least. But of course external reality (finances, work or family obligations) needs to be taken into account too. I wonder if you are able to explore with her your feelings about therapy and her - or do you feel that the rapport is lost? Also, there would be typically a notice period for ending the therapy. Informally, the longer the therapy is, the better is it to have a longer termination phase, to properly think what the ending means to you and to prepare yourself for the ending. The rule of thumb is a month per year of therapy. But in her initial letter or initial discussions she would tell you what the formal notice period is like, for example 4 weeks.

This is very unethical behaviour. I'd consider reporting her to her governing body. She needs to be keeping her countertransference in check, or whatever is at play here.

This is awful OP. If you want a new therapist recommendation dm me. Mine sees having less sessions as a sign that everything is working but also I’ve had to do similar to you before. She was so kind and really understanding. I’d recommend.

That isn't normal at all for a therapist. I've "shopped around" a lot for therapists before I found the right fit, and the best ones (for me) were those who put no pressure on the timing/frequency of the appointments. And the worst ones were those who got overly involved / followed up / insisted on weekly etc. I've never met one who's as extreme as you're describing.

Everyone saying YABU is wrong. This is black and white and a therapist, who does hold more power in this relationship with people seeking help, should not act like that. It's like taking advantage of someone vulnerable. OP clearly said they'd like to work on boundary setting and it is one reason why they are in therapy, so I do not feel it is reasonable to say they are being unreasonable when the therapist is likely to be manipulative.