How do I fire my therapist?

[chatenoire]

As a follow up to a thread from yesterday, I've realised that my therapist is not really doing anything for me anymore. (DH agrees). I've been seeing her for 5 years (give or take), so how do I have this conversation with her considering might need her again?

LOL the "it's me, not you" is so true!

I think it would have been way better if she had said "understood, your prerogative. Good luck with life". Rather than asking for yet another session.

She also said I have problems with relationships (no shit, Sherlock!)

Well, you don't have to go to another session. You can end it by email or something. What do you feel would be best?

Ooh, the 'you have problems with relationships'! Is that a way of making you feel guilty & think it's necessary to stay with her & sort out those problems? I knew of someone who ran a not for profit group which was supposed to be a meeting of minds & quite casual - but if anyone ever said they thought they would leave the group, she'd say to them, "I could see you were looking insecure when you arrived tonight." 😂Of course, being the decent people they were, they'd take this at face value, believe themselves to be at fault & in need, & stay on in the group.

Likewise, as I made my slooooow way through the NHS waiting lists to see The Lump, I was seen for assessment by a counsellor. As generally recommended, I asked her what her qualifications & areas of interest were. She paused & then said, "You seem to have issues trusting people." 😂And she didn't answer my question!

No I think she actually meant as in "you have communication issues with your DH and attachment issues with your DD" could be wrong!

I do think it was cheeky of her to tell me I need another session and more therapy. I do think she has the point about being honest and not try to hide my "quirks"

We are supposed to offer patients a terminal session so they can have a good, goodbye but some people really just know they are done or the relationship is so not working that they want to rage quit. I always accept a patient wanting to end it—even if I take it personally internally I would never let the patient know (I hope!) and always try to end on a good note reflecting on my wishes for the patient’s future success or future therapy.

I really don’t know any therapists who have to keep any patients past their time—I certainly don’t need to be in a tug of war or a boring or pro forma session with anyone. There is no shortage of patients! I think some therapists can be overinvested in the relationship and have a hard time letting go but right now I find that its more a question of gently moving people on if they are not in an acute crisis to make room for new people.

Yes it was odd. I told her the previous session left me annoyed and she told me that maybe that was a "therapeutical" response

Look—she might be seeing things you aren’t. There are certainly patients who do not grasp what is really going on in their own lives or who are really stuck and resistant to change. Lots of people, for example, are in abusive relationships but can’t acknowledge it for a ling time. Some people are abusers but blame others for their unhappiness. People with personality disorders are often in treatment for anger and depression when they are really struggling with the negative consequences of their social struggles.

The issue you have raised with her—very gently and kindly—is one of diagnosis. You did get some benefit previously (it seems) but now you want to explore a different kind of work suited to a new understanding if yourself (ND).

She seems not to be hearing you, or she disagrees and thinks that the ND dx is some form of avoidance of the real issues.

Just fire her by letter —in a polite and kindly way given how long you’ve worked tigether—and make a clean break. She might be right or she might be wrong but neither of you seem to be in a good enough place to negotiate a good working relationship. I hope she makes a good repair with you In the next session or by letter. I actually think you are both hurting a lot here.

Sorry for all the typos! Clumsy fingers on phone.

It was a very insightful response. No clue if she's hurting, and I DO get the point of how is she supposed to help me if I don't give her the whole picture. BUT TO ME it seemed irrelevant at the time. Yes, maybe I was masking, trying to appear as "normal".

I do like her as person, but I almost felt coerced to have that extra session.

You definitely don’t need a last/next session. I’m so sorry! This seems harder than it should be and she should be better at letting you go.

I had a slightly similar conversation with a former therapist, in that I had begun to seriously consider the reason behind the constant missed meanings on both sides and if I may be neurodivergent. I’d been thinking about the latter for some time but it emerged near to the last session with the therapist who did not react positively. In fairness, the therapist may have felt I had brought it out at that point as an ‘aha! Gotcha!’ strategy, whereas it was a ‘does this perhaps explain why you and I often seem not to understand each other?’ observation on my part. I do find things that are not resolved horrendous to end, either literally or in my head. I tend to find routine and familiarity hard to break out of - and I do find it hard to gauge at times whether something is actually good for me or not. However, if you are often doubting something, feel someone is hanging on when you want to go, neither is a healthy sign. If the therapist felt you had more work to do, she’s entitled to that feeling, but she should allow you to leave whilst assuring you that she would also welcome you back if you felt you wanted to come back at some point. Therapists who don’t gracefully hold the door for you are, in my view, keeping you close for their own reasons.

What are your therapists qualifications / type of therapy they provide? I would have expected after 5 years they would have discussed neurodivergency if that appeared to be an issue.

if I was your therapist, after 5 years I would also be thinking I was maybe not achieving whatever the goals were that you originally agreed and wondering why. Assuming that goal setting was part of your sessions?

You definitely don’t sound like a good fit for each other now even if you were in the past.

She's a clinical psychologist and her approach is a mix of humanist and Freudian (psychoanalysis). She did admit she's not specialised in any way shape or form in neurodiversity.

There were never any goals, like I said I approached more like a safe space to vent or a "paid friend" and more like a lifestyle thing (like going to the salon, spa, gym).

She is right that I never disclosed many of the things that put me on the spectrum, so how could she have figured that out?

I have some ND patients in my therapy practice. They usually know they are but come for help with trauma (thats one of my areas of focus). I have varying degrees of success, lets say, depending on the degree and nature of the trauma and the degree and nature of the patient’s defenses against talking symbolically or using metaphor or looking for the meaning or intentions behind other people’s acts or speech.

I don’t think a neo or quasi Freudian would be a good fit for you. The way they think about things is organized along very specific lines. Take some time and explore for yourself what being ND would mean to you—what it explains, what it occludes, what it makes easy, what it makes hard. Then find a therapist who is curious about you and experienced with the situation you want to address.

I've got my referral! Although she warned me it was going to take a while but I don't care!

Congratulations!

Well in the end she fired me! LOL

Would you like to say more about that?

LOL, I'm a retired therapist BTW, but that question in relation to your update seems spot on. You OBVIOUSLY want to tell 'us' - mumsnet, the thread people (I wasn't one until now!) more, so tell more!
And well done - maybe, just maybe, you got to a place where she was able to let you go. Maybe YOUR work made it possible for HER to 'fire' you. I hope so.

See this is what annoys me about therapists 🤣 It's a normal part of human interaction to test the water first, to see if anyone wants to hear a more detailed update (so that you don't end up spending a lot of effort telling a lot of stuff that either people don't want to hear or that you won't get a response to, or because you want to give a timely status update but don't yet have the time/energy for a full report, or, yes, because it feels good to have a few people ask you for more details). Yet they feel the need to "call it out", like they're super insightful for being able to tell that there might be more you want to say, or as though it says something meeeaningful about you that you said something brief to invite questioning. Nah mate. We don't need normal interactions explicitly analysed like that, it's annoying. We all understand what's going on; you're not saying anything we don't know.

OP, you're well rid of that Freudian quack. She's obviously long since reached the limits of her abilities with you; glad she's finally seen that.

What happened OP?

Well she said I wasn't ready to continue therapy with her. That I needed to let go of the past and work on my present.

Ultimately I'm glad! I felt like she was judging me in the end.

She hopes I find my answers, and I hope it too. I don't doubt I have some generational trauma, but maybe I can move on from it rather than ponder everything about my life.

Well—good for you, OP! I hope you will have a very fruitful next therapy.

So basically she's like, "It's not me, it's you" 🤣

From that phrasing, she sounds more concerned with maintaining her own image of herself as competent — and with retaining control so that she's the one to decide when it ends, rather than you — than with your mental health. I repeat: well rid. There are many, many fucked-up people working in the field, people who haven't sorted out their own issues, people on power trips, and people who will do whatever it takes to push some kind of "fault" onto the client when there's a poor match, or when the therapist's skills aren't up to the problem.

Yes... Surely if I wasn't ready to continue she would have noticed??

Could be wrong of course.

Definitely won't go to a Freudian type therapist again.

I would just discuss it with her. They are trained in all these aspects it's nothing new. You are not firing her btw you are not her boss to fire you are working together for your benefit. She will still have her job and qualifications! If it's private therapy as I presume it is they are not allowed to sort of ' tout' for business so if there are no concerns for yours or others safety there won't be any issue at all. She may possibly advise of areas you might want to work on in the future whether with her or someone else.

The whole thread is that she initially didn't accept it, but she has (although basically blamed me)