To sack my therapist?

[Tipsey0208]

I have been going to psychotherapy for about a year, and it's been really helpful, both in my initial cris and dealing with some deeper stuff. However today, my therapist seemed very distracted, then seemingly drunk and then she fell asleep when I was mid sentence. ( I know this sounds like a comedy sketch). When I woke her she apologised and said she was on painkillers for toothache and tried to resume things, but I stopped her, paid and left. I feel really cross. I have great sympathy for her toothache, but to even attempt a session if she was so unwell seems very unprofessional, and left me feeling embarrassed and pretty crap ... I mean if someone who you are paying £50 an hour can't even pay attention what hope do I have!! I feel like terminating the sessions as I feel some of the trust I have built with her has been broken, but starting with someone else now feels like a lot of lost effort. At the moment I feel like I would be better spending £50 a week on something else.

I know I am lucky to have the money to do therapy - I fund it from the criminal injuries compensation from a difficult event, so please don't have a go about that! But I would be interested in what anyone thinks.

Shes a therapist, a human being, not a robot.

'painkillers pah' have you been on some of the more heavy duty painkillers? If you have never had them before you cannot predict how they'll effect you. She might have felt fine, but then WHAM they hit you all of a sudden.

Its really unfair to judge her on one occasion, remember she needs to earn money just as the rest of us do, and isn't immune to health conditions just because she's a therapist. calling her a 'bloody cheek' is ridiculous and devoid of any compassionate thought.

And thats coming from me, a self confessed overly critical person.

I'm going to guess that she will refund you for the session - she might have been too out of it to think about the payment today.

I'm a therapist and have had to stop a session once due to illness. I needed to go to the loo really urgently, sudden diarrhoea

I was just honest but very embarrassed obviously. I think one of the really important things about therapy is when you see your therapist make mistakes - it makes them more of a real person and it helps you come to terms with your own mistakes.

I think it would be really good if you explored this with her.

Her code of ethics will have something about "fitness to practice", which it sounds like she might have been breaking. The code exists for a good reason, therapy clients can be more vulnerable and having a trusting relationship is very important. You need to raise it with her, yanbu,

I would say discuss it with her - she is only human and we all make mistakes. If she is usually good and you have had a productive relationship, is it worth trying to salvage rather than starting all over again?

I had a therapist who openly yawned and constantly changed the subject, that did wonders for my self-esteem!

What Hettie says yes.

I'm a counsellor and I agree with LFC If she accepted payment (did she write a receipt?) I'm sure she'll be offering to refund it.

It's quite possible she hadn't realised how badly she would struggle but it sounds as though she wasn't fit to practise on that occasion. I think she should have stopped the session really and not charged you.

I can fully see why you're unhappy and it sounds as though it might be beneficial to explore it with her and tell her how you felt.

I'm abit hmm about this. I'm guessing this is dynamic psychotherapy? So all the therapy is really worked through your relationship. It may be a complete mistake but from dynamic point of view nothing done in a relationship is completely random; always part of the unconscious dynamic. I'm not explaining this very well but what I am trying to say that according up her thinking (maybe not mine or yours) whilst this is on the surface a random mistake on the other hand it's also significant. If she is worth her salt she will have gone away and really reflected on it. Worth going back to see what she says and how you can move forward or not.

I think she was well out of order to take your money!

What you can't do is ignore it

Thanks south for your replies. It's gestalt therapy. I think the reason I feel so shaken is that the sessions are usually such an intense experience for me - I have to be very focused and I usually leave feeling extremely raw and fragile. It's really hard work. And the only way I can do some of the stuff is to feel she is there with me. - part of gestalt for instance is revisiting very difficult experiences and reliving them from other perspectives. Thinking that I was doing this 'alone' just makes me want to throw up and hide in a hole. If I was distracted/ in pain etc there is no way I would have attended. I am gutted by the fact she tried to wing it - that is far more important than the fee - I would have rather paid £100 not to have that session than £50 to experience what I did.
I know there are good arguments for speaking to her, but in life I am always smoothing things over. I don't want the therapeutic relationship to be like my other relationships, its my space to be vulnerable and not 'in control'.

I also know someone whose adult son had tramadol. When he felt sleepy he got up to go to bed but fell asleep on the stairs. We had to drag him to his bed. blonde the effects started they were really quick.

Some people react strange to pain killers. You can always know.

A relative of mine is a therapist and would rather cut her arm off than cancel an appointment with a client at short notice for fear of seeming unprofessional. My guess is that your therapist thought she would be fine. I would definitely raise this with her and tell her how it made you feel. Then hopefully she will learn from this experience..

Well, I think you have every reason to be upset. The trust I have with my therapist is very important to the healing, this kind of incident would make me question that trust.
I do think you should talk to her about it before deciding to terminate though. I think there's a chance that this could actually help strengthen the relationship, if she responds in the right way.

I feel for you, I can imagine you must be feeling confused and upset right now.

If you don't feel the relationship can be rescued you can't continue. This is maybe your chance to not to 'smooth' something over as you say but talk to her, explain how you feel and be assertive. Don't slink away without a word and repeat the cycle

What a crap breach of trust. If you can, I'd really give her the opportunity to apologise and regain your trust. She should offer to refund it and accept you'll come back on a trial basis to see if you can get comfortable again. You might need to spell it out to her as she may not remember if she was so out of it. What a shame.

But also don't feel bad cancelling her and tell her that the trust is broken and thats why.

Next time you go she can explore your unforgiving nature and the causes of that.
Sometimes people are given painkillers and they don't know the effect they are going to have on them. She probably thought I had better not cancel, take a painkiller instead then they had this effect on her.
Don't be so harsh on the poor woman.

Love weekends, you couldn't have got this more wrong - its not about forgiving at all. On a personal level I am extremely sympathetic and embarrassed for her as much as myself, and having known her for a year I can say I like her as a person and that hasn't changed at all. But that's a totally different thing to being in a therapeutic relationship, where I talk and discuss things that I find repulsive and terrifying. Things that I normally lock away and that I only explore because I am supposed to feel safe enough. That I was alone and not with someone makes it hard for me to be able to imagine opening those doors next time. It doesn't mean I think she is a bad person or bad at her job at all. I suppose the nearest analogy would be emitional parachute jumping. If your instructor fell asleep it would be very hard to jump with them again.

And love weekends maybe you should look at how you jump on things and make such harsh judgements yourself before making them about others? I don't think I have been judgemental about her at all, just exploring and reflecting about my feelings on a somewhat comical situation.

Look you obviously really dislike what she has done so sack her but I'm entitled to give my opinion on the information you have given. It's a mumsnet chat that's what people do.

You poor thing that must have been excruciating. Only you can really decide how to move forward.

I have not been in your situation but it sometimes seems to me that people can sometimes fall into putting their therapists on a kind of pedestal and need them to be all knowing and wise, like we often do with our parents when we are very little. I wondered whether seeing your therapist as fallible to something as mundane as toothache and being in the wrong made the situation even more crushing for you?

Maybe this happened subconsciously for a reason and is a sign that you are ready for a new stage in you relationship. How does the child in you want to respond. How does the teenager in you want to respond and how does the adult in you want to respond.

Sorry if I am writing bananas but am just thinking out loud (sort of)

I don't think I have her on a pedestal or see her as anything beyond human, I used to be a therapist ( though in a different philosophy and client group) and I like her as a person quite separately to our relationship. Over the past year I have cancelled a couple of times at short notice and she has also moved our appointment times ( which is unusual in this type of therapy as the stable and unchanging times are part of the whole secure base thing), because we have a fairly informal relationship. I would have been fine with her cancelling the appointment. I can totally see that it was just one of those things, for me it's about the fact I could have been in the emotional place I had been in the week before and if it had happened then I would have felt like jumping off a roof ( though I wouldn't. I would have come gone and made dinner like usual).

Thankyou everyone for your comments. I am very aware that I would be irritated with the writer if I was reading this. I need to process it but it's not something you put on your Facebook page!

You don't sound irritating at all, or unreasonable.

I agree, you don't sound unreasonable at all.

I can totally understand how 'alone' and vulnerable it must have made you feel to be 'left' by your therapist like that.

As others have said though, if you feel that the therapeutic relationship prior to this event was good and is worth attempting to save, then letting her know what effect this had on you (maybe in writing?) is worth it IMO.

If you feel betrayed beyond repair then you have no choice but to move on .

FWIW, I once took 2 Solpadol for toothache; pain went and I forgot all about it. I had 2 glasses of wine with dinner a couple of hours later - and I went absolutely 'flying': not sleepy, but felt really drugged with a strange dissociation from what I perceived to be a rather warped reality. It was most weird. I have never had anything stronger than a Paracetamol since .
So, yes, it is possible that she simply did not/could not anticipate the effect that painkillers would have on her.

Hope you feel better soon about what happened.

Part of being in therapy is about experiencing a therapeutic relationship, one that continues and is safe, no matter what subject matter comes up.

Weathering a normal but unexpected event like this will be therapeutic for you, especially if your first instinct is to sack your therapist throwing away all the good that has occurred so far. Resist, crack on and embrace the realisation that your therapist isn't perfect. It'll be good for you.