To be appalled my therapist/counsellor simply failed to show up for appt?

[Trying2Heal]

Am I being unreasonable to be fuming about this?

I’ve been in therapy for several months to heal from narcissistic abuse/ DV and also from childhood trauma. Initially the therapist seemed very good. However, recently I’m finding her slack and I am not sure whether this is me being paranoid or her actually not being reliable enough.

We do our sessions via phone, due to Covid. Around September she took on a day job at a university but said she’d still continue her private practice. Shortly after this there was a session where she messaged me 30 minutes before the session to say she’d have to cancel due to her needing to attend a meeting at her day job.

Then, on another occasion she told me she’d have to cut the session short and limit it to 30 minutes (normal session length is 50 minutes) so that she could accommodate her other clients.

Again last week when the session began she said “I wanted to warn you that this session will only be 30 minutes.” I asked her why and she said that another client had booked another session 30 minutes after mine and that she had no control over this.

She said she’d make it up to me by offering me a session today. That session today was due to start 4 hours ago. She simply didn’t show up. She didn’t answer the phone, no email or anything to suggest she needed to cancel.

3.5 hours after the missed appointment she sent me the message I’ve attached a screenshot of here.

My gut is telling me she’s an unreliable b* at this point and her behaviour is actually re-traumatising me.

But am I over-reacting?

(In case it's relevant this is private rather than NHS & I have to pay for the full 50 minutes even when she flakes out)

Maybe the process of sacking her and seeking someone more professional will be quite therapeutic for me in its own right. It's me refusing to accept any old shit.

Good for you! Go for it .

I'm also amazed that she charges you in advance. I'm pretty sure most of them charge afterwards.

Also, I bet you're not the only patient who's getting annoyed with her. This is down to her own unprofessional behaviour, not you.

@MrsElijahMikaelson1

My therapist says that the one thing she will always offer me is trust and that she will always be there at our time-baring being run over by a bus, and that anything going on her her personal life/out of the office time is just that, and will never impact on my therapy. Get yourself another therapist OP x

Good point - do you have a copy of your contract/agreement with her? You should have signed one at the very beginning of therapy. It should state her promise to you as well as your side of the agreement, I'd be tempted to quote that to her!

Sorry that should say @MrsElijahMikaelson1 makes a good point

I suspect that you need to be very succinct when firing her. Prepare for gaslighting.

Put in writing a list of her offences. Tell her (not on your dime! she wants you to pay to "process your feelings" around her unprofessional behaviour! She's having a laugh/completely inappropriate/a fucking amateur) by voice or text, however is easiest for you to be forthright (knowing it is very hard to do this, but needs must) what you have paid for, and what you have received timewise, and ask for a full refund of your money as applicable for missed or reduced time sessions. She will gaslight you in simpering tones. Get some money back, block her, and go onward and upward in your quest for healing, unencumbered by her.

and we can process this

Hahahaha cheeky cow!

Yes agree super cheeky!

I’d say cancel further appointments, require a refund for the missed or short sessions, and depending on her set-up complain to her practice manager or professional body.

Agree with a pp, check your therapeutic contract and also the commercial t&cs. There should be some process for escalating concerns about the service you are paying for. Also as.counselling is currently 'virtual ' perhaps you could have a counsellor from outside London and rates may be more affordable? Here the going rate is £40-50 per session. PP might have recommendations. Also is there some sort of
consumer review of therapists available (like TripAdvisor or TrustPilot?!). I once had a truly awful counsellor -make space for a better one that will help.You on your healing journey and get rid!. Wishing you all the best for 2021 and keep at it!

Really good point from PP. If its virtual then find a non London based clinical psychologist and it shouldn't be too much more expensive. No point having someone from London if its online anyway.

Honestly that's dreadful. As a therapist they are dealing with potentially vulnerable people and they're risking doing further harm to patients by behaving like this.
I'd actually see if I could report them tbh.

That’s shocking and really unprofessional. The therapeutic relationship would be over for me if my therapist treated me like that .

I have had therapy for very similar issues and have an amazing person ... was by FaceTime / zoom due to the pandemic . Let me know if you want their details as it took me years to find someone that really helped me.

@HRHPP Yes I'd love the details of the person you worked if that's OK?

I also think it's an excellent idea to find a psychologist from outside London and just do video sessions.

One thing is for sure, I'm not having any more sessions with this current therapist. I may send her a very brief email telling me I am terminating work with her and why.

Her reply is really shit. Sounds like she wants to profit from the distress she is causing you by "processing" her crap practice as part of her own paid therapy time.

The trust has gone. If you had a contract she has broken it. Dump her off asap

I could not trust this woman and you need to be able to trust your counsellor.

In my experience psychotherapist/councelors can justify what ever behaviour they fancy, it's part of their training.
She's a self employed business, vote with your feet and spend your money elsewhere.

Good Gravy!!! I love how she thinks it’s okay to charge you for her time while you tell her off for her unprofessionalism!!! What an idiot!!! (She really is taking the piss!)

[quote Trying2Heal]@HRHPP Yes I'd love the details of the person you worked if that's OK?

I also think it's an excellent idea to find a psychologist from outside London and just do video sessions.

One thing is for sure, I'm not having any more sessions with this current therapist. I may send her a very brief email telling me I am terminating work with her and why.[/quote]
Will pm you

I have a therapist for complex childhood PTSD on the NHS so it may be different, but in our first session we set our boundaries. Barring a catastrophic emergency that cannot be avoided, she will be there at our allotted time. If she gets covid, she will let me know via email and we will move our session to telephone, if she has an emergency with the client before me, someone will text or email me to let me know and she will follow up as soon as she can. If I miss 2 sessions in a row, therapy stops.
Having clear boundaries has worked wonderfully with me because part of my trauma is people saying they will do something then not. She's only cancelled a session once due to an emergency with a previous client. She also emails me on the evening after therapy with a summary of what we discussed and how I presented and checking I am ok. I only reply to this email if I am not ok (as per what I told her in our first session). I had to fight for 4 years for this therapy, and it eventually took a mental breakdown and an admission to hospital for this to come of it. I can't believe you are paying for worse care. Please find a new therapist. Also look at the NICE guidelines on complex trauma and quote them to your GP, there's waiting lists but you eventually can get therapy

Question for the therapists on the thread, please

Reading the OP, the first thing that struck me as questionable was that the OP knew the therapist had taken on a new job.

To my mind, the job should not have impacted in any way on the OP, so there was no reason for her to know this, and it was a blurring of boundaries by the therapist.

Am I correct, or am I over interpreting?

OP, I hope you have a satisfactory (professional and apologetic!) response to your email and quickly find someone you can work with.

@YouDidWHATNow

Thank you so much for sharing. When you say you had to fight to get this NHS therapy, did they initially turn you down for therapy then? Do you know how many sessions you have now with the current therapist?

How are you finding it so far? Are you starting to feel better?

If you decide you want to continue the sessions, first of all, cancel your direct debit until she has made up the sessions you have paid for but she has not delivered. I think that at least two free, full-length sessions should be appropriate.

I work at a university and there is a worsening mental health crisis among university staff and students; I can imagine if she's working as a counsellor there it is chock-a-block, but there is no excuse for the way she is handling things. (and fwiw I'm also paying for private counselling, and my counsellor has never flaked out like this).

Well you could go and process it in your next session. Tell her how very angry and upset you are and why and ask for her response. Ask her why she thinks you should pay for 50 minutes and have 30 minutes. Tell her you find it very unprofessional. I woulcnt be paying for that session either.

I responded to her message summarising the number of times she's either suddenly reduced the session length or cancelled minutes before a session, leading up to this final incident of her simply not showing up -- and I explained that it makes me feel unsafe.

This is her reply. (To give context: she has clients book the next session online using online scheduling software. But she claims that sometimes she books clients in herself manually and that when she does this she can sometimes book someone in without realising that session has already been booked).

I don't really see how a therapist could go from being good to being as shit as this. I strongly suspect she was never good really and that I was doing my good old habit of painting people to be 100 x better than they really are.

@bluegreygreen

Question for the therapists on the thread, please

Reading the OP, the first thing that struck me as questionable was that the OP knew the therapist had taken on a new job.

To my mind, the job should not have impacted in any way on the OP, so there was no reason for her to know this, and it was a blurring of boundaries by the therapist.

Am I correct, or am I over interpreting?

OP, I hope you have a satisfactory (professional and apologetic!) response to your email and quickly find someone you can work with.

Yes 100% agree and is an example of poor boundaries therefore poor practice

I was turned down for years for therapy. I’m 25 and I’ve been needing some help since I was around 15? I now have a diagnosis of anorexia nervosa and complex PTSD but for years I just thought I had an eating disorder, and nobody was interested in the why I had an eating disorder, until I got sent out of area to a hospital with a bed and they picked up that the eating disorder was a coping mechanism for complex childhood PTSD. I didn’t start therapy with them but they wrote and told my local trust I needed it as part of my discharge agreement. My family and I then had to go to the CCG group and my named mental health nurse had to present a case As to why I should get therapy for this and then I was allowed it after about 3 months. In total I was given 6 months of therapy, with 4 weeks of intro sessions, however, the 6 months was up in June and my therapist said it wasn’t enough we were only just starting to make progress so it’s been extended for another 6 months. I think she maybe had to go back to the commissioners but she did it all I didn’t have to do anything this time.
We are starting EDMR work and building up my ability to assert my needs. I think it’s working? I still struggle but I now understand WHY I’m struggling which is a major step forward in being able to have some compassion towards myself instead of just being “oh you’re an idiot why are you doing this again!”
It’s so soul destroying when the NHS keep turning you down, I had given up, it was hard enough to admit I needed help without having to fight for it left right and centre. It’s an awful system but it can be changed, and you can get really high quality therapy without paying. I’d start with your GP or mental health team and go in armed with a list of the guidelines and of your symptoms and as hard as it is, push and keep pushing. You deserve the help and you deserve a better therapist than what you have!