Confused about situation with my therapist

[TerracottaWorrier]

It's long, but it's got paragraphs 😉

I have online therapy twice a week for trauma. Being abused and neglected as a child. Domestic violence. Cheerful stuff. I've been talking to my therapist since the summer and it's been really good for me. I've begun to trust him more and more and show more of myself to him without feeling scared.

This year has seen a lot of upheaval for me but I'm days away from moving to the other side of the world for work. I've spent most of my adult life doing this but this is the first one I'll do alone, since I'm now divorced. My therapist knows this, of course.

We usually have our sessions on Monday and Friday. Last Thursday evening he messaged me and asked if we could move our Friday session to Saturday. I suggested we just wait until Monday instead (because honestly I feel a bit gross about being so needy that my poor therapist would work weekends).

Previously when we rescheduled (generally moving our session a couple of hours backwards or forwards) he would refund the booked session and set it back up as a new one, which I expected to happen this time, as usual. But Friday came and the session wasn't cancelled or refunded and I was still getting reminders through the app that it was scheduled. I ignored this but it felt a bit odd.

All through Saturday I expected a message giving me a time for Monday (today) but I didn't receive one, and all through yesterday I felt very anxious anticipating it since it was so late. At 7 pm yesterday I contacted him on WhatsApp asking what time our session was and although he read the message, he didn't reply.

Finally, at midnight last night I messaged him again and said I assumed Monday's session wasn't going ahead and asked that he refund me for Friday's session which he had cancelled. He replied immediately and apologised and said he was just about to set up his bookings for the week. It's worth bearing in mind that we're on different parts of the planet so it was earlier in the day for him than it was for me.

But by this point I was actually furious. And distressed. I have a lot of little and probably somewhat inconsequential things I need to do before I leave, like get new nails and my eyebrows sorted. These kinds of things need booking and I wasn't able to get them done Friday because he cancelled too late for me to know I'd have the day free, and I wasn't able to book anything for today because I didn't know what time our session was going to be or if it was even going ahead.

My therapist seemed quite surprised that I was as upset as I was, and originally I didn't want to continue with him as my therapist because I felt really very hurt that he was being so casual with my time and also leaving me on read on WhatsApp when I tried to clarify. In the process of our WhatsApp discussion last night, he sent me a message which had been written by chatgpt and which had evidently been done in this manner because he accidentally pasted chatgpt's intro when he sent it to me. I was pissy and told him maybe me and chatgpt could just figure it out between us. He's not a native English speaker although he is fluent in English, but he said he was using chatgpt to guarantee his grammar.

Eventually I agreed to have today's session as normal.

We spoke about all this a bit in our session today, but I feel in some ways worse for doing so. I've had a lot of relationships with men who lie to me or gaslight me, who neglect my needs, who minimise their actions or their effect on me, and my therapist has been the person who has helped me see this pattern. I tend to stay in relationships with these men because I'm scared of being alone or think I'm being too hasty in cutting them off. But I feel like I'm now in a similar dynamic with my therapist. I do think his actions were unreasonable and unprofessional.

I felt anguish when he told me the reason he'd acted this way was because his elderly mother had had a fall, but I also felt quite sick because I feel like I don't want to carry any of his emotional burden. Previously, I have worked through quite extreme anxiety before telling him about sexual abuse I experienced as a child and most of my anxiety about telling him was not wanting to burden another human with the knowledge. I managed to do that by somewhat dehumanising him, I suppose. I was hoping at some point to talk through with him that one time I got anally raped in 2023, but I need him to not have feelings in order for me to do this. Now I feel like he has feelings and they are something I'm meant to be able to give space to. And I just cannot. I don't want to. I do not burden my students with my private life ever ever ever, because I want to be a safe space for them. I feel like he's not a safe space for me now he's a guy whose mum falls over and who uses chatgpt to reply to me and who leaves me on read and who stole my final two free days in the UK by not being reliable.

But I'm scared of moving into this new stage of my life without his support. But I feel deeply uncomfortable with how similar this feels to every other time I've been let down by a man and accepted it because I was scared of being without them or because I felt bad for them.

Of all the weeks that my therapist could have done this, this is probably the hardest for it to happen in. I feel like I've compromised my values in order to ensure his ongoing support of me. I thought by paying all this money to someone neutral I wouldn't end up feeling hurt or exploited, but I do. Am I being too sensitive?

For extra context, he is a very experienced and very very qualified therapist. I'm lucky to have such a fancy therapist. He is usually lovely and totally supports me in being me, and I have felt much stronger and more sure of myself since we started working together. But fuck. He feels like just another guy who got my trust and then shit on me at the moment.

Can I have some perspective, please?

I have told him I'm pissed off. He said, what are thinking right now?, and I said, I'm thinking that I'm annoyed with you, and then we discussed it.

I may read parts of this thread to him if I can't articulate my thoughts any more elegantly, but I'm not showing him it. I don't want him to know any of my social media particularly.

OP can I just what is your agreement re when & how you have your sessions? Are you given a fixed time every week for eg? Why do you have to wait until a certain day to know the time of your appointment? Also how comfortable are you with him offering weekend options? From the start have you had to change times & dates? Just curious as to the nature of the arrangement.

@GMF our only agreement is I see him twice a week. At the end of our session he suggests a day for our next session and I say if that works and any time constraints I might have. He then sets it up on the system at his convenience and I confirm and pay. I don't specifically know what time the session is until I get sent the notification.

I find it stunningly relaxed and don't love it being like this. But I have always assumed that this comes down to a cultural difference.

Is there a possibility that you've swung the other way. Not in being too sensitive but looking at situations with new and fresh eyes when you're just learning the ropes with these new eyes? How would you have felt both these circumstances before any therapy?

@TerracottaWorrier that is quite an unusual way of contracting & many would say an unboundaried way of working. I think you need certainty & consistency & would personally as another PP mentioned raise how much of a concern it is for you & request a regular schedule on the same days per week & the same time moving forwards. I mean I’d feel anxious with this arrangement if it were my hairdresser let alone my therapy! He should be managing these boundaries & keeping the whole thing secure that’s his job. FWIW.

As you know, OP, a large part of psychotherapy is the dynamic between the patient and the therapist. I too needed a “perfect” therapist (abandonment issues, ptsd etc all stemming from inadequate/abusive parents) and needed my (older, female) therapist to be the safe reliable mother figure id never experienced. So when she (once) fucked up, saying something that showed she hadn’t understood what I meant, it felt like a major betrayal.

However -

it was actually a really good opportunity to work through- in a healthy, well boundaried way, with an expert- how to navigate a scenario / dynamic shift like that, that would inevitably come up again in my life outside of therapy. So although ir did change the tenor of my sessions with that therapist, I realize now it moved them into a new phase- a phase where I was preparing to take my “new” perspective/ psychological tools and awareness, and apply them.

Could this be a new stage of your therapy journey too?

Honestly, I feel like I don't have the mental space to give to my relationship with my therapist right now. I'm trying to move to the other side of the world in around 36 hours time. Maybe this will be a great moment in my therapy journey or maybe he's playing fast and loose with the dynamic. I have another session booked and paid for at a totally arbitrary time on Friday which I'm probably not going to be able to attend since I'm still going to be on a plane most likely, but the whole thing felt so sketchy and sad yesterday that I didn't have the energy to say anything other than OK when he suggested we book it and then I can just cancel if I can't make it.

Good luck with your journey OP. I hope it goes well. Focus your energy on that at the moment it sounds like a huge upheaval for you 💐

I agree. You’ve got a big change ahead of you, so it makes sense to put your therapy to the side whilst you adjust and revisit it when you have the capacity to. Best of luck, OP x

It is the case, I work in the field. I would be violating nhs professional and therapeutic guidelines if I was to text my clients unless it was just an automated admin message to confirm or cancel an appointment. Anyway it’s not the point here, there is something off with the boundaries here, the OP’s emotions/ boundaries/ vulnerability have not been contained well.

Personally I wouldn't be involved with therapy that wasn't on a regular schedule. The routine and predictability of sessions I've always found helpful (although occasional changes are of course fine too).

I do think it's unreasonable you would expect a reply over the weekend. If it was me I would have asked what the time was for Monday at the point the previous session was booked and if that didn't work leave it until Monday.

I have had a lot of childhood and DV trauma to unpick. My most recent therapist was absolutely amazing but insisted on time limited sessions (a few months). Partly due to stopping dependency but she also said it gives time to really fully reflect and consider progress. I was annoyed at the time as I felt the sessions ended before we had covered everything I wanted. But actually a year later I can absolutely see it's been the best thing. I can return if I want but so far I don't need to. I've realised that the coping skills and areas we worked on can be adapted to consider other issues we didn't work on. Perhaps taking a break would be something to consider?

I agree, it’s very unboundaried and I suspect because he’s in another country with lax guidelines and professionalism around therapeutic relationships. OP are you sure he’s a qualified psychotherapist or is he a counsellor? Some countries allow people to claim they are therapists without formal professional registration. I ask because he seems so chill and has not contained your relationship.

I think if this is the only time that he’s got it wrong for you then it’s worth working through it. I think it could be really healing if he can hold the space for you to do that.

He is a human and he will have life stuff and he is fallible. That doesn’t make him a bad therapist. He had a crisis, was trying to hold the space for you at the same time and it sounds like he did his best.

You imagining him as not having feelings was a falsehood. He will have an emotional reaction to what he hears because of that fundamental human connection. But he can take it. He can hold that space.

Only you can know if you can get past this rupture but if you can work it through and it can be repaired it could be really good for you. Check yourself in case you are going into threat response and try and make the decision from the wisest part of you.

i missed this update. If you haven’t got the energy then have a break. I think, though, it might be helpful to go back to work through this even if it’s just to end it more carefully. I honestly believe though that going back and allowing the repair could be really healing. This abrupt ending because of less than perfect care might be part of your usual threat response and so unpicking that and working through it (even if you don’t process anymore trauma) could be really helpful.

He's a clinical psychologist. He's also a professor. He has a PhD. And a psychotherapy YouTube channel with a lot of followers. I've never looked at it because I think that would be odd and it's not in my native language anyway.

He strikes me as pretty legit, but just not exactly from our culture so maybe a bit more casual.

I will talk to him about all this, just maybe not when I'm still dirty and shocked after a 21 hour journey.

Flip it round.

You had a booking with a professional for an appointment. An unusual and unforeseen event happened that meant they couldn’t honour that appointment. They notified you in advance and offered an alternative.

You rejected that alternative, and suggested something else. At that point that was a suggestion, and a normal response time for most things is 1-2 working days. We sometimes forget that when we have a lot of instant communication tools. You didn’t get a fast response to that alternative you proposed, but you chose to keep it available anyway. That’s very flexing and accommodating of you, but wasn’t necessary as reasonable client behaviour. You could have instead gone back again and said that Monday only worked with sufficient notice and it now doesn’t, here’s some options that work for me. Please confirm and give me at least x much notice.

He’s not done anything outrageous. You’ve probably cancelled appointments or meetings at short notice in your professional life. You’ve probably had other professionals cancel on you. You’ve probably read work related communications and not instantly replied. Especially if you were doing a quick check outside your normal work time.

It’s a normal ‘occasional interruption’. It needs keeping in that perspective. If it becomes a regular issue then that’s different. No professional in 100% infallible in their work. We accept that for everything else.

I've possibly given him the impression that I'm less uptight about timings than I really am, because I'm used to being the stressed British person in a foreign environment of people doing things in a way that feels wrong. I just suppress it.

Case in point: my new employer just got the date wrong twice when booking my flight. I pretend that it's all fine and no problem while actually I can still taste the adrenaline in my mouth.

Thank you @ScaryM0nster it's really interesting to read it that way. I could have been less accommodating and just honoured my nails appointment, and retrospectively, we'd all be happier and I'd look nicer if I'd done that.

I feel like you pushed it so much and your reaction to the lack of communication Friday to Monday was so extreme, that he took the decision to explain to you that real life had prevented him on this occasion from his usual reliability. Whether it suits you to acknowledge or not, he is a person whose life outside work may sometimes impact his ability to be there for you. He gave you the real life detail so you would understand that it was only because of a serious family accident that he was unable to communicate. I can't see any suggestion whatsoever that he was trying to burden you with his own life problems. He was explaining why he'd been out of communication.

The arrangement that at the end of each session, he checks when would be good for you for the next session is a method I have also encountered. I think it is intended to make the person feel less pressured, and that they are able to speak up if they have real life events that might have to take priority over their therapy time. Generally it sounds like you usually have the same days, and it's just a question of checking the hour?

if he is a good therapist who works for you and you are able to explore all that has happened with him, I really wouldn't throw him out after all this work and progress. He has not, in my opinion, really done anything wrong.

I think if you cancel him, you then have to try to find someone else and start all over again. I would really suggest you just frame this and understand that your anxiety over access to him is what seems to have driven this reaction to his not being there. And you didn't want him to have a real life situation that took priority over you. But that's the reality here. You are aligning him with men who you have been in a relationship with you, who have lied/gaslighted/let you down. But you are NOT in a relationship with him. He is a professional, providing you with a service, which is generally totally reliable, but on this occasion there was a family problem and he was out of communication. He didn't offer that information until he was pressed by you.

He did not lie, or gaslight you. He was out of communication about your appointment. He is 'yours', but only up to a point. If his mother has an accident then she comes first, as she absolutely should.

I don't think it is him who has the boundaries issue. I think, understandably, you have bonded with him as a man you can trust and who respects and listens to you, sympathises, supports, wants to help you feel better. So when he wasn't there, you felt as let down as you would have by a man who is in a romantic love bond with you, as by previous men. This is the bit that is wrong, and I think you shouldn't drop him because of your reaction. You should carry on, but maybe discuss with him how you felt betrayed, so he can be aware how you have bonded to him. Because that seems to me to be the only thing that could actually be an issue here.

You've found someone you can talk to. I would keep going. I am so sorry, by the way, for what you have been through. Unfortunately, I understand that, too.

Therapist here - hi!
I don’t think you are overreacting. A lot of transference is at play here. Especially with what you said about projecting anger that’s better aimed at your father but you are keeping the peace there before you leave.
I would bring all of this to your therapist to work through. I think it’s a good opportunity for rupture and repair and for your therapist to sit with you in this. I think it needs unpicking over a good few sessions.

On another note, are you able to request a set certain time/day as this would suit you better. Or whether you can block book for a few weeks at a regular time?

It sounds to be that it was a genuine emergency on his end but I do think he needs to be mindful about projecting this onto you. And mindful about the repercussions of his emergency on you. This is all rich fertile soil for you to explore.

You shouldn't have to spend your therapy session sorting out issues with your therapist.

Time for a new therapist.

I think your therapist has been very clumsy with his recent treatment of you, especially if there is a psychodynamic element to your therapy.

Some countries allow people to claim they are therapists without formal professional registration. I ask because he seems so chill and has not contained your relationship.

What, like the UK - literally anyone can set up a counselling/psychotherapy practice here, it’s a completely unregulated profession.

I think you are being triggered. This is really normal and happens to me in all therapeutic relationships usually after a few weeks/months. For me, a small thing happens (something like what you have described) and I attribute all sorts of motivations to it that are likely not there and get get very angry. My anger is just a defence mechanism.

My gut reaction is to run (flight) in these situations but have found a better way to deal with it is to try to work through the feelings with the therapist concerned. I now recognise it when this happens and always try to do this instead.

Also, you can't expect him to always be available to answer your messages. This is his job, and if he has good boundaries he'll have art times (most weeks) when he will deal with messages. I find therapists are usually very rigorous in sticking to these sorts of boundaries. It might help you though if he communicated what these are to you.