My therapist fired me

[RaineyMae]

We had an agreement that I was allowed to email (with paid for reading time).

The content of one batch of emails got emotive and she took it as criticism.

Fired me by email on the grounds that I am ‘overwhelming’.

Ghosted my apology for upsetting her and my request for a termination session.

AIBU to feel hard done by?

@RaineyMae, your relationship with the therapist ended with the e-mail following the session that you cancelled. You accepted it at the time and no further sessions were scheduled.

You sent chocolates and a card. That did not mean the therapeutic relationship was re-established. It ended 2 weeks before and it would have been unprofessional for her to contact you.

After that you asked for a "closing" session. You have heard nothing because your therapy with that therapist ended weeks before. Contact after clear termination would have been a breach of boundaries.

The research has shown that the most important element in therapy is the therapeutic relationship - thrust, empathy, positive regard etc....

I think you’ve had some really great advice on this thread.
Sometimes you need to let go, even if you think you were not treated properly.
The rest is semantics

Posted before seeing your update. I am sorry about the surgery - my last post about getting practical help now, post again under a different username, would that help?

Was she a Clinical/practitioner Psychologist registered with the HCPC? If you feel up to it (and only if you do - don’t cause yourself extra stress) you could talk to them to see if there is a training need or disciplinary action required here. It’s really important that these things come to light so that firstly that individual therapist can learn (if there is something to learn) but also so that the reputation of the protected title of that profession is maintained.

‘Psychologist’ isn’t a protected title and anyone can use it. They should be registered with some professional body though.

@newsandshoes I love Mumsnet - but honestly it's become an incredibly complicated situation with the DC and their own MH situations that are not the kind of thing that I could put in the public domain - nor stuff that I can discuss with friends.

She is not wrong that it's 'overwhelming' - it just sticks in the throat to apologise for presenting as 'overwhelming' when it is literally what I am having to process day in, day out without any training or previous experience.

It wasn't an 'I'm sad and I want to talk about my childhood' thing.

It was an 'I'm terrified by stuff that has literally happened in the last 7 days - I don't know what to do and I'm really struggling to cope with it' thing.

@Maia77

Counselling psychologists are well equipped to work with a range of presenting issues, but it always boils down to experience and being able to work ethically, having a good supervisor etc.

Thank you.

OP you sound like you're in a very difficult situation and I'm so sorry The therapist obviously wasn't the right one for your needs but I hope you can get yourself the help you need. Maybe speak to your GP in the morning and explain how urgent it is? Good luck.

@MrsTerryPratchett

I may be biased, but I don't think they are as equipped to work with clients with complex presenting problems as psychotherapists. But I'm happy for someone to set me straight.

I think the exact opposite

Psychotherapy isn't any better than active listening for many people. There are studies showing it, in my phone so I can't find any!

Hah! I'm obviously totally biased

FWIW, I have a chronic illness and wanted to see a counsellor to help me around that.
I specifically said this is what I needed, asked if they had experience in that area.
I saw 3 different people, all saying they knew/had previous experience.
None of them actually got it.

I ended up being referred through the NHS via the ME/CFS department to someone who got it.

My point is many people say they have experience in areas where they don’t. Looking for someone through autism centered department /organisation will work better (less risky)

So you needed someone to talk to about an urgent ongoing issue.

Find one then. You’ve been let down. Draw a line under it.

Don’t blame them.

I was thinking - goodness you sound autistic - and was going to suggest that might be what's going on. Then I saw you're already diagnosed!! I don't think this therapist was really prepared to work with someone with ASD. I don't think you've done anything wrong at all, I recognise all those behaviours so well and I understand the need for closure. She could easily just have replied explaining she didn't think it was appropriate for whatever reason.

You need to put this behind you now though and decide what you want to do from here. What can you do to move on as positively as you can? x

Your therapist was incredibly unprofessional. She should have set clear boundaries and expectations. You've been really clear with your posts; you've not said that your therapist was being unreasonable but more that they should've ended things professionally, and also been clear that the contact was too much. I really do wish you all the best .

I think pp who have said that a therapist must be able to cope without becoming overwhelmed are being unrealistic - therapists are people, not robots.

Op, I know you feel that the therapist ended your relationship because she was offended, but that is quite unlikely I would say. It sounds like there were a number of things that might have made your therapist feel you wanted more than they felt was fair in the relationship - such as sending more emails than manageable for the agreed reading time, cancelling at short notice and then wanting a supportive phone call. That isn't a criticism - it is a relationship and relationships can be tricky to manage at the best of times.

Obviously there are different styles of therapy, but I wonder whether the "offloading" style of the email and the request for a supportive call made her wonder whether you are at the right time for therapy? Whether you are seeking a short term release of offloading and being reassured rather than being at the right time to really look at things. That also isn't a criticism, people are ready for therapy at different points.

I do think it is likely she saw some of the behaviours as you being fixated on the relationship (large numbers of emails, the chocolates etc) which may be why it didn't feel appropriate or helpful to have a finishing session.

I would have asked her why she accepted an autistic client if she was stressed by autistic behaviours.

Oh, reading the thread I wondered if you had autism! Just from what you said in the thread. Your therapist did need better boundaries and I am sorry she bailed on you. Did she specialise in autistic clients? You need a specialist therapist. And probably a very experienced one, or at least one who has a lot of autism-specific training and who is getting support from an advisor with a lot of autism experience.

Who evaluated your needs and referred you to her? You may be able to get a referral to someone more suitable.

TooBigForMyBoots has given a very clear explanation of why the therapist didn't get back to you, it would not have been the right thing to do.

Good luck finding the right person and the right kind of therapy.

Hi OP, I am also autistic so I understand the need for going into intense detail and struggling with sorting out the more important details from those that are less relevant. However you have had some good advice here and hope you can see how you could handle these things differently in future.
I agree that you need to see a therapist who is very experienced working with autistics, as traditional therapy does not always work for us. In the unlikely event you live in Essex, please pm me and I will provide you details of an excellent therapist who specialises in working with autistics and has close relatives with autism. He worked wonders with me unpicking the mess of my life.

Op I think the best thing to do is to try to draw a line under this if you can. You have so much stressful stuff going on right now and it sounds like she absolutely wasn’t the right person to help you. I hope you will be able to find a better person for you.

I hope the surgery goes ok

Psychologists and counselling psychologists tend to be more qualified than psychotherapists/counsellors. This website explains the differences in MH practitioners www.counselling-directory.org.uk/psychiatrists-psychologists-psychotherapists-counsellors.html#psychotherapist

I know this is slightly off topic. But having many autistic siblings and dealing with their behaviour. I often think “classic autistic” and if I said that on here I would be shot down,
But here everyone is saying the therapist should be totally in tune with dealing with autistic clients if that’s her MO.
But apparently labels are not cool.

Just confuses me.

OP "The day I got sacked - we were meant to meet on Zoom. I had a bad day all round where I had a lot of high emotion meetings - and lost control of my scheduling. I emailed first thing in the morning with an agenda; mid morning to apologise that I could not be on zoom for the arranged time. Then I got stressed up to the sky and pestered within my actual paid for slot whether she could take part of the session by phone. Like - just a nice reassuring call on a shitty day - I'd obviously lost my chance of the actual therapy session. She accepted the cancellation at lunchtime - but then did something else across my slot - and came back to me sending what I thought was the final email - saying that I know she wasn't required to do anything further for me once I'd cancelled my session - but that it was feeling harsh on my side to not retrieve anything positive at all out of the paid-for slot on a difficult day"

Have I got this right if I summarise this as

• you emailed agenda for the zoom session
• you later cancelled the zoom session
• you later asked for a phone call in your now cancelled zoom session
• all these events occurred on the same day?

It sounds as if the therapist had lost control of the boundaries OP.
A client should not feel they are overwhelming and too much.
If your emails were too frequent/too long she needed to tell you what was acceptable to her.
If you were asking something from her she didn’t feel was appropriate (ie a pep talk or advice) then she could have made this clear. If she had said RaineyMae I can’t deal with 6 emails a week. I can’t work this way and i don’t have time - then you would have known what was acceptable.

She could have reminded you that if you cancel last minute then she will need to rearrange the session and can’t fit you in for the Last 10 mins etc.
I have been for therapy and it was made very clear how she worked and what would happen in the event of cancellations. It was made clear at the start that sessions were to the hour exactly and there was no contact between (apart from ringing to rearrange/cancel sessions.). There was a form to take away each session to be completed and brought back next time with how I’d felt over the week (like a score card). The sessions felt safe because of the clear boundaries.

You sound overwhelmed (and that’s why you went to her ) but shouldn’t have been made to feel overwhelming. It says a lot about her and her ability to be consistent, explain clearly what her rules and regs are and keep the relationship in a containment situation.

I really hope your surgery goes well and you find someone who is better able to manage their therapeutic relationships more tightly and more professionally.

@Maia77

The client is not responsible for boundary management -the therapist is. The client should get a chance to have at least one last session. You don't terminate therapy via email. The client is a person in need of help, the therapist is the person who should put client's wellbeing first and carefully manage the ending, regardless of how overwhelmed the therapist is. I'm a therapist, so I know a bit about these things.

This ^ (though I"m not a therapist)

Some of the replies are coming across as quite attacking of the OP. Please bear in mind that she's in a vulnerable state.

Also, many therapists are good, some therapists are not and should not be in the profession.

[quote TooBigForMyBoots]Psychologists and counselling psychologists tend to be more qualified than psychotherapists/counsellors. This website explains the differences in MH practitioners www.counselling-directory.org.uk/psychiatrists-psychologists-psychotherapists-counsellors.html#psychotherapist[/quote]
Maybe more qualified, but not necessarily more experienced at working at the coalface, i.e. in the therapy room, perhaps?

@Tal45 - honestly - I'm here to clear some bad JuJu before I go under general anaesthetic tomorrow. It felt unlucky go under when I knew I was still internally carrying the upset about how things played out.

I don't see myself going back to therapy. I just have such low expectations of the whole thing now - I think I'm better off accepting that I just need to get my head down and focus on the DC. Do the best I can - even if I'm feeling overwhelmed and unsupported.

No idea about letting go more generally though. I accept that the therapeutic relationship had not future - but it honestly bothers me that it was left off with her thinking I behaved like a dick to her. It wasn't my finest hour - but I was doing my best with a lot of things that were wildly out of my comfort zone. It feels unfair and kind of personal - however much Pp are telling me that cutting annoying clients off without warning is within the professional remit of how a therapist operates.

IRL I take a lot of care of checking in with people to make sure I leave things smooth behind me, even if I can be a bit off-beat in the moment. That opportunity has been taken away - and it feels really weird. Like leaving the house with your hall rug all rucked up.

I’ve had three sets of counselling at different times in my life. The first person I saw was a qualified psychologist working as a counsellor and she was outstanding. The second individual was woeful and barely listened to me. The third was very good.

None of them noticed/engaged with the fact that I likely have adult ADHD. My experience is that the mental health professions are not always great at understanding or spotting neurodiversity. I have ND dc and now on the brink of going for a dx myself.