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

After she cancelled I sent a short apology email immediately followed by a box of chocolates and an apology card in the post.

Two weeks later I emailed requesting a termination session.

I've had silence - so not a sign off 'good wishes sorry it didn't work' or any kind of onwards signposting.

I really pissed her off basically - which is sad - and of course reasonable that she doesn't want to work with me any more - but she was my therapist not my friend. I'm bruised that there wasn't a more solid protocol to handle 'vulnerable person got upset' scenario.

Too much, just way too much.

You can not unravel an entire life by bombardment of emails.

You need face to face and I suggest once or twice weekly for a year.

LateAtTate
I see your point, but I also think that people who aren't in emotionally stable places tend not to give an accurate appraisal of their own actions, behaviour, and words.

The OP says she was fired by email for being overwhelming, so I would imagine the therapist has cancelled the professional relationship appropriately.

The OP seems to view their relationship with their therapist as being half like a friend who should give a go girl pep talk, and half as an employee who needs to be told how to do their job, how to read multiple emails, expected to jump on demand. Their behaviour sounds unreasonable and overwhelming, which is why the therapist ended the relationship. I would imagine if much further contact occurred after that, the poor therapist would have heard about why they're wrong and they just need to understand the emails more, read them better, give more pep talk etc.

She fired you? Is it not the other way round? Are you not the client?

I understand why you feel hurt. But can you understand why they might have come to the point where they did what they did? Or not.
It’s that aspect that’s quite simple. Can you empathise with their quandary.

@TotorosCatBus

The two meetings in the rest of the day were to do with delicate situations around my DC that none of my IRL friends were aware of.

The previous several sessions I had in great detail discussed the situation around my DC - so she felt like a perfectly plausible person to reassure me that I was capable and competent in doing what I needed to do for the DC.

It wasn't just a random wobble.

I think it's at least partially her fault for not setting clear boundaries especially if you were paying for the reading time. And very unprofessional to just cut you off without a final session imo.

At the same time she's entitled to feel overwhelmed/unequipped to deal with a patient.

You don’t know how the therapist saw it though. You say you weren’t threatening or aggressive but you emailed her every single day, then when she said she was not comfortable with how the relationship was going you sent a card and chocolates to her home.

It isn’t appropriate to send items to the home of a professional who has already told you you are overwhelming to them.

For my money - yes you were overwhelming, but it was totally unprofessional to say so.

What she should have said is something like - having given the matter due consideration, I have decided I am not the right therapist for you.

Blah di blah and given you signposting to find another therapist.

Your ex therapist is NOT ghosting you. They are - belatedly - setting boundaries and sticking to them. It’s unfortunate they didn’t do that from the get go, but they are right to do so now.

Your inability to reflect on this is really telling. You have behaved terribly.

[quote RaineyMae]@Cocomarine - I thought the only excuse for cutting someone off without onwards referrals or a close-out chat was if they were threatening or aggressive.

It's hurtful to feel that I have been categorised that way. That's what I mean by character assassination

Sure I was a lot - it's a lot this side of the screen too - but I was doing my best in good faith.[/quote]
No, both the client and therapist have the right to walk away from the client-therapist relationship if it isn't working for them. You also absolutely have this right with a therapist! It doesn't mean you are saying they are a 'bad' therapist (or vice versa), just that it isn't a good fit somehow.

It doesn't sound like character assassination, just that the therapist has found the interactions overwhelming and decided it was necessary to end the therapeutic relationship.

I really suggest you try another therapist and work through your feelings about what happened in a session with them instead, it will be much more productive than trying to resurrect a therapeutic relationship that the therapist doesn't want to continue.

You sound very stressed op.

But from the responses you have received can you now see that your communications with her were not reasonable?

It sounds like you need to pay for 2-3 sessions a week if you need/want that much input from a counsellor.

I'm actually reminded of the time I quit my job because of my boss's horrible behaviour.

He bought me a cake and made a huge deal out of his 'nice gesture', and asked why I had 'stopped loving him'. It was an obvious attempt to get me to withdraw my notice as he was understaffed.

Being on the receiving end of an unwanted gift when you've tried to terminate any kind of relationship feels very uncomfortable.. even a bit like stalking (not the same but the sense of your boundaries being fucked with).

[quote RaineyMae]@TotorosCatBus

The two meetings in the rest of the day were to do with delicate situations around my DC that none of my IRL friends were aware of.

The previous several sessions I had in great detail discussed the situation around my DC - so she felt like a perfectly plausible person to reassure me that I was capable and competent in doing what I needed to do for the DC.

It wasn't just a random wobble.[/quote]
I don't think a therapist's role is to reassure you that you are capable and confident in what you are doing, btw, or to give pep talks.

Going forward OP - I think you need to grasp the formal therapy format better. Definitely no presents ever.

The email format seems to be eroding boundaries and triggering over-sharing.

Sounds to me like you could do with a couple of appointments per week F2F to cover all the relevant ground.

You don't to have to write down your back history - it can be covered in the sessions.

@Taliskerskye I can empathise why she might not have wanted to keep working with me.

I honestly can't understand why she wouldn't have put another hour into closing off the relationship in a way which is not so damaging for me.

People talking about 'talk to your next therapist' make it sound like picking up a new pair of shoes. It takes a lot of emotional and financial investment to find a therapist and get to the point of having meaningful stuff going on with them. It's completely irrational for me to take that risk again if in my mind I'm labelled as a 'nightmare client'.

For sure it would make sense for her to stop the conversations cold. But the contract is that she had a duty of care to me - and I don't think that was delivered.

In the kindest way possible.

The hour would have been wasted. You’re not getting it here and you wouldn’t have got it when she told you either.

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.

@TatianaBis I originally asked her for a double length session - so that I wasn't always leaving feeling like I'd got cut off mid flow.

She declined that - which slipped into me writing what I would have said in a longer session into a follow on email. Rather than just hold it in my head for a week iyswim

That then went into the emails being written into the contract.

Reading back - you actually fired her.

One thing I learned in therapy was taking responsibility for my own actions.

An apology is fine, and if the other person does not accept that you have to deal with it.

She should have set out boundaries - saying an hours pay on top for emails was ridiculous on her part.

To me, you sound like you have fixated on her to sort your life out. Only you can do that - with the help of the right therapist. You two were not a right fit - but you will find the right one.

I wish you all the best.

[quote RaineyMae]@TotorosCatBus

The two meetings in the rest of the day were to do with delicate situations around my DC that none of my IRL friends were aware of.

The previous several sessions I had in great detail discussed the situation around my DC - so she felt like a perfectly plausible person to reassure me that I was capable and competent in doing what I needed to do for the DC.

It wasn't just a random wobble.[/quote]
It sounds like you wanted her on speed dial to be your emotional crutch and after a week of tsunami emails she probably realised your needs were beyond her professional capability. So I don't think she's being unprofessional in that regard, but actually very wise.

And what would've happened if she had given you a concluding session – would you have accepted her wishes to terminate or argued the toss with her? I'm suspecting the latter.

[quote RaineyMae]@Cocomarine - I thought the only excuse for cutting someone off without onwards referrals or a close-out chat was if they were threatening or aggressive.

It's hurtful to feel that I have been categorised that way. That's what I mean by character assassination

Sure I was a lot - it's a lot this side of the screen too - but I was doing my best in good faith.[/quote]
It would be worth you re-visiting your interpretation here.

You’ve ended up telling us that you were on the receiving end of a character assassination.

Is it not more likely that you were just on the receiving end of a therapist not following good practice, because they weren’t good at their job?

I got expelled by mine for having BPD (which she diagnosed) and as such I am unfixable and a waste of time. Funny as fuck. She was a complete bellend.

It's about the boundaries around time management of sessions, sending a last-minute agenda on the day, cancelling, trying to uncancel, sending emails about it, sending the chocolates.

This, that’s a huge amount of contact even if emails had been agreed. You were paying her for an additional hour to read your emails - 6 emails in a week unless very very short is more than an hours work especially if you’re looking for her opinion, which means she can’t just skim because she might miss something important. Besides which, therapy is done in session - by talking, exploring and in your relationship with her.

I’ve never had a Cliebt email me an agenda the morning of the session and if you cancel your session you lose that time. It does sound like you were looking for more than a weekly session with any therapist could give you.

In saying that, I would have redrawn the boundaries (eg one email per week of x length that I knew I could read and give due attention to in the hour), reinforced boundaries in between session contact and setting an agenda beforehand and seen if you could work with that. In saying that, she may have formed the view based on her work with you that such tight boundaries wouldn’t work, and that she couldn’t offer you what you need and in that case she was right to end with you.

Continuing to contact her with chocolates etc is a huge boundary breach.

@thecognoscenti

I don't think there's anything identifying here OP. Except perhaps to your therapist. Do you want the thread pulled because other posters haven't universally agreed with your POV?

I suspect you have hit the nail on the head