What made you end your sessions with your counsellor?

[Nandistoe]

Just that really, I have been seeing someone for 18 months and credit counselling with helping me end my EA marriage.

A couple of things have been said recently where I have thought WTF.

I think things might have run their course with this particular counsellor. It’s my first experience of counselling so I am not sure how normal this is. It felt right for me for a long time but the first time something was suggested that really wasn’t me it made me wonder who they were, I saw that they would probably respond to the situation in that way, which I would never do.

Second time I was just 😳 at their suggestion, I have got past 50 without ever considering it.

Hard to say I know without facts. I have mentioned it to my parents who both thought WTF (in a polite M&D way).

Both very personal, both made me doubt myself a little bit which isn’t really what I need when trying to rebuild my life after my marriage.

I just felt that I had got what I needed and felt able to move on from them. I don't know if that's any help? Was more a 'I don't need you now" moment.

You can end counselling whenever you want.

You do not need permission or a reason but it’s hard to judge what triggered your WTF reaction without more context.

I think it’s hard to give a response without some details OP... maybe name change (if you haven’t) and do that?

It might be time for a break from counselling, or a new counsellor for the next phase of your life.

I've had some great counsellors who I've moved on from when the time felt right or I moved away. I went to a couples counsellor years ago with my ex and we really seemed to irritate her! She scolded us both and one day snapped, "Maybe you should just break up!" We stopped going after that and I did explain why.

Knowing the comments would be helpful. They may be out of line and an indication the counselor is off track/ it's worth leaving ASAP.

However, it is also worth considering that counseling can have a role in helping us challenge our beliefs and get to vulnerable places we are resistant to looking at. Talking through the comments and your reaction to that could help you understand if that is what is happening.

If you have had a positive and useful/ healing 18 months with this counselor it seems like it would be worth exploring with them - even if your decision is that you no longer need the counseling, talking through leaving openly and doing it in a way that gives you healthy closure will probably be useful.

I had three years with a therapist who helped me hugely. But at some point I just stopped feeling a huge need for it. I had grown enough and improved my life enough. I had an instinct to get angry with him over random things in the closing period - it was a way of separating myself but also avoiding the pain of leaving a relationship that was important for me. Talking about that as we went through it was very helpful.

Bored of going to be honest and l was sick of spending the money. A lot of our issues are generated by our fertility issues and no doctor can find anything wrong with either of us so that just rolls on.

Got up and left when the therapist asked me to acknowledge what I had done that caused my "D"P to cheat on me with prostitutes.

Honestly I have gone to counselling for the infidelity in the relationship and previously for depression (brought on by bereavement) eventually was diagnosed with mild PTSD. Best thing I ever did was read various forums for support and got a book on emotional regulation exercises that did more for me in a week than months of counselling that involved her staring blankly at me asking how I felt then being bored with my replies. Have had awful luck with the two counsellors I went too.

@ChuckleBuckles wow! How tactless, wrong and unprofessional of them. To be honest l would have reported them to their professional body for that.

@EL8888 Honestly at the time I just didn't even have the strength to report them, I was on my knees mentally and emotionally. It seems like the quality of service varies wildly in the profession.

I abandoned one after the third session because I couldn't get a word in edgeways.

@ChuckleBuckles yes, l see why you may have felt like that. The standard varies massively. Sadly there are a lot of charlatans out there.

Would have done it forever if it wasn’t so expensive! Felt sickened by the cost after 10 sessions so called it a day. By that stage I had got a lot out of it, but principle reason for stopping was the money.

Similar to a pp. The counsellor asked me to consider what I had done to cause my husband to have an affair.

A couple of reasons. It's expensive to be in therapy/counselling plus I felt as though our sessions had run their course and had began to segue in life coaching. I didn't want that at the time and ended my sessions. I must say, it was less stressful finishing up counselling than finishing with a partner .

First one, just felt ready and ready to move on after my trauma.
Second one, was at relate. I felt the sessions were a waste of time. I learnt nothing from them and the counsellor was a bit "wet". As h wasn't interested in attending it was a waste of money too.

It was expensive. I was moving away from the immediate area. She had started to say things about my relationship with my parents that made me feel uneasy, as if she was trying to undermine the validity of my perceptions, and I didn't like it.

The words that finished it were 'It's OK to feel bad' - words that have to be in the right context to mean anything at all. If I could have established that 'feeling bad' was a normal reaction to changing circumstances I would have accepted this little aphorism. Instead I suspected that I felt bad because my perceptions and understanding were about to be trampled on and the words were an attempt on her part to escape responsibility.

I don't regret walking out. Lots of diary writing and self-help reading material helped me more in the end.

The first one behaved inappropriately towards me (verbally) so I stopped seeing him.

The second one argued with everything I said and didn't believe what I told her. I know therapists are supposed to challenge assumptions but after my sessions with her I was exhausted and very upset that she didn't believe my story.

Depending on the “model” of counselling and your financial circumstances, 18 months sounds like a v long time to do counselling.

I one did about 9 months every 2 weeks for help with fertility issues and then pregnancy - spilled over into other issues too - which really helped me at a v difficult time.

Have also done a couple of much shorter stints for specific issues / lows to help me find a way through and be OK enough to work/parent OK.

All v useful, all BACP qualified counsellors. It was expensive.

When she told me I was emotionally retarded (she dug at me till I was close to tears but I don't like crying in front of people). I already had really low self esteem (it was for an eating disorder) and didn't need something else wrong about me I could hate myself for. I think I could do with some more counselling now but it's put me off!

I went for counselling as a family situation had got too much and I needed help. I was stuck in the middle of Supporting my parents hating my SIL ( SIL is mean) and supporting my brother.

I was looking for guidance and processing the situation. Basically the counsellor said I couldn’t see the situation from my point, always telling the story from other views. She then started asking me questions about my childhood and said it was my mums fault why I couldn’t process my feelings. She used the word traumatic for one episode.

I had a normal childhood. Although my mum was very protective and pushed for us to have the best education. She paid fior private school and I didn’t like it. Took a few years to convince my mum I wanted to be at a state schooL with my friends, which she agreed after 4 years. That was the traumatic event.

I went away from the session hating my mum, which I had never done. Next session I discussed this with the counsellor and she said that was normal, process it.

I never went back as the episode I needed help with made me hate my mum, due to the word traumatic. I processed it with friends and realised that my mum was trying to do good when I was a child. My mum has always been supportive, so I hated the counsellor for making me hate my mum.

Maybe I didn’t need it

I have a few gems, having been in some form of therapy for most of my life. (Often at my DM's insistence, which is a whole other barrel of monkeys.)

I had one who talked about herself for at least half of every single session. She also didn't keep any kind of organised accounts and needed me to remember how much I owed her. (I wanted to pay what I owed, and really would have liked to have a reliable billing system so I didn't have to worry about accidentally falling short.)

One who tried to sell me Herbalife when I disclosed that I was taking a course of Omeprazole for stress dyspepsia. "You can't put all those CHEMICALS in your body ..." She specialised in working with cancer patients! (She also interrupted me when I was talking about my severe work stress to give me her daughter's CV.)

One (psychotherapist in training) who listened to what I said and then fed me back a very polished narrative explaining everything that was wrong with me. It was a stressful time in my life and this made me feel completely powerless. When I respectfully ended the sessions both, she and her supervisor put me under pressure, claiming, among other things, that I simply didn't understand that therapy was meant to challenge you. (Again, been in therapy for the best part of my forty years.)

I have also had some absolutely terrific ones. Without exception, these were either in the brief periods when I could afford to pay for a really top-class therapist, or had access to a university clinic, and they were all psychoanalytic psychotherapists. Evidently, when it comes to therapy, I have a type! :)

It kinda seemed a good idea to knock it on the head when I turned up 3 weeks running and had the counsellor offloading all of her problems. I think she had more issues than me

Thank you for sharing all your experiences.

Depending on the “model” of counselling and your financial circumstances, 18 months sounds like a v long time to do counselling.

You can’t judge the length of time or whether it’s appropriate though can you without knowing me, my experiences and what I needed help with.

Divorcing an EA man can be more difficult to being married to him IME.

It isn’t cheap but I make the money available. At one point I reduced the frequency to monthly but am current going every two weeks.

One of the comments was about It being time for me ‘putting myself out there to have a bit of casual fun with men’, not me and not what I want. I wondered if that was what my counsellor might do in my position but it really isn’t me.

The real WTF comment was suggesting I ‘might be a little bit autistic’ because I have very firm views about not allowing XH into my home full stop.

I think that most people only allow what they want to happen in their own home. I do have fixed views on that - I won’t change them either!

XH has an ASD diagnosis - we have obviously discussed it and how it can make things tricky.

Hi OP.
What kind of a counsellor is s/he? I wonder at the directive nature of the comments. Is there any chance that something you had said made her wonder if these were possibilities for you? Otherwise I am a bit baffled by it.

That said, 18 months is a long time, and I wonder if you have another option other than stop seeing this counsellor? Do you think this is something that you could talk through? It might be helpful to do that even if you did decide to end the relationship.