Therapist’s child interrupting during session

[CoupleTrouble]

My DH and I have been struggling for over a year. Last year, after I’d been to see a solicitor about a divorce, I agreed to couple therapy to see if we could salvage things/ have a more amicable separation. We’ve been meeting a very reputable relationship therapist weekly since then. She is a well known expert, holds a senior NHS post as well as a private practice and has written a well regarded book. I thought we were in safe hands and maybe we are and I am
over reacting to a one off emergency, hence this post.

We see her privately, online from our home and she is online in her home. She usually has breaks from work during school
holidays, half term etc. We have also said we can’t have sessions when children are at home. I work in healthcare, sometimes I work from home but not in school
holidays as I could be overheard and it would feel like a breach of confidentiality to my patients and also a safeguarding issue for my children to over hear. Some
of my work is with sex offenders, much more is with people who have experienced assaults, and I am also a survivor of sexual assault, it was many, many years ago, but I’m mentioning it as my boundaries may be unusually strict.

Yesterday was our last couple therapy session before a long summer break over the school holidays. Unusually we were talking about sex. It was a very adult conversation and I spoke freely, assuming it was just the three of us who could hear the conversation. Suddenly she said she had to come off the link for a few minutes but that we’d add a few minutes on at the end. When she reconnected the link she said one of her children had been stung by a bee. My DH and I were both quite surprised but both really understanding to her, checking if she was ok and if she was ok to continue. She said she would be responsible for that. We also both mentioned times that our DC have interrupted work. My job involves a lot of putting people at ease and I think I just went into that mode. We both expressed concern for the child who has been stung and were conscious that she might not have an adult with her. The therapist then said we’d have to end at the usual time, after having said she’d add a few minutes. To be honest as it was a hurt child, we were both totally fine with it. I think I was expecting her to reschedule the rest of the session after this happened but maybe that’s my expectations out of kilter.

Today I feel distinctly uneasy. Although my children have rarely interrupted my work, it has always been non clinical work, completely non patient facing, related to a totally different role in another organisation. I have had children off ill from school and either cancelled online clinics or my DH has taken a day off to look after them, and I’ve made arrangements to work from a different location. I’ve never had sole care of a child while also working in a clinical role. It would feel inappropriate. For context my DC are 11 and 14, so could be left on a sofa with a film but I wouldn’t in case they eg vomited or had a fever or needed me for something if they were off sick. I wouldn’t take them in to the clinic base while I did in person work, so I’ve applied the same rule for home and thought everyone does similarly.

I realise paid therapy is different but I had always assumed that her children are at school when we meet. I’m now feeling quite distressed that her child might have heard me talking about my sex life. It feels like a boundary violation and potentially a child protection issue to me. I have no idea how old her DC are, but definitely school age, from her age I’d guess not older teens but hard to be sure. I have struggled with some other aspects of therapy, in particular her neutral stance when we’ve spoken about things that feel deeply misogynistic to me and it’s made me unsure about how power issues and dynamics might be dealt with or avoided. Other than this, we have found her helpful to talk to, my DH more so than me.

Am I over reacting? I feel as if I’d like to write her a note but we don’t usually have any contact between sessions apart from the admin related to booking appointments and receiving the links. Please be kind, I feel quite shaken and know that my reaction may be disproportionate because of my own experiences.

I think that you can ask to put your mind at rest but I wouldn’t assume that the child could have overheard without proof.

I often work from home (in a possibly similar role to yours) and although no children at home, Dh is often about. My office is private and we’ve tested whether I/others can be heard outside of my office. I’m happy that we can’t.
He might send a text in an absolute emergency but wouldn’t otherwise so if I get a text I know it’s probably something serious and will excuse myself. Maybe that’s what’s happened here?

It’s important that you communicate your feelings with your therapist. It might be innocent. She might be shit. You won’t know unless you ask.

As yet, counselling and psychotherapy are not regulated profession in the UK.

Op your therapist was unprofessional bringing her personal life into your session, and you would be well within your rights to enquire about privacy and the possibility of children overhearing.

Sorry to add for clarification, my DH and I had asked not to have sessions when our children are in the house, not hers. Our home isn’t soundproof and I believe in keeping adult conversations between adults.

If she is working she should have childcare in place even if the children are in the same house. I’ve worked as a therapist online from home and the workspace has to be totally private, neutral and completely undisturbed by domestic events. Privacy means all the elements set down by her professional body and the ICO; session discussions, recordings, written notes, files, supervision notes: none of it should be visible or audible. No client should feel compromised and worried about privacy.

If she can’t guarantee who is close by while she’s working then she should at least be wearing headphones and probably should find somewhere else to work online.

I have no idea why therapists ever thought it was okay to embrace the WFH movement the way they did.
I loved my sessions with my therapist, but after lockdown she moved all her sessions to online only and I ended up breaking up with her.

For me, it always felt like there was an element of distraction there, plus there was a sense of safety and connection that couldn't be recreated without the physical space. Also, walking to and from the therapy was actually part of the process flr me. I have two friends who ended things with their therapists due to stuff like this: constant technical issues, interruptions, etc. My therapist started forgetting or moving sessions around more easily than she did when we had physical sessions.

Ive actually started using Claude for therapy now and am finding "him" quite useful 😅

In short YANBU

The fact that she doesn't wear headphones makes a considerable difference imo. Are you sure she didn't have earbuds?

I would raise this if I were you. Totally reasonable to take privacy and no risk of being overheard! That's such a key aspect of therapy.

And it would be completely understandable if (assuming she's definitely not using earbuds) this has irreparably broken your feeling of safety/trust.

Definitely no earbuds.

I think there are 2 quite separate issues here

1. The interruption: I think the interruption was reasonable. If an adult colleague in another private, sound proofed, office had been stung by a bee, they might still have needed help. They might have gone into anaphylactic shock and needed your counsellor to administer urgent medical aid. Yes ok, the child maybe need some more reassurance, but I don't think it's reasonable to say that someone is unprofessional to have their child at home while they work in case the child experiences a freak potential medical emergency which an adult might experience too!

2. I absolutely would be asking how she can be 100% sure that her child can't hear your discussions if they can walk into the room when they are stung by a bee! If she hasn't got a good answer for that, I would be finding a new councillor and also, if possible, be reporting this one to a councillor regulation body, for lacking confidentiality in sessions.

I think it’s a leap to assume that just because there were children in the same building she was working in, they could necessarily overhear the session. I think it’s really unlikely any therapist would have that sort of set-up. It seems more probable that her children are old enough not to need childcare, but on being stung by a beee they panicked a little and came looking for help, and so she - appropriately - paused the session. The fact that they held up a note rather than just barging into the room suggests that (a) they’re not very young kids, and (b) they’re well aware that these sessions are private and can’t be interrupted willy-nilly.

I think there are few separate issues here. One is that you are worried about being overheard. I would email her that as she wasn’t wearing headphones and it turned out that there was her child in the house who came freely to get her you were worried that child could overhear your conversation. And also you were worried that doing childcare at the same time was a distraction for her. And then see what would she answer.
The second issue is that your trust is affected. So I would use this time until September (and her answer to your questions) to think how you feel about it. Tbh I wouldn’t return myself as you needed complete trust for this sort of things. I had therapy online and it never even occurred to me that we could be overheard or therapist could be distracted. I just didn’t think about it for a second, my therapist never gave me a reason for any doubt and that should be the case.

@SayLaveeetbh I agree with you. As a therapist I much prefer face to face because there is a lot more information available and it’s easier to communicate. Online work can cause problems because even if you can control your own environment you can’t control the environment the client is in and often they have poor Wi-Fi etc. Or the only private space is their car and they want to balance their phone on the dashboard in the Tesco car park or something like that and of course it might be their only option. I normally find out what kind of space they will be in before I offer sessions as I want them to get maximum benefit from sessions and it’s just too much of a compromise if they have family members listening in, no privacy or other impracticalities.

We all got driven online by Covid and many still offer it, but online work is only very occasional for me these days. I think some therapists want to work online only because they don’t want to pay to rent a space. Working online shouldn’t be an excuse to treat any aspect of the session more casually though.

The fact that they held up a note rather than just barging into the room suggests that (a) they’re not very young kids, and (b) they’re well aware that these sessions are private and can’t be interrupted willy-nilly

And c. She frequently conducts therapy sessions while her children are at home.

Totally unprofessional and I don’t see how the child couldn’t have heard what was being said as they approached the room.

Perhaps she has a sound proof room she works in.

Surely it’s also a child safeguarding issue! She can’t control what her clients say, especially on the subject of sex 🤯

You describe your reasoning in a very articulate way. You would be wholly reasonable to raise the questions you have with her in an email before September. It has clearly upset you and made you feel uncomfortable which is entirely understandable. Some patients might not have given what happened a second thought but you have due to your own work and the standards you apply and you’re not wrong to explore this with her.

You've missed the point. The OP wasn't particuarly concerned with a break in the session - shit happens. She's concerned that the session wasn't confidential and private. She's concerned that a child overheard her and her DH talking openly about their sex life. The postman didn't hear you sharing your inner most thoughts I assume?

Therapist here. It’s unprofessional. Sometimes things happen in sessions, including interruptions, but she should not have sole responsibility for a child while working. I would also be concerned that it was hard for her to give full attention if she had a child in another room. When I work online, I usually talk about privacy, so I would definitely mention it to her. If her child was off sick, I would expect her to re-arrange.

I disagree. Is completely unprofessional to have a child present during such sessions, And of course she should make up the time you've paid for even if it's at a later date. Or reduce her fee. She sounds like an absolute chancer.

The therapeutic frame has been breached. The therapist hasn't contained that psychological space properly as she has not safeguarded against interruptions. It's a big deal to be interrupted during therapy, and the way you feel is completely normal considering that. It's basically the first thing a therapist is taught.

Therapists are humans, yes. But if they fuck up the frame, they need to repair it.

It isn't really your job to do that, in fact I don't think a client can. It changes the dynamic to one where you're taking care of her.

The only way you can do your part is by being completely honest about how that made you feel. If she's truly worth her salt, she will warmly acknowledge and understand how you feel, apologise, reassure you, and then put things in place so it doesn't happen again.

Do you think if she did that, you could move on and continue to talk openly with her?

Thank you. This has really helped me. I was worried about being overheard, not least because I feel protective about keeping conversations about sex away from the therapist’s child and that puts me in professional mode, rather than the ‘talking freely to a helping person’ mode. It’s the latter I’m paying for and expect.

There are lots of jobs where people can't take their children along. The OP doesn't expect her therapist to have children in the vicinity of her therapy sessions (and would obviously rather cancel a session if unavoidable childcare was needed). It's entirely reasonable for OP to check her therapist is employing the same boundaries.

I’d find this very unprofessional and I’d find myself another therapist. Although if you have been doing this a while and you are still very unhappy would a divorce be a better next step.

I’d drop a very brief but gentle email to say you are concerned her child may have been privy to your private discussion yesterday and could she pls put your mind at rest. Im
with the fact she’s only human but you were also cut short.

Thank you for explaining the situation so eloquently. It’s helped me a lot to think of the frame and it isn’t something I’d really considered in that way before.

I think, when both my DH and I were saying to her ‘are you ok to continue’ we were essentially saying, ‘this doesn’t feel so great to launch back in to now’ but because we were over halfway through the last session for a couple of months, we carried on. Maybe I’m wrong about him, but that’s how I felt.

Honestly, I’m not sure if I would still work with her as I have had a couple of other reservations. In the contexts of quite longstanding interpersonal boundary issues of my own, I’m trying to develop better boundaries in my adult life. Mine weren’t respected as a child or young adult and it’s created a few issues along the way. This unfortunately rekindles a few old issues.

Does she wear head phones? I work from home and wear head phones so my family can’t hear anything that anyone else is saying