I Think I May Be About To Be Fired By Therapist. Not Sure What To Do.

[scout86]

I now feel a bit silly that I had whipped myself up into such a frenzy about this

I can relate to that ! Consider that the experience puts you in a good position to reassure someone else, when it happens to them. Because it will.

Glad to hear things worked out!

 

[joeylittle]

What a great outcome for you! No need to apologize or feel bad about posting... it's all part of the bigger process. I want to just pick up on something here:

Although she didn't "own" things, I think we have a better understanding of how we each approach certain things so, while I don't think she is going to change, I think now I understand her approach/point of view with some of this stuff, I don't think I will over-think things/mind-read so much in the future, so I don't think I will feel anxious about what things "mean".

I think her not 'owning' those specific things is the sign that your therapist is quite good, and has a healthy sense of managing herself within client expectations.

I've been thinking about this lately...outreach things on the part of the therapist are a two-way communication. It's easy for us to take what they say - like, "let's talk pre-op" - and have it turn into "they will reach out" in our minds. It could just as easily be accomplished, though, by the client making a point to reach out in advance. I don't mean that's what you should have done, and you did it wrong - not at all - I only mean that it's not necessarily her full responsibility to have done so, therefore it's not her full mistake to own...if that makes sense.

My therapist has sometimes walked this line with me, and in the moment, I have found it frustrating - say, if he says he will email me something and then doesn't. But - I am just as capable of emailing him to say, "you know that thing? Can you send it?" Only, I don't, because I endow him forgetting to send a supplementary email (something we all do pretty regularly in our work lives, I think) with meaning 'my therapist has forgotten his promise to me, and I should not bother him, because it will..." what? Make things worse? There's no worse, or better - there's just an email.

(I'm not sure if that analogy makes sense, but I'm hoping there's something in there that is saying what I mean.)

And exactly like you said, in the piece I quoted above: when we (clients) avoid mind reading, we help ourselves by not assigning meaning that isn't there.

Anyway - I think you have done a great job processing all this, and I can read the relief in your post, and am really glad for how it all turned out!

 

[Suzetig]

I now feel a bit silly that I had whipped myself up into such a frenzy about this and that I spent so much time and energy spewing my panic and anxiety all over the forum

Try to give yourself a break in this - it's what the forum is here for in part. Therapy is such hard work when it's done properly and the relationship is central to that, so any uncertainty in the relationship can be crazy making.

You've had a really vulnerable time of it and there was nothing you said was excessive or hysterical - it seemed to me you had some very real struggles with your T. Yes you can look now and see some mind reading going on and that'll stand you in good stead for the next time. I feel you've done a good job of processing it all and I'm glad things have worked out ok.

I do agree with @joeylittle, your T holding your issues and concerns without taking them as hers suggests she knows what she's doing in the relationship. A T who apologised and took every bit of conflict or criticism to heart wouldn't be steady enough to hold you.

I'm glad things went ok, you've been on my mind.

 

[barefoot]

Thanks @joeylittle - I appreciate your post.

I think her not 'owning' those specific things is the sign that your therapist is quite good, and has a healthy sense of managing herself within client expectations.

This is interesting and quite reassuring to read as I was actually a bit worried about posting my update here in case you would all think "you're an idiot - why have you just 'forgiven' her and gone back to her when she didn't own the things she dropped the ball on and she clearly isn't going to change and she's just way too inconsistent!" I was worried that you'd all think I was being very naive/a bit of a mug. Which probably means that *I* have been a bit worried about whether I am making a mistake and being a mug by just trotting back and feeling relieved that I haven't been dumped when her inconsistencies have really impacted me.

I think our conversation on Monday made me realise that there are lots more subtle nuances than I've ever really understood/appreciated between what she will/can do and what I would expect. We had a very long discussion about emails where we were totally on the same page about most of it - if it is a logistical/scheduling message, she will reply, whereas if it is more of a therapy content/psychological processing email she won't as she wants us to then process that together in session as that is better for me. So these are things I've always known, understood and been fine with. After lots and lots of discussion the other day, I finally realised where there is a gap in our approaches to email.

When she emailed and asked me how I was doing after the op, I said the op had gone well but then also included stuff in my reply about how triggered I had got and how horrendous it was and that I now feel really anxious. She replied but made no mention of the triggering incident or about how I was having a tough time emotionally as a result. I really wanted - and expected - that she would have acknowledged that. Not to get into it in any length, but just to say something like "sorry to hear that happened, that sounds awful, hope you're ok." Some kind of sentence that was just ...you know...caring. So that I didn't feel so alone with it.

Anyway....it transpired on Monday that a few words that I considered to be just showing she cared - which would then have meant I probably wouldn't have got myself in such a state thinking she didn't really care, she wasn't booking me in, she was going to fire me etc - to her counts as engaging in content/psychological processing. Hence, she didn't mention it. She actually said that she thought her caring was implicit - because she had read it, so knew what had happened and so, of course, would have felt for/with me about it.

I found it quite baffling at the time thinking how can her caring be implicit?! And why couldn't she just have put a sentence like that in her email?! I still don't interpret that sentence as "engaging with psychological content" - to me, it's just a kind thing to say. But I am not a therapist!

So I think that was a huge learning for me in this. I don't have to agree with her about whether such a sentence constitutes engaging with that kind of content. To her, it does. That's her position on it and is a firm boundary for her and she seems quite clear that it is in place to be more in service to me. So, now I know that, I can adjust my expectation and will (hopefully!) not lose my mind about it next time.

Sorry - I know that was quite a ramble about a very specific thing. But I think that one difference in our perspectives about something that first seems quite insignificant was leaving us poles apart in expectations and we were both then confused about how the other one was reacting.

outreach things on the part of the therapist are a two-way communication. It's easy for us to take what they say - like, "let's talk pre-op" - and have it turn into "they will reach out" in our minds. It could just as easily be accomplished, though, by the client making a point to reach out in advance.

Yes, I agree with you on this. When she said "let's touch base before the op" I did actually reach out to her the day before my op to try to make that happen and at that point she then said she couldn't. I guess, to be fair on her, because it was the day before the op, she had no way of suggesting an alternative day to do it as the op would have already happened by then. I think this also links into another thread I posted recently about why bother to express your needs. Identifying/expressing needs is quite new to me and I find it difficult. And part of that is also realising that, once you've identified and expressed a need, you then have to manage your feelings around the responses, including not getting that need met. I feel quite lost with that at the moment and don't feel I do that well at all - I just tend to feel angry, rejected, abandoned and like I shouldn't have asked in the first place. So this is also making me think I should speak to my therapist about that. And, I think after Monday's session and the things above that I've taken away from that, that feels more do-able to bring that up and hope that we could work on it together.

Thank you @joeylittle :-)

 

[barefoot]

I'm glad things went ok, you've been on my mind.

Thanks!
See....that's just the sort of thing I wanted my therapist to write in her email...! ;-)

 

[barefoot]

Consider that the experience puts you in a good position to reassure someone else, when it happens to them. Because it will.

Thanks @scout86 - that's a good point :-)
Thanks for your input here and on other threads!

 

[Suzetig]

I found it quite baffling at the time thinking how can her caring be implicit

I can understand why you feel baffled - I know for me accepting care as implicit is hard going because I don't expect anyone to care for me at all so caring and not telling me "I'm doing this because I care" means I don't recognise it. Partly because care was so mixed up in abuse that unless you're being harsh with me, it doesn't feel like care.

Of course I also don't trust explicit expressions of care because I don't see why anyone would care, and care isn't safe anyway - and it's a never ending circle. So, in "normal" relationships someone reading and responding to your email would be a caring thing to do and of course reading your email would bring to to mind and she'd give some thought to her reply. But in ptsd land it becomes something else - a professional duty, a role, manipulation - anything but care because why would she care and if she did she would say so.

The therapy relationship has been one of the most crazy making things for me - because I've slowly had to face the fact that I do relationships completely differently from most of the population, that other people don't second guess every single gesture someone makes, isn't waiting for the virtual or literal slap, is able to share of themselves, and do expect to be loved and accepted as they are. And I've learned that by challenging and being challenged, by overthinking things my T does and says, by mind reading, testing the relationship to the n'th degree. And by accepting that she's a safe, caring, trustworthy person in my life.

Implicit care, when you've never experienced that, is truly baffling - you're not alone.