Devices In Therapy?

[Red Shoe Girl]

Does your phone or your T's phone go off or buzz? What do you do?
Has anyone any experiences?
Mine says she leaves it on when one of her clients is having an emergency and might need to ring but am I being selfish that I don't want any phones in my session?

 

[digger]

I have my phone on silent while I'm with my T and so does she. The only time she hasn't was one time she got a new phone and couldn't work out how to set it to silent properly :D It buzzed (which is how I know she usually puts it on silent) and she was very apologetic about it.

Your time with your T should be your time. Not your time and anyone else's who might call her. It's not selfish at all to both want, and expect, that level of attention and focus from your T.

 

[Casper1018]

My T always has her phone next to her and looks at it every time it goes off. She has a hubby on a heart transplant list so she has to. It doesn't bother me at all BC I know why she does it. If it was for any other reason, I think it would bother me.

 

[Suzetig]

My T never brings her phone to session and mine is in my bag on silent. Your session should be your time with her focussed on you. If other clients are in crisis she needs to agree other supports for them - I would struggle to work they way I need to in therapy if I thought her attention was elsewhere.

 

[scout86]

I leave my phone in my car. I just refuse to be 100% accessible 100% of the time. He DOES leave his phone on when one of his clients is in some kind of crisis. I don't mind because I know he'd do the same thing if it was me. Once in awhile, he forgets to turn it off, or has it on vibrate and then sitting on a table where you can hear it vibrate. He's a bit absent minded. I like him anyway. Not a big deal to me. It would definitely bother me if I thought he was paying more attention to the phone than to what he was supposed to be doing.

 

[barefoot]

I put mine on silent and I don't have it on vibrate. I'm pretty sure my therapist turns hers right off and doesn't just put it on silent. She has definitely never looked at her phone when we've been in a session and I wouldn't be impressed if she did.

Well, actually...the only time she has looked at her phone has been something like if we were discussing an email and then she wanted to actually get the email up in front of her, so she'd pick her phone up to do that - but that's for something to do with me, not checking her phone to see if someone else has got in touch with her. And the few times she has done that, she has always apologised in advance for if any messages bip through when she switches her phone back on.

At the end of the session, I generally fiddle with my phone a bit while I get my stuff together and she often switches her phone back on while I'm still in the room. But she checks with me and, again, apologises for any messages that might ping through and make a noise. And I'm fine with that - I guess she quickly checks in between appointments to see if anyone has called/texted/emailed to cancel an appointment or because they're in a crisis.

I wouldn't be fine with hearing messages pinging through or her phone vibrating or ringing or with her checking her phone during my session to see if anyone has contacted her or to read a message that's come through. I don't think that's on at all. It's my time so I expect her attention to be on me. I don't think that's selfish or unreasonable.

I think if she asked in a session if she could leave her phone on because, let's say, a member of her family was having an emergency op and she was waiting on a text from someone to confirm they were out of surgery or something...I think I'd be fine with that and say of course keep it on. But I really can't imagine her ever doing that.

She is often late starting sessions - something I don't generally mind too much. And I usually assume it's because she overruns but, thinking on it now, it might be because she's spotted an SOS from a client in crisis when she checks messages between sessions, so perhaps she calls them then and then ends up starting her next session late. I can easily live with that (I know others may not be able to and that not keeping to time would be a much bigger deal for them than it is for me) but wouldn't feel ok about phone intrusions once we'd actually started a session.

Are you wanting to raise this with her?

 

[Panda Bear]

My T has his phone off during sessions. He never takes calls etc during sessions. I think it's vibrated a few times in 4yrs.

We had a snow storm a few years ago, and his wife was picking up there kids early from school. He asked if it was okay for him text his wife to make sure they got home safe.

 

[rainbow1]

I always turn my phone off and so does T. I once left it on vibrate and when it went off I shot off the chair as I got such a fright. I apologised to T though for forgetting. Your time with your T should not be interrupted by someone else. I sort of think its bad manners.

 

[Friday]

Selfish? Yes.
Wrong? No.

 

[expectingbetter]

I switch mine every time bcs any distraction from it would make me even more nervous than I actually am.
But couple of times I heard my T's phone, mostly the message sound and she even answered few times those messages without nothing more than simply apology, I think she mentioned me a reason but it was so ordinary like smbd wanted to move a session and it was impossible so she answered but for me that wasn't important enough to interrupt my session.
In addition to that, once happened that she even answered a call during my appointment, not even telling me the reason why.
I find such behaviour offending as I have strong sense that I should be completely respected at least from her but also I have a problem to confront with anybody so I didn't say anything and luckily it hasn't happened again, at least the situation with a call.
I simply have already enough issues, mine, and also in my relation with her, that I can't bother myself with this thing which is trivial in contrast to everything else.
But I do agree with you that it's only your time and the time you actually paid for, and you are not selfish by all means for not wanting to share that time. It's your right to ask from her to switch the phone if you want it. But of course if she just does it that way she is available in every given moment to her clients than the only thing you can do is to take the advantage of the situation bcs then she would also be there for you whenever you might need her.
Mine for example is not, she has never mentioned to me if I could call her in any situation if I needed her, the only thing she mentioned is communication via mail, despite the fact she is answering the phone while she is working with me.
But people are simply people. We must learn to deal with that.

 

[EveHarrington]

I don't think you're selfish.

I believe that a therapist who leads her clients to believe that she is there for them 24/7 is a therapist who creates a dependency dynamic. Most therapists will only return calls between sessions, even in emergency situations. And if it was a true emergency, the client should be calling 911, not their therapist. There are very few situations where it's an actual emergency when a client can't wait 50 minutes maximum for a return call.