Is my therapist tired of me?

[Skywatcher]

Last week, my therapist yelled at me and said “I call bullshit” twice. This was in reference to me not doing self care and making an effort to follow the things I’ve learned how to do. My sensitive personality felt threatened. I pushed back saying that I forgot about my list. Younger parts were scared. I ended up dissociating and was in and out of it the following week. I felt hurt and confused. Fearful at start of today’s appointment. She told me that she had “challenged me” on purpose. I’ve been seeing this therapist for a very long time. I’m worried that she is tired of me and giving up. I don’t know what to do. I hate to have another full week of bad feelings and worry.

 

[Movingforward10]

That sounds really really challenging. And I would be feeling and thinking the same.
But: I very much doubt they have grown tired of you.
It's far more likely that you can take what they said at face value: that they were challenging you.
Which, by the sound of the impact it has on you, was a miscalculation on their part. They missed you. Or challenged you too much. It wasn't what you needed in that moment and it has had this horrible unsettling result.
It's a rupture. Made out of their misstep.

Can you tell your T how this has made you feel?when my T has done something like that, she usually apologises after we have spoken about it and she understands how it impacted me. That helps to rebuild trust, repair the rupture, and move on.

Edit to add: the yelling part is very difficult. She should apologise about that. That is unprofessional.

 

[No More]

Did your therapist actually yell at you, or did it *feel* like they yelled at you?

It sounds like they had a reason for challenging you, and they were doing it with good intentions. It’s the kind of thing I find very helpful, to be directly called out if I have the tools to help myself and I’m not using them. So perhaps your therapist thought to do it to help, rather than to upset.

I think the mind reading, trying to guess your therapists thoughts and intentions isn’t really very helpful to you. She’s a professional, if she feels she’s no longer the right person to be helping you or feels the therapy has become ineffective - can you trust her to tell you that?

This doesn’t need to become a rupture. You can choose how to take it. You can choose your reaction to it.

 

[Skywatcher]

That sounds really really challenging. And I would be feeling and thinking the same.
But: I very much doubt they have grown tired of you.
It's far more likely that you can take what they said at face value: that they were challenging you.
Which, by the sound of the impact it has on you, was a miscalculation on their part. They missed you. Or challenged you too much. It wasn't what you needed in that moment and it has had this horrible unsettling result.
It's a rupture. Made out of their misstep.

Can you tell your T how this has made you feel?when my T has done something like that, she usually apologises after we have spoken about it and she understands how it impacted me. That helps to rebuild trust, repair the rupture, and move on.

Edit to add: the yelling part is very difficult. She should apologise about that. That is unprofessional.

She wasn’t actually yelling…. That was just how my child parts interpreted it. Her voice was animated and louder than usual. I grew up in a very quiet family.

 

[Skywatcher]

Did your therapist actually yell at you, or did it *feel* like they yelled at you?

It sounds like they had a reason for challenging you, and they were doing it with good intentions. It’s the kind of thing I find very helpful, to be directly called out if I have the tools to help myself and I’m not using them. So perhaps your therapist thought to do it to help, rather than to upset.

I think the mind reading, trying to guess your therapists thoughts and intentions isn’t really very helpful to you. She’s a professional, if she feels she’s no longer the right person to be helping you or feels the therapy has become ineffective - can you trust her to tell you that?

This doesn’t need to become a rupture. You can choose how to take it. You can choose your reaction to it.

She probably did have good intentions. Maybe I was mind reading. At the end of today’s session she asked me what I need from her. That is what makes me most concerned. I’m afraid if I need something she doesn’t want to give she will use it as proof as to why we should move on. Normally, we work really well together, I don’t want start over.

 

[Sideways]

she asked me what I need from her.

If you put to one side whether or not you ask her, and all of your fears about what she was thinking, or how she may react, you able to answer this?

What do you need from your therapist?

 

[Skywatcher]

I need her to drop her current therapy agenda and listen to and help me heal from the pain this is causing me. I need her to notice her counter transference.

I kind of think that because she is a supervisor and very experienced therapist that she sometimes has a blind spot to her own reactions.

She says that help between sessions doesn’t fix issues for me or foster independence. I need her to drop that belief and be willing to respond when im spiraling to a level of severe ideation and or dissociation.

I need her to recognize that she gets like this following the death of a family member.

I need her empathy to come back.

It’s really hard because the therapist she was has seemed to change.

 

[Sideways]

It’s really hard because the therapist she was has seemed to change.

It sounds like this might be deliberate? Have you talked to her about the impact that these changes are having on you?

If she’s changed her direction deliberately, then chances are she knows that it’s going to be especially difficult for you. If you bring those difficulties into the open, that might give her an opportunity to better explain her position, and you to vocalise yours.

There’s different ways to approach that conversation. For example:
“You need to drop your belief that…” (no, she doesn’t, no matter how much you’d like her to)
Or…
“X change in your approach is effecting me this way…”

The second option is taking how things are for you, and making them a conversation, where both parties are being welcomed to explain where they’re at and why. Which allows for assertive communication, rather than going straight to lines in the sand.

 

[Seesaw]

Last week, my therapist yelled at me and said “I call bullshit” twice. This was in reference to me not doing self care and making an effort to follow the things I’ve learned how to do. My sensitive personality felt threatened. I pushed back saying that I forgot about my list. Younger parts were scared. I ended up dissociating and was in and out of it the following week. I felt hurt and confused. Fearful at start of today’s appointment. She told me that she had “challenged me” on purpose. I’ve been seeing this therapist for a very long time. I’m worried that she is tired of me and giving up. I don’t know what to do. I hate to have another full week of bad feelings and worry.

Your therapist should never yell at you. Is she a qualified psychologist?

 

[Movingforward10]

She wasn’t actually yelling…. That was just how my child parts interpreted it. Her voice was animated and louder than usual. I grew up in a very quiet family.

It's great you recognise this. That inside is telling you one thing (projection/transference) and the situation/adult you (here and now) is telling you another.
That awareness is what will help you resolve this.

I’m afraid if I need something she doesn’t want to give she will use it as proof as to why we should move on. Normally, we work really well together, I don’t want start over.

Nothing you wrote seems to indicate you need to start over. 'simply' that you need to have this conversation with her. I would lay big money down that if you did, you would feel so much better and you will get what you need from her and therapy.
Like you say, you know her a long time. Your currently experiencing her differently which you recognise is partly down to transference and partly down to her change in tact. She can change tact again. And you can work through the transference.

 

[No More]

She probably did have good intentions. Maybe I was mind reading. At the end of today’s session she asked me what I need from her. That is what makes me most concerned. I’m afraid if I need something she doesn’t want to give she will use it as proof as to why we should move on. Normally, we work really well together, I don’t want start over.

Well I think that might depend on what it is you think you need. Sure if it’s over her boundaries, or something she can’t provide then obviously the best thing for you would be to move on, or for her to provide an explanation as to why what your asking for isn’t reasonable.

Outside of that, why not ask? What’s there to lose? She asked you the question so she obviously wanted an answer from you.

 

[Skywatcher]

I’ve been doing so much self care this week, it’s ridiculous. (Though, necessary for my survival). Part of her original point was that I’ve been doing it half-ass. So, I fixed that part. One thing I did realize today is that I was so dissociated in the last two appointments that I imagined we were standing in her office and she was blocking the door. This used to happen in our earlier appointments, only I imagined us in a parking lot. Anyway, my recent sessions were online from a chair in my bedroom and her in her home office. No matter how hard I try, I can’t see us in the correct way. It’s really concerning me about my brain. Maybe it’s due to my lack of sleep. Does anyone know why this is happening or if I should see someone about it?