Peridot- I would be JEALOUS if one of my friends were seeing my T! I would be so upset. I even feel a little childish right now posting this but my initial thought is "NO SHE"S MY T, NOT YOURS AND YOU CAN'T HAVE HER!!" Yikes I sound like a 4yr old. lol. But the fact remains that I consider my time with my T to be very precious and I went through an awful lot of **** to need to see a T and went through 3 crappy T's before I found this one, so no. I am not sharing my T! Find your own because this one is mine!! -Just my opinion. lol. BTW -I totally understand the jealousy!

Oh and I forgot about your question. No i do not think that it would be unreasonable to ask your T not to schedule you guys back to back like that. I don't think it would be that difficult. At most she would just need to space you guys out with one patient. I would bring this up with your T next time you see your T. Good luck!

-Also I am sorry that your friend didn't hold up her end of the bargain and keep her mouth shut about her appointment with your T. That sucks and I am sorry that you had to hear about it!

If you followed my thread about having my daughter see my therapist, you know how freaked out I got. Knowing that she would share with me about her sessions and want to talk with me about things they discussed. That was worrying me to death. It's not that I thought my therapist would like her more than me, I just knew what kinds of issues my daughter had an felt hers would dominate any conversation that she and I may have about therapy.

I knew that I would get lost in all of this and end up quitting to help me daughter. That was not what I wanted, but what I (as the mother) would end up having to do should this thing go through.

I do not think you are being unreasonable at all to ask that you NOT have appointments on the same day. After speaking with my therapist about my situation and asking her if she would honor my request of not taking my daughter as a client, she said that she most definitley consider my feelings and would not take her on if I felt it would be a conflict of interest.

I am sure that she would also make sure that we did not have appointments on the same day even if I told her I was okay with my daughter coming.

You quoted: "Therapy is a place where I don't have to feel guilty about focusing on myself for at least an hour or so, and I don't want to have to navigate the feelings I feel from seeing my friend, on top of dealing with my regular therapy issues as well."

I totally agree with you on this. It is hard enough going to therapy withour having any other (avoidable) issue hit us when we walk in the door.

I sure hope that you work this out. Please talk with your therapist about it. I sent emails to mine before our next session. She couldn't say too much in an email, but when we met she knew right off how I felt, so we talked it through. At this time my daughter had already told her that she would not be seeing her, so that freed up my therapist to talk a bit more open about it.

I can assure you one thing. My therapist will not be seeing ANY of my family members or friends I have told her about, UNLESS she consults with me first. That was something she made clear to me now that I have expressed my concerns.

Good luck in trying to work this out. You should be first priority since you were her client prior to your friend.

I agree with everyone. I would hate to share and I would especially hate hearing anything a friend may share about her sessions. What if the friend said that the T did or said such and such and we thought our T did that special for us? It would make me feel terrible.

I totally agree with this...

Anyway, you are making the right thing in talking about it with your T. I'm sure you'll find a good solution togheter.

No, that is NOT an unreasonable request at all.

I generously suggested to a co-worker that she see my therapist. I expected she would be referred on, because she was battling alcoholism and that isn't something my T specializs in. When that didn't happen, and my co-worker let me know she had some appointments scheduled, I wasn't feeling very good, or nice, about it. I had a lot of issues about it, and decided to tell my T. Since they had only met twice at that point, my T told me that she would be glad to refer the person on. She asked me to think about it between sessions, then let her know what I thought. She said the final decision would be hers and she would let me know.
She decided to refer her to another T.

So, my co-worker got the help she needed (or would have, if she hadn't quit) and I got to learn that I wasn't comfortable with the jealousy around this, and around the possibility of seeing someone make great progress with "my" T, and worry and jealousy again about them hitting it off (while I struggled), and the fear of lack of confidentiality at work.

Your feelings about your friend seeing your T are good things to talk to your T about.

First, your feelings are very real and there for a reason.
It feels like this is triggering you on an inner level.
It is almost as though you have two minds with this - the adult mind who wanted your friend to have access to the same quality of mental healthcare you have - and then a younger part who feels the twinges of jelousy.

I may be way off base here but wanted to share incase it can help you. But it feels like there may be something in the past that is the root of this. It is almost like there may have been a time in your life when you NEEDED an adult (parent or close teacher) but someone else - a sibling or friend - would interupt you expressing your needs. The authority figure would shift gears and focus attention on the other child. That would leave you out in the cold.

It feels like you wanted to make sure the other child was "ok" too... so you didn't protest this. But deep inside, you held resentment because your needs were not being met. That made you feel badly because you were trying to not be resentful of the other child getting what they needed.

??? Anyway, that is what I see. It looks like you have a big heart.
Just remember that you do have a right to have your needs met.
You have a right to be heard.
I would bet that your T may have intentionally put the apts together because T thought you would like to touch base and see your friend there. Some people like that. But sometimes it doesn't work.

It reminds me of my dentist. My ex - who was a primary abuser of me - goes to the same dentist I do - since we saw the same dentist while together. Well, my new S/O started going to the dentist. She would go when I didn't need to go. Often, she would be upset when I asked her how it went because she kept running into my ex. Soo.... after two years of that, she finally told the receptionist "Do NOT put me down on the same day as XYZ!"

The receptionist was in shock! She said "Well I know you guys know eachother and I thought you were friends! So I have been putting you down on the same day figuring you may want to go get lunch together!"

Bottom line is that people do tend to try to do what they think is what we would like. But they can be wrong. It is our job to let them know what we need.

Lots of good responses....and I agree! I would be mortified and hurt to see a good friend of mine waiting to see my T right after I did and I know, whether I thought it was logical to feel that way or not, that I would struggle with jealous/envious feelings. I don't about seeing my T's next clients in the waiting room when I leave.....but if I knew them, different feelings, different story! And especially a close friend who ordinarily I might want to talk to about T experiences, who might want to talk to me about her T experiences........nope. It's important to feel that your time with your T and what your T says to you is special and to not have that feeling minimized by learning that maybe your T does/says the same thing in a friend's session....or wondering why something different is done for them and not you. Or what if one of you has something related to the other that you share....somehow, it would just feel like privacy/confidentiality was violated even though the T would be careful to guard that. My T knows that she sees other moms from a moms' group I belong to whom I would know and she is careful to not schedule us back to back so that uncomfortable situations like this are avoided...so it is not unreasonable at all for you to make this request of your T and to discuss with her how all this makes you feel. Or unreasonable to remind your friend that in the best interests of both your friendship and your therapy/therapeutic relationship with your T it's best to just keep your individual therapy stuff between the T and you and not bring it up when you're together if she's wanting to stay with this T too - it makes me think of the 'three's company' thing.
I wish you well in dealing with this! you really do seem to have a big heart and care about your friend and I hope she values that.

Ok, seriously, you are going to think I am ridiculous, but I have done this 5 times!!!!! I have literally referred 5 different friends/family members to my T, and have then had really mixed emotions each time once I knew that they were going.

Only one time, was a friend waiting in the waiting room when I left my appointment, and I called RIGHT after I left and left a voicemail asking that this not happen again. So, clearly, I think that it's a really reasonable thing to do. I also did not want to here anything about their sessions.

I think WePow made some excellent points in regards to the "two minds" being in conflict. That definitely hits home for me. I really wanted my friends to get help and I know that there are a lot of bad T's out there....I know my T is great...and so the adult me referred them.....THEN the kid part of me was really jealous and insecure afterward.

I think that it would be very reasonable to make sure that your friend is not scheduled next to you, AND I think that it would be reasonable to tell your friend that you don't want to talk about therapy together (if you feel comfortable doing that).

I do understand. Feelings and emotions can just be crazy, unpredictable things sometimes.