I had such an odd session this week and I'm not sure what to think about it. As soon as I sat down in my T's office a cell phone started ringing and she told me that she needed to take it. She asked me to step back out into the waiting room for a minute. I was upset at this point because I had already waited 15 minutes past my appt time and now this. After a few minutes she came out to the waiting room and sat down and explained that the cell phone is the emergency line for the agency and each therapist has to take turns each week to answer it. She said that the person was going to be calling back so she wanted to know if I wanted to come back later or start the session and see how far we could get. I live more than an hour away from my T's office so I didn't want to waste the trip so I agreed to start the session and went back to her office. I was feeling very anxious at this point and my hands were shaking. I finally admitted to her that I was anxious and triggered by what was happening because first she was late to begin with and then we were interrupted by the emergency call on the cell phone. After about 20 minutes the phone rang again so I went back out into the waiting room. After another 10 minutes or so she came out to get me and we continued the session for another 25 minutes or so.

I was just so frustrated because I don't think it's right for the agency to expect therapists to answer the emergency line while they are in session with a client. I find it very unprofessional because I am paying for that 50 minutes and I feel like during that time my T should be focused on me, not answering the emergency line. I feel bad for whoever it was because they apparently were upset and needed someone to talk to, but there should be a better way to handle the emergency line than this.

I'm wondering what others here think about this and would it have bothered you if your session was interrupted like this? Has anyone had a session interrupted before, and how did you handle it?