Quote:
Originally Posted by learning1
Since you mentioned all the good things you mentioned about this t, except that her boundaries are too strict, I wonder if you could get an additional t or some other affordable type of support (regardless of whether your t approves of it, although her approval and assistance in finding it would be nice). That way you could keep the good things about this t without being left to process things on your own as much when she decides to be unavailable. It sounds like you really have a lot of things on your mind to process, and you might end up not getting through all of it even if you had two sessions, but if you could get another session with someone else, that could help some.
I understand that an ideal is for you to be able to contain yourself and function without relying on a therapist more than once a week, but I don't know what's wrong with relying on an affordable therapist more than once a week at this point in your life. I also think it would be nicer to be able to have the same t twice a week than to have to go to two of them. But, since that apparently isn't possible, maybe a second t, or some kind of support group could help.
Is it possible that money is part of the reason your therapist doesn't want to meet more than once a week on a regular basis? Does your t know for sure that you can afford to pay for more than one session a week, especially if it continues to be needed very often, as seems likely? Are you able to pay her full fee? (I'm not asking you to post the answers to those things unless you want to; I just mean them as questions to keep in mind.) It's unfair and unfortunate, but if you're like most people and can't really afford this, then the t has to consider how it will affect her, and some t's are less generous, and less considerate of clients' legitimate needs, than other t's. I won't be surprised if you've already taken all this into account, but I thought I'd bring it up in case it makes a difference, so that you won't take it as personally if it might be that the t is being influenced by the money.
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No, it's definitely not the money. I used to see this T twice a week, on Wednesdays and Sundays (which she had no problem with), before she cut her private practice down to two days, which are Tuesday evenings and Wednesday mornings (she has another job too). So she is now shorter on time and she also thinks two sessions in a row is too much, and she thinks I'm doing better than I was at that point and can survive without her for longer periods, which I know I CAN, I just sort of don't want to. (I don't know whether that's therapeutic or not...) We've discussed other resources I have, like friends, and she's told me it's just her own personal boundary in terms of time re. this once a week thing and anything more than that is just more than she can provide.
She recommended a DBT skills group for me, but that is actually a money thing ($130 a week and my father will not be writing me a whole other series of postdated checks for them). He would write me more checks for T, but he would not write me checks for a skills group, nor would he write me more checks for another T, which is probably why I'm so reluctant to leave this T even if I didn't feel like she was helping me (which she most certainly has). He would think I'd been wasting his money for eight months and refuse to pay for me to start over with a new T, and I wouldn't be able to afford it on my own. (And most Ts are offended by the idea of sliding scale on general principle with me based on the money my father has and the other things he's paying for, so also that...)