I work with my therapist online. I pay a lot per hour to see her, and the agency that provides the website and format takes 50% of my payment. It's hard to afford, but mental health is a priority for me, I'm attached to my therapist, and the work's been very successful, so I pay the premium to see her.

I've asked her to consider using other services before: she would earn much more of the fee with them and I'd pay a lot less out of pocket because 50% wouldn't be going to a third-party just for hosting the website and advertising her.

She has said no because she has an agreement with them, she's comfortable with them and I've surmised she just thinks it's the best way for her to reach the most potential clients and be most financially successful. She wouldn't even let me use a second account with that website so I could see her as a "referred" client rather than a proprietary client of the site which would have meant her keeping much more of the fee, I think it was partly ethical but partly fear that they'd sanction her for letting me do that. It just galls to pay SO much to a service provider, because I didn't know the fee structure when I started, and then it was too late to change the terms.

Until today.

I just found she had set up shop on another website, a MUCH less expensive website, offering EIGHT weeks of treatment (different format than what I use now, but still offering a lot) for the amount I pay for ONE week's worth of sessions currently.

I feel so... well, it's more a visceral reaction, my heart pounding and skin prickling. Angry that she would do this without telling me, angry that I'm paying SO much to see her because I thought she was being principled, sticking to her agreement to only use that one site, disappointed that what I thought was her acting ethically by not switching services when I asked her to might've just been her not wanting to or thinking it was beneficial enough.

It's like she's two-timing, lol.

In one sense, I understand. If she's not making enough $$$ then, makes sense she'd sign up to do therapy elsewhere too. That's just a matter of practicality: if she needs the income, she needs the income. I'm not one who can throw stones at glass houses, I've certainly compromised my ethics to earn a living in the past, though it's something I've been working REALLY hard to change these past few years.

But... she should be more honest than me. She's my therapist. And she shouldn't offer up less expensive services elsewhere and leave me stuck paying a premium knowing it's SO difficult.

She's not responsible for easing my financial difficulties, sigh. I DO know that. It's just... what is she doing over on that other website. I think it sucks that due to some technicality, she probably wouldn't see me elsewhere, and I need to stay with our current service, paying them 50% of the fee for the privilege of working with her on their lousy site.

I'm so upset. I just saw this like 10 minutes ago, and I shot her off a quick email saying that I'd found something online about her that was really incongruous. So begins an email session where I pay her to freak out about her professional choices.