I wanted to post again because I think some might be thinking that musinglizzy doesn't get it that her therapist's daughter comes first. I might be wrong but I think she knows that very well. So do I. This is a professional relationship and the therapist's loved one's will ALWAYS come first.

Where I disagree (and this is a personal interpretation of how psychotherapy should be conducted), is that although the therapist's family and in this case her daughter, will come before, musinglizzy, the topic never belongs in the consulting room. Musinglizzy is working on her own issues in therapy, and the fact that her therapist had to leave immediately at the end of her session to pick up her daughter didn't need to be brought into the mix. The original rupture for musinglizzy seems to be her therapist introducing a triggering issue right at the end of the session. Her therapist needed to acknowledge her bad timing, apologize for her mistake and close the session on time by telling her client that she had an appointment she couldn't respond to but they would talk at the next session and come up with a plan to prevent this situation from happening again. She made a mistake by mentioning personal reason for having to end exactly on time. She had EVERY right to end on time and I think musinglizzy recognizes that.

I don't think it would have eliminated the situation of musinglizzy from feeling abandoned in her moment of pain or prevented the feeling that she wasn't important and didn't want to return. Or that she'd return and just shut down in session. Those are musinglizzy's issues to work on in therapy. They are things that are causing her pain in her life. She didn't need her therapist to add her own personal issues regarding picking up her daughter or going on a great mother daughter vacation. These things only complicate and cause therapy to become less focused on musinglizzy's issues. She doesn't need to be thinking during a session with her therapist, "Jeeze, I shouldn't bring that up because it must be almost time to close and therapist needs to go get her daughter." And she doesn't need to be constantly checking her watch to see if she's infringing on her therapist's personal time with her daughter. Checking her watch to see if her session is almost done is fine--that means she's aware of the boundaries between her and her therapist. . .just the two of them need to be considered in the consulting room, not her, her therapist and her therapist's daughter. As you can see, I'm pretty passionate about the issue of a therapist's personal life not being brought into the relationship. Just my take on things.


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