I've set up an extra session on Monday to do exactly that. I plan to just say I am trying my best to respect his boundaries (no phone calls, no emails), but that I need him to respect mine. I do not want new topics/connections in the last 10-15 minutes. I want to focus that time on wrapping up, and I expect him to learn some strategies to help in closing down a session. (Right now, when I do what SD recommends and say "why raise this with 10 m left?" he goes silent! Just stops talking!)
I don't know if I even want to ask him "why" - to me it doesn't matter. I know what I need in this situation and it isn't to have topics that are hard enough to contain within 50 minutes brought up when there's less than 15, then kicked out. Even that being hard enough, the fact that he is doing it AFTER I've already asked him not to because it hurts me makes it seem like some kind of betrayal or purposeful sadism.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Argonautomobile
I did read your other post. I agree that your T just seems really bad at time management. This is a tough situation. Session management seems sort of like an art, something that the therapist has to learn to do with experience. The ball is largely on his court, so to speak.
If you're committed to staying with this T because he's good in other ways (or for whatever reason) and can put up with having to teach him how to do his job, I would do what Stopdog recommends and just set very firm, explicit boundaries over and over again. "No, I'm not talking about that with ten minutes left." "I really wish you wouldn't bring up things like that so close to the session end." "I've asked you before to please reserve the last few minutes for winding down." I would think that, eventually, he'd learn.
I suppose the other option is to just devote an entire session to addressing this issue. Bring it up. Don't let him change the subject. Ask him WTF he's doing and make him answer. Just say all the things you said in that other post.
Do you think either one of these things would work?
|