After my old T retired, it took me about 9 months to find a new T was even just "okay." She told me she meet my two criteria fo a new T (1) bill my insurance for appointments and (2) available for long-term therapy. As I think I mentioned in a previous post, it turns out she was already pregnant during our first session and informed me four months in to our work together. Totally not cool; she is quitting in February. Worse, she has been insisting on payment for sessions up front and then failing to submit claims to my insurance company. She keeps saying she will do it, but never does. I'm owed $1300 from my insurance company and it turns out she hasn't sent in a single claim. I told her I don't trust her anymore and need her to give me the paperwork so I can get reimbursed-- she said okay-- and then forgot! I told her I desperatley need that money and she said "okay, maybe I can send it in the mail by Friday" and then she demanded payment for a session I cancelled 2 days in advance because I had the flu. She also informed me that the session that I did over the phone with her (at her suggestion) because I was still recovering from the flu and didn't want to risk getting her sick because she's 7 months pregnant will NOt be covered by insurance. Then, after charging me for these sessions on the principle that I have a recurring appointment and have to pay if I don't show up-- she told me I had no more sessions scheduled. According to her, we set a day & time for 2 months-- but that isn't true. She said "indefinitely" when we by set the day and time. So I have paid $650 over 4 weeks for a total of one session-- and am separately owed $1300 in claims she forgot to file and can't find the paperwork for.

In addition to the financial problems, she sucks as a T and has been utterly useless not to mention cold and insensitive. I'm contemplating a career change because I'm depressed and miserable in my current department, and I told her I'm so stressed out about it that I feel like I can't eat or sleep until I have a plan of "next steps" in place. The purpose of my session today was to talk through those next steps. But she said she couldn't do that because she didn't know anything about my career, so she told me that instead of planning my career change I should just see a psychiatrist for pills. I told her that I've never had any reason to take medicine; the problem is not a chemical imbalance-- the problem is that I am unhappy in my career. I have done the work of identifying an alternative career option and want to talk it out to make sure I am making the right choice and going about it in the best way possible. All she did was keep asking me how I feel about my department chair and alternative ways I could interpret his interactions with me. I kept explaining to her that academia is not about a handful of personal interactions-- it's a complicated system of publishing, tenure requirements, university bureaucracy, departmental service, and 80 hour weeks for comparatively low salaries and benefits. I'm sacrificing my personal relationships, me time, exercise time, and life satisfaction to keep up with the publishing clock and I don't think it's worth it anymore. I want to start a family and have time to enjoy life. My T just refused to listen to any of this and wanted to talk about how I can succeed in academia if I try. I kept telling her that I am succeeding-- but I hate it. I shouldn't keep doing something I hate if I have alternative options. So I'm frustrated that I spent a lot of money for her to make me feel worse-- more misunderstood, more alone, and more taken advantage of. It seems crystal clear that i am just a paycheck and she doesn't care or listen to a word I have to say. I don't think I will go back again.