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Old Jun 22, 2018, 03:42 PM
Ididitmyway's Avatar
Ididitmyway Ididitmyway is offline
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Member Since: Jul 2011
Posts: 2,071
For me, personally, the structure that your T has set for therapy is horrible. It's very unhealthy to me because it creates behavioral conditioning. Setting specific times for specific activities in general evokes a certain physiological response, as it was clearly demonstrated by the famous Pavlov dog's experiment. When you train yourself to eat, sleep, exercise and do other things on the same hours, your body, after some time, starts anticipating the activity you are supposed to do at this hour and tunes itself into doing it for better results.

While such consistency may have many benefits in our daily life because it helps us acquire healthy habits if our activities are health-oriented and our schedule is well thought of, I think, it's a bad idea to apply it to therapy because it creates an addiction to the process that can bring some big problems later when therapy stops working (which it will at some point).

When you see your T at the same time and the same place and even wearing the same clothes style every week, that conditions you to form a habit a.k.a addiction to having those meetings. If and when your T comes to his limit when he will not be able of help to you any more, you might be unable to break a habit of going to the same place at the same time even if you know you are not getting anything there anymore.

This might work well for the T though, as it would keep his income coming. Two weeks (!) cancellation policy also works great for him. Plenty of time to arrange his schedule so he won't lose any cash flow. I don't see how such draconian policy would work for a client. Such policy requires that I arrange my entire life around my therapy and don't allow myself any flexibility that is necessary to live my life.

Sorry, but, in my view, such framework makes life convenient for a T and not only inconvenient but unlivable IMO for a client. Given an already existing power imbalance in the therapy relationship, this structure gives the T so much power that it becomes oppressive.

That said, there is no such thing as "is this ok to have such a frame". It's okay for a T to have any frame they want to have in a sense that, as long as it doesn't violate any laws or ethical standards, Ts can set up whatever policies suit them. You, as a client, need to decide if their policies suit you. I'd never agree to the policies your T has, but that's me. If they work for you, fine. If some of them work for you and others don't, that's something to discuss with your T. If he refuses to change any of his policies, then, once again, you have a decision to make if you are ok with that or not. There is no such thing in psychotherapy as which frame is ok and which isn't. Within ethical and legal limits anything goes, so, as long as the T doesn't break laws or ethics, they can do whatever the hell they want. You decide if what they do is ok with you.
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