T's aren't perfect, T's make mistakes, T's lose their emails and their minds with all the stuff they have to do, blah, blah... then you end up thinking you are overreacting...

Don't invalidate your feelings. You have every right to feel hurt, ignored, pissed, whatever. Sure, T's make mistakes-- but that doesn't preclude our feeling angry or hurt as a result.

Examples:

I called my pdoc two weeks ago because of a negative reaction I had to a medication. I never heard from him. Spoke to him last night. He said, "I had been trying to call you and couldn't get in touch, so I called T-- didn't he tell you?"

No.

So I'm sure my T forgot because we were talking about a million other things, but I'm pretty annoyed that he didn't tell me. This is important and he's always the one who is on my *** about making sure that I contact pdoc.

Last week I forgot to fill out a psych eval. for one of my clients. Now she has to wait an extra week. I felt really bad about it, but I simply forgot because we got involved in other things (I fill out the psych evals with the clients present). I made a mistake. Does she have a right be annoyed at me? She sure does.

This post just got me thinking about emotional entitlement. That's why I provided examples from both persepectives. Of course T's make mistakes. I think the importance is in our behavioral response to the mistakes. We are allowed to feel hurt, annoyed, abandoned... whatever. Then we can choose how to behave. Sunny, I can totally understand you wanting to cancel the next appointment. That would be one option. I know that I have gone down the "acting out" route many times. (However, I too pathetic to actually cancel an appointment, so I just threaten, lol). Then there are other options-- tell him your feelings, ask what the hell happened, etc. I think we grow through our reactions to negative feelings... but it starts with the acceptance that it is okay to feel them.