[SallyBrown]

Trigger warning because this mentions miscarriage.


I'm trying to decide whether I want to ask my T for a real apology for something he did that was unintentional, but at the same time pretty insensitive.

For the past couple session with T, we've been talking about a very early miscarriage of an unexpected pregnancy that happened several months ago. The first time I mentioned it to T it went quite badly (he was going through a cold, clinical phase -- possibly the worst way to respond ever), but since then we've been able to talk about it a bit and it's been a little better. The feelings around this are really complicated and I think I'm finally in a place where I can reach out to someone like my mom, because I think dealing with this alone (and to an extent, with my H, who has really truly tried hard to help me but tends to fumble it) has made it much harder.

ANYWAY, yesterday was really hard. My cousin (who seems determined to have an adversarial/disrespectful relationship with me) is pregnant, and this was triggering for me to find out recently -- and I'm going to see her over the holidays. We talked it over in therapy and it was a really rough session, with T unintentionally planting the idea that I had abandoned my baby... it was not good. Yesterday was not good.

T e-mailed me later in the day to check in, and I e-mailed back talking about how it was a rough day and dealing with all the guilt and thinking about going to my mom and how hard it was to stop crying. He responded saying that he hoped that the guilt would become less overwhelming over time and that my ideas about talking to my mom were good ones.

He then ended the e-mail with: "Have a good evening!"

I know I'm being sensitive about it but man, that felt kind of cruel. It was most definitely not a good evening, and definitely not exclamation-point good. I know he didn't mean to be cruel. But it hurt. We tried addressing it today and he acknowledged it was insensitive... but did not apologize.

I kind of feel like I need him to actually say the words. But I'm a little freaked out about actually asking for an apology. It sucks when T doesn't get it.

[unaluna]

I'm sorry for your loss.

I don't understand what a formal apology would do. I sense a lack of connection, a distance, between you and T that with an apology you would hope to correct the bones, but the muscles would still be flabby. Why did he initiate email? My T NEVER does. I think he has some issues of his own on this topic that are triggering him. Like he abandoned a pregnant girlfriend in college or something. Because it sounds like he is just being really bad with this, and you have been around PC for a while and I know you to be intelligent and aware and all that, and I would be very surprised if you had a complete douche for a T, pardon the expression! So why is he acting weird all of a sudden? So this situation is triggering him. So how to deal with that - not with formality, but with closeness, but also within boundaries. If he needs a consult to deal with this, he should get one.

edited: So I agree, he does need to acknowledge to you that he made a mistake and is doing something about it; ie account for his actions somehow.

[sunrise]

I think email leads to misunderstandings about what people really mean. Even a piece of punctuationcan lead to hard feelings if the reader infers tone, meaning, emotion... It's just so hard to communicate by email. Maybe the exclamation mark meant that T very strongly wished you well rather than that he was being glib or was minimizing your troubles. I'm glad you had a chance to talk to him face to face about it so that you could learn what he really meant by his comment and exclamation mark. Did you learn what he meant to convey to you with his comment and exclamation mark? That might help you understand his intent and the emotion behind it, and maybe if they are not what you inferred, you would feel better. I'm glad you brought it up with your T. I think he now knows, if he didn't before, that he must be extremely careful with email communication. I'm glad you got a chance to speak with him about it. If you need further resolution, then definitely bring it up again. Insisting on a formal apology seems kind of strange to me, but I think that's just because I would never do that myself--you know yourself best. Good luck.

[stopdog]

I think they should apologize even for accidents or unintentional mistakes. They would apologize if they accidentally bumped someone or ran into them, so why should they not apologize to clients? I think they need to be accountable.

[Chopin99]

I think T should take responsibility for his action and apologize; especially after you made him aware of it.

My T always sounds insensitive via email. There is an inherent distance when communicating by email. You cannot read nuances through the written word. Facial expression, body language, and voice tone are missing and they are essential to the therapeutic relationship.

I communicate better through the written word (when I speak I get tongue-tied and my thoughts go faster than my mouth and get jumbled up), but for therapy purposes, it is much better to be face-to-face.

I'm sorry you are going through this. I know it's not easy.

[SophiaG]

I don't think he was trying to be insensitive. It could've just been his way of saying goodbye.

[Perna]

I do not believe wishing you a good evening, before the evening, was a mistake or needs an apology. That you did not have a good evening is not something anyone, including yourself, could know would happen before it did. As sunrise pointed out, he could just have really really wanted you to have a good evening, if you could find your way to it. How we individually perceive things is our responsibility, both in taking care of ourselves and in checking to make sure we understand how another feels they mean about what they say.

Your T agreed his wishing you a good evening could be viewed as insensitive. That is not the same as feeling wrong or bad about wishing you a good evening! I think your T was confirming that how you perceived his good wishes was valid for you. But it is not the only way his wishes could be perceived and he has no way of knowing how you (or anyone) will perceive his words until the person he gives them to tells him how they perceived them, as you did. He is not a mind reader, he does not know what is in your heart and mind, what thoughts you have and how you are seeing things until you tell him. If we were worried about how another might perceive our comments, how would we ever speak?

Your perception is yours; he offered you his words in good faith and you perceived them in a way that was unpleasant for you. He can acknowledge that that is a valid perception for you but cannot apologize for giving you his words, for wishing you well.

Email misunderstandings seem common in therapy. My t appears to be a completely different person by emails, than she is in person!

[SallyBrown]

Thank you everyone for your input! I truly appreciate it. This seemed like one of those things where I wanted to stop and think before doing anything...

@hankster: Yeah, he's a pretty young T and I think he's not always the best at keeping his issues out of the room (although sometimes when I read people's horror stories on here, I give him more credit!). That said, I'm not totally sure what was going on here. We actually e-mail out of session somewhat routinely -- he will check in with me later in the day after really rough days. It used to be very helpful in letting me stay connected, but that issue itself has become fraught... WHOLE 'nother post there. But you're correct in saying that he seems unusually bad at handling this, and I feel like suggesting he talk to someone with experience in this specific kind of grief counseling... he kind of jumped on it as something to "analyze" in detail, which seems like a strange reaction to something that happens really pretty often to a lot of people.

@sunrise: Thanks for this, I think you make a good point in saying that maybe going straight to "I feel like I need you to apologize for this" may not be as beneficial as getting a little bit more from him as to why he did it. He didn't really explain... just said that he had not meant to be hurtful. But it might help to let him do so if he thinks it will be useful.

@stopdog: Agreed. Sigh. My T is not amazing at apologies, he does apologize sometimes, but sometimes it can be like pulling teeth. It's funny, there was a thread recently about marrying a T... my T is also extremely cranky when he's sick, and every so often I have to bite my tongue before I can say, "Sometimes I'm really glad I'm not your wife!"

@Chopin: Yeah. E-mail's tough. It was definitely one of those things where I knew, ok, this feels awful but it's not what it looks like. Yet it's hard not to still feel awful. Anyway, thanks for the hug . Btw, I love Chopin, and I like to say that the soundtrack to my soul would be written by him.

@Sophia: It's not his usual way of saying goodbye, but I do take your point. I know he didn't mean it. It's just one of those things where my feelings about whether he did it on purpose are different from my feelings about his needing to acknowledge when he does hurtful stuff. I tried to make that clear to him but it may be worth reiterating to him that I'm not accusing him of anything sinister.

I'll definitely bring it up again, as it really is on my mind. But I think I will try avoid jumping on him for an apology and let him say whatever piece he has about why he said what he said. Thank you!

[SallyBrown]

@Perna... I have a bit of a hard time following what you're saying, because of course my having a bad evening isn't somehow linked to or a direct result of my T wishing me a good evening. Mostly I just see his response as really kind of "off", if that works better than insensitive. For instance, if I ran into a friend who was on her way to a funeral, I wouldn't say, "Have a good time!" Even if I was wishing it would go ok for her. Same reason I was initially jarred by "Have a good evening!" in response to an e-mail about my crying unstoppably and feeling more grief than I can handle on my own.

I think it also comes down to what an apology means, and I know it means different things for different people. Some people believe that apologies are only warranted in the case of wrongdoing and/or bad intentions. In my experience, I've found that my relationships go best when I apologize anytime I could have easily done something differently and caused less hurt -- even if I'm in the right, or had good intentions. I don't think there's a "right" or "wrong" here, so that's kind of moot, but I don't really doubt he had good intentions. Doesn't mean I don't want him to acknowledge that he's been misreading the situation. This is part of the reason I wanted to be really careful bringing it up with him... I feel like this a real gray area in the idea of apologies.

@kindergirl: YUP. Now if I can just get my T to e-mail me less...