I told my T... and he could not have cared less.

The one I see never remembers anything about the previous appointment. Asking her what was going on with her at any previous point in time would be useless.

I would stop seeing any T who would not be able to remember THIS thing.

MsWinter, I'd urge you to talk about it with your T. You were deeply hurt by his reaction (I would be too).
I myself when I feel trigered/ deeply touched/emotional... look the other way to try to hide it. But then again I'm not working as a T, getting paid for helping ppl with their problems.
Anyway, what I'm trying to tell you is this. Yes I think he handled the situation poorly but by no means does it mean that he doesn't give a damn.

The therapist might remember the info from client, or at least have put it in notes, but not their own reponse (or lack thereof).

Yeah, I think stopdog might have a point. I adore my therapist, but I have attempted to discuss with him his reactions to things I have told him (or my perceptions of those reactions) and he has absolutely no memory of how he responded. The sooner you discuss his reactions with him, the better the chance of his remembering those reactions.

This also happened to me and it hurt. But what I learned had more to do with the care that I was (not) receiving than about some failing within me.

I moved on, and perhaps you will too if that is the right course of action.

But it seems to me that the very big takehome lesson here is that you are ready, on some level, and willing enough to examine these parts of your life experience. And that is huge! Don't let some dickweed's (lack of) response blot out that truth!

I think this is really important!!! Not just in therapy, but in real life too. I do not react in the moment, but get delayed reactions and then stew about things. And then eventually when I finally confront the person, they are Sometimes they can't even remember the incident because it's been days!!

It happened in my marriage. Probably a big reason why it didn't last. T is kind of pushing me on this: to be engaged enough with someone to react at the time something happens, not later. THEN we can discuss my perception of the other person's reaction and hash it all out right then. Therapy is absolute torture when you have to wait a full week (or longer) before you can ask T to explain their behavior or reaction. Man, wouldn't life be simpler if we could bring it up in the moment ???????

One of these days I'll be able to do this. Not yet, but I hope soon. I'm so sick of this.

Guys that's strange. I mean this is a really big thing (therapeutic breakthrough) and you don't think he'll remember his reaction/feeling to it after a week?
IDK I discuss what happend in the last session (and the session before that) quite often, asking what my T meant be this and that, explaining my reaction and I don't discuss anything as important as this. Could be that my T has a really good memory- can't be the notes cause he doesn't take them.

In this case, I don't think it's as important that the T does or does not remember his reaction - it's more important that he hears how mswinter experienced his reaction.

IDK I think it's equally important what his actual reaction was (at least for me it would be). Like: I thought you reacted like you don't care a bit about what had happened to me, was I right? No? I thought so, why did you react this way then?

It is a really big deal to the client - not the therapist. The therapist has other clients doing the same thing. The one I see does remember in general what I have told her about csa, and she might even have registered my emotional (or lack thereof) state, but I know if I asked her a week later anything about her reaction - she would simply have no clue. It is more unique to me than it is to her. Some of them probably have better memories than the one I see. I would hope so, but I can't remember how I responded to things that were a huge deal to my students or clients - and therapists are not super humans either. I am not saying OP should not tell the therapist how she felt or what bothered her about the previous interaction, I would tell the therapist. I just would not expect therapist to remember their own state of mind necessarily.

I may have cursed at my T when he did not remember his response to what I had to say.

I would definitely still bring it up, though, because whether or not he remembers, it can still be productive to discuss how is response affected you. When do you go back?

I have a feeling that this therapist wasn't really aware of really reacting in any particular way, won't recall his eyes turning, and since it was the end of the session the session needed to be brought to an end. This is one of those instances when we as the client are hyperaware of everything our T does/doesn't do and we apply meaning to what the T does/doesn't do even when there may have been no particular meaning meant at all. This is more about the clients' perception of what happened and beliefs about what that meant, and it certainly is something that needs to be discussed with the therapist.

I got the "yeah I thought something like that happened" reaction quite a bit.
It always made me feel like "why didn't you say something so I didn't have to suffer
alone then?!" I think your Ts reaction really stinks but I agree with the others who have said
you should talk to him. Give him a chance to explain or help you understand his reaction.
I'm really sorry you had to go through that....you deserve better.

I think our interpretation of T's reaction is key here. We may or may not accurately perceive their reaction. This is why discussing it in the moment is so important. I know in my case I don't always perceive T's reaction correctly, and he will call me on it. So in other words I have to justify the emotion I'm feeling and 99% of the time my perception is faulty, or way too oversensitive.

For example, if my FEELING is that he acted indifferent when I told him something, we need to talk about WHY I feel that way. What exactly did he do that made me FEEL he was indifferent? Herein lies the problem, at least for me. It's almost never a question of how HE reacted. He is not indifferent, he is not cold, he doesn't hate me. But I'm terribly sensitive to those emotions. In one infamous incident, he had the audacity to yawn in session and I was off and running for days!! He's bored with me! He doesn't like me! He's going to dump me as a patient!!!!

But this kind of stuff is really difficult to discuss after the fact, because I don't think any T would be able to remember exactly how they acted. My T didn't even remember yawning, but he remembered that he was still jet-lagged from being overseas. But they probably don't remember the details of what their body language was, eye contact, did they glance at the clock, etc. So it's hard to pinpoint exactly what happened that we reacted to and interpreted as ...whatever. If it was a strong emotion, say T felt anger when a patient said something, they might remember that - or not. Like stopdog said, they see a lot of people, and there's a lot of drama going on.

But even though it's after the fact, I think mswinter should definitely bring it up and get clarification.

Thank you all for your replies; they have been helpful, as always.

Some of you have wondered if perhaps I was more upset at the fact that my T ended the session than about how he ended. For me, this could never be the case because I firmly believe that sessions should be ended on time, unless something catastrophic (like a suicide attempt) requires the T. to continue the meeting. As I mentioned, I'm a social worker and I work primarily with victims of trauma (mostly domestic violence and child abuse). One of the things I struggle the most in my job is precisely ending sessions on time. I have a very hard time stopping a client if she or he is crying or in distress, and at times, I have a hard time even if they just want to tell me more. So, not only do I understand the important of boundaries, I actually admire professionals who are able to stay within the time boundaries because I lack and need to develop that very skill.

Also, I don't think that my T should have extended our session for reasons other than time as well. I do think that I was emotionally spent and could not have probably continued regardless of whether my T extended his time. It was OKAY to end there. What was not okay was the disregard for how I felt, the looking away, the changing the subject to scheduling our next session as if nothing at all had happened.

I personally hear women, men and children disclose painful things to me on a daily basis; never would I let them walk out of my office without acknowledging in some way what they had said, how they had said, etc. It can be a 2 minute thing, but I can't, for the life of me, ever see myself telling a client, "I thought that might have happened to you.We have to end now. Next week I have to switch days."

Now that a week has passed, I also am a lot more detached from that session. I think his response was a combination of the following:

1. Tiredness (I was his last patient; he works in an impatient psychiatric hospital during the day and sees private patients in the evening... I mean, how much can you really be present for your very last patient?)

2. Boredom (I think my inability to articulate myself coupled with my long silences simply bored him and he stopped feeling engaged)

I guess I could bring all of the above up in my session tonight, but the truth is that I feel so numb and detached about it that I don't even feel it would be a productive conversation. I just can't seem to feel anything about it anymore...

I hope you get to say what you need to say in your session this evening.
Soup

MsWinter I'm so sorry you're feeling this way. I don't need to tell you that in this case feeling numb is not healthy. It's better to be angry.
You really should talk about it. I can see you were deeply hurt by his reaction- I'd be too (plus some more...)
I think Ts reaction are important- not only how we perceived them but also what they really feel. I know ppl here disagree on this one but I'm standing my ground. At least for my therapy they are. I need a real person sitting in that chair, listening and giving me feedback.
You should let him know how badly had his reaction influenced you. If you can (and feel like it) let us know how it went.

Btw none of the above you've mentioned is a valid excuse for him to react the way he did.

Maybe you could print out your post and give it to your T? At the end of a session, if that's all you can manage, and maybe say, I'd like to talk about this next time.
I think it's important he know. It could be a major breakthrough to work though it, or, if he's not the right T for you, maybe that will show itself too.
The best of luck to you.