Has anyone ever felt betrayed by their Therapist

This would be a good topic to work on in therapy. How much were you able to progress in this area with your previous (4 year) therapist?

I did to some degree, I have been thinking about maybe going back to see her for just once a month and just pay the entire fee out of pocket.

It's good that you were able to make real-world progress with the previous T. Consider making that an even more significant part of the time with your next (or previous) T. Some of your comments made me worry that you might be thinking of therapy as a substutute, rather than a support, for real world engagement. Greater comfort in the real world will bring a greater sense of freedom.

That is very true and I am trying to set up an appointment with the person who referred me to that office to see if she has anywhere else that she could refer me to. I think that this time I may bring up some of my preferences that I was too scared to bring up last time, for instance I would really like to have a Therapist who doesn't mind hugging their Clients (which I know that wasn't the case with the Therapist who I saw for 4 years).

Saying out loud what is on your mind is a big part of feeling comfortable in social settings. It does not always get what you want, but the freedom it brings to speak and act in the world is invaluable.

I am starting to think that the main reason why I feel so betrayed is because when I first mentioned it to her she told me that we could discuss it more at future sessions (and I even said at the last session before yesterday that I was ready to let it go) but then she goes behind my back and tells her supervisor about it. Honestly yesterday felt more like an interegation than anything else my (now ex) Therapist seemed to look stone faced the entire time yesterday and really showed no remorse in what she did. I feel like I put some much trust in her and then she turns her back against me. They also were trying to tell me that they knew what my feelings were towards her when really they had no idea how I felt, I certainly didn't feel like I wanted to have an intimate relationship with her which they kept saying that they thought I did.

You had discussed the relationship with her, she was willing to discuss it and invited further discussion. You came to realize that you could let your feelings go and said so. Thus your shock, dismay, sense of betrayal, humiliation to learn that she brought in her supervisor and to feel like the two of them interrogated and accused you before terminating therapy.

Exactly I think that what happened to me yesterday was something that no one should have to go through and now that I think about it the referring of me to another Therapist at the practice was rather disgusting on their part. They even wanted to call my mom to talk to her about what we talked about but I said no to that.

The idea of talking to your mom must have been surprising. What did they want to say to her?

I'm not really sure, but what I think is that they wanted to steer everything to their advantage just like they did when I was meeting with them.

I think that I have definitely decided that I still want a Female Therapist who is close in age to me because I still see them as the ideal fit, I don't think that a Male Therapist will understand me well enough and as I said earlier I don't get along much with fellow Males (in particular ones who are my age).

I think that the problem with the last Therapist (in addition to her only being an Intern) is that I kept bringing up things that were solely hypothetical and probably went on about them to much which led to her questioning whether she was a good Therapist for me or not (and if I had feelings for that would compromise the relationship when I can tell you that I didn't). If I can stay away from doing that with my next Therapist (provided that I go see one in the near future) then I think that I can have great success with her (like I did with the Therapist that I saw for 4 years).

Maybe but at the same time boundaries in Therapy aren't the same as boundaries out in social places.

No, they're not. And yet, according to your posts, you spent a great deal of time, energy, and emotional intensity trying to make them so.

Seeking another T that is young, female, willing to hug, and who you've admitted you will find sexually attractive, is a recipe for repeating your negative experience. You're persisting in characterizing your now ex-T as "going behind your back" when, in fact, she was doing her job--she was likely reporting on her cases to her supervisor on a weekly basis. That is part of being an intern and required for licensing. Her supervisor probably saw this issue of an insistent need to twist the boundaries akin to social norms for a long time, and she may very well have made the decision for your T to terminate the relationship. Most theories of therapy espouse the belief that therapy cannot proceed in a functional way under such conditions. Perhaps you would do better to try to think in terms of what you need to accomplish your goals in RL, rather than fulfilling your wants through the experience of a therapy relationship.

While everyone has the right to their therapy gender preference, the empirical research shows that there is no correlation between gender and therapy outcomes. This may be an indication that gender preference says more about client wants than client needs.

The Supervisor did in fact inform me that she made the decision for me to stop seeing her. I think that what may have happened (and once again this is just speculation) is that the Therapist did her occasionally reporting to her Supervisor (which she probably does for all clients) and she saw a problem herself that she thought that she needed to take care of. The fact that she thought that my looking at her LinkedIn page was overstepping boundaries (which I still don't think that it was) makes me think that because I told her that I did that a few months ago and she didn't seem to have a problem with that. I still feel like she went behind me back because if she thought that there was a problem then I don't see why we could try to resolve it between the two of us before she went to speak with her Supervisor (but than again if it was part of a routine checkup than I guess its another story). But I guess I just like having a woman in my life in general (I am really not on good terms with my mother or sister either).

This is not an argument in favor of a female T.

Having a female T is not equivalent to, nor a substitute for, having real life relationships with women.

This is not an argument against a male T.

Whether you work with a man or a woman, my thinking is that the focus would best be on improving real life relationships, not on having a specific type of experience within therapy. It sounds like you had four years of the experience you are still seeking within therapy, and yet your real life relationships are still not near where you want them to be.

It could be but I still firmly believe that Females do understand me more than Males do. It is a proven fact that Males and Females see things in different ways.

I think this is similar to my asking my t to marry me. We both - we all! - know this is not realistic. So in a way it's hypothetical. I think the reason my t doesn't mind is because I take responsibility for it. I own it. I don't say I don't mean it. I tell him it would make me feel safe and settled. So when it comes up, we both know I am feeling unsafe and unsettled, and we try to figure out why. But I had to explain to him many times why I felt driven to ask him. He just didn't want to hear it anymore. Frankly, I didn't want to feel like saying it anymore. I mean, yes he's cute but I don't think we'd get along. But I still have this Cinderella complex or whatever that I want him to fix! Getting that first acceptance, that first love that your mother was supposed to give you, sets the stage for love ever after. Your love pattern. If there were problems bonding for whatever reason, to fix it now takes time. To undo the bad and reestablish a good pattern. But try to educate yourself as much as possible to eliminate setbacks like these. I think you're working at a more abstract level than this t could handle. So you need to help them help you. I have it in my head but I can't put it into words.

I would note that your perceptions of what females do and don't think don't seem to be proving themselves accurate.

Obviously I don't know how Females actually think (as opposed to how Men think) but I have read many articles about it from some top level neurologists and psychologists.

General theories don't have so much to do with individual applications in RL interactions because your role brings an unknown variable into the mix. The only variable you can truly understand and control is you.

Not sure that this will be helpful, but my H was reading this thread with me, and he said it might be helpful to point out to you that there ARE paid relationships with women which will be able to provide you with what you need. Perhaps those would be worth exploring.

Well, only in a sense. It has been shown is that when you look at a limited, well-defined group of people, there may be some statistically significant differences between how the females and the males in the group see things.

That is a very different thing from saying that men and women see things differently, and you can never draw a conclusion about an individual based on the majority of the people in the group the individual belongs to. (For instance, there are many studies on how people of different genders within various cultures communicate. Say, for instance, that in a particular culture, the men have been shown to use more emotion-based language than the women in the culture. That does not mean that if you look at a random individual woman in the culture, she will by default use fewer expressions of emotion than a random male from the same culture. All such investigations look at statistical differences between groups of people.)

Sorry, I'll get off my soap box now. This really is very important, though.

I'm actually glad you said that, I am starting to think that right now maybe the best thing for me is to take an indefinite leave from Therapy all-together and to determine whether it is really still good for me to go, or if I am just going for all the wrong reasons (i.e. the wanting to have my Therapist sort of mimic a female figure in my life, such as a girlfriend).

What are you talking about (I hope you're not talking about prostitution)

An alternative could be to see a T (maybe even a male T?) and be honest about these concerns. A good T can help you clarify such decisions as well as work through the issues that underlie them. Nothing says you have to commit to a lifetime of sessions.

True but than again where was that with my last Therapist