Found Out Something Disturbing About T

I'm sorry, I must have missed that the person over whom the therapist lost her license was your therapist.

As I said, this is going to be very hard to unhear. Don't know. It's out there.

But, what if it is benign? I mean, they are both therapists. Pretty much on equal footing wouldn't you say? (the idea that your therapist went to this therapist for couples counseling, well, that's another thing entirely.)

What if you gave your therapist the benefit of the doubt here until you got more information. It seems to me that you might be jumping to some conclusions here without some important pieces of information.

Again, this is a real toughie. Sorry it came up for you.

Maybe the husband reported it? Or his lawyer? Anyway, the ex-t has been punished and paid her debt to society - she shouldnt have to pay forever. When i experienced a similar breach with my t - the questioning of his judgment that led me to PC - i consulted with a former t who asked if i felt i could still work with the errant t. The incident made our relationship stronger, so i would advise talking to her about it.

As for the self-coping vs calling her after thanksgiving - she offered. She is not always going to offer. You were on the list this year. Next year it may be another set of clients. If you fail to take your turn, thats your choice, but you lose the opportunity to attach. Its nothing special she was offering you. It was just your turn. Thats how i took it when my t offered it to me. He decided, he controlled it. All i had to do was say yes. You grow from it and move on.

Scorp...

Seems like you've had a lot of doubts...issues ...concerns about your T lately.... Just noticing a theme of dissatisfaction unease (not debating whether its warrented just noticing)

I didn't fail to take my turn. I listened to my guy instinct which told me it was not right for me, just like e-mailing her in between sessions (which she also offered) is not right for me. I feel that I grew from trusting myself and exercising my own ability to care for myself. If the goal is to have a satisfying RL and grow out of the need for therapy, then using self-coping skills and reaching out to my RL friends is what will help me get there. If I really do need T, then I will go to her. But I don't need to accept wverythin she offers, which is a lot (not just email and the thanksgiving call).

I also feel that I already am attached to her. That's why, despite the doubts I have had, I am not interested in changing therapists. I want to stay with my T and work through and discuss the doubts that do arise and, hopefully, build an even stronger relationship as a result.

Deleted. Someone already wrote it much better.

For myself, i compared it to when i was taking acting and comedy improv classes. We were taught to take lines offered to us with "yes, and". It was very hard to break my habit of saying no and wanting to go off in my own different direction, instead of following the one offered to me.

I totally didnt understand why my t thought i would need to call him a couple of years ago at xmas. But then, when did i ever have that option before? Do you know how many people are throwing rocks or tomatoes at their computer screens right now, saying i wish my t would make me that offer?! I think to say no to t's offer, indicates a reluctance to relinquish control. It isnt really a question of need - its more, offering an opportunity to engage in an exercise, like a trust exercise at a retreat. They ask you when they think youre ready. I may well be full of beans about this, but thats how i took it. I really need a keyboard where the single quote is a lower case character!

Eta - you know i dont have a partner and have spent many years alone. I think t is trying to show me what its like on the other side cuz omg it really feels like a foreign country. So i understand your gut feeling. Just suggesting, venture into the unknown. Trust your t without talking it out first. I think if you KNOW whats gonna happen, that prevents the emotions from encoding?

I think it's awesome that you chose not to call your T after Thanksgiving. Like you explained, it was much healthier of you to opt out of a call to T and use your self coping skills. To me, that is the whole point of therapy and why I find boundaries to be particularly important. This is where your T may be the type to (subconsciously) encourage a bit of reliance from her clients. It's not a manipulative tactic, but a way T's can exhibit countertransference and their own attachment to their clients. To push back with strong boundaries of your own keeps that in check. Although I like to think I would have reacted the same way and practiced my own skills, I think I might have been like a little kid and taken advantage of the special attention

I think this is a very wise move. It's nice that the option is there, but if you don't need it, you don't need it. You're right. RL connections are the end goal. If you're already on that track it absolutely makes sense to reach out there first.

The reason I know that unnecessary out-of-session contact with T is not healthy for me is because I used to have a problem with pushing boundaries and becoming over-attached to female teachers and mentors. If the boundaries were loose, I wôuld push and push. It was a mess. However, with hard work (and the maturity that comes with growing up), I overcame that issue. But it's like having an addiction. Give me a little, and I'll want a lot. The worst thing for me would be to be enabled to regress and create that old, unhealthy pattern with my T. I already have a maternal attachment to her-- I don't want to start thinking "hey, maybe she can really be like my mom! Maybe she'll give me that!" It would totally derail my therapy. For me, I need boundaries in place to keep that in check. I don't think T really understands how bad my boundary issues used to be because I overcame them before I began seeing her. She tells me that I have good boundaries-- which I do Now. They didn't used to be good! She offers these things because she thinks I don't have boundary issues. But that's like offering a drink to an alcoholic who had been sober for 10 years. It's like saying "you don't have a problem now. Maybe you can start drinking a little bit." I know that I can't-- even if T doesn't know that because she's never seen me act out. If she had, I think she'd agree it was not good for me.

I don't think it's anyone else's business. It's a private matter. Your therapist shouldn't have been discussing personal information with you.

Okay, but how do you know you're not turning down something that would help you? How do you know you're not in denial? We go to these people for help, they offer us a, b, c, d - we take a and b, refuse c and d, then say t doesnt work? We never even get to e f n g. Maybe you cant run ahead to g unless youve passed thru c d e f. Or maybe you can get there once but it doesnt stick, you fall into your old habits of relating. So for me, i had to consciously say yes, because otherwise i would always say no. And i had to tell t that i didnt mean it when i said no, that it was an automatic response. Its very difficult. Damd if you do and damd if you dont. Im not arguing. I see your side, but do you see mine?

Eta - scorpio - we posted at the same time. But attachment is not alcoholism. I think you can learn healthy attachment. I am. I see it irl with my friends. Its a result of my rs with my t. And my "work" here, interacting with people.

I wish I had known this. The part about encouraging a bit of reliance really rings true for me. I think it can make them (T) feel good and like they are doing a good job, being so giving.

Oh how I enjoy "Love Triangles", reminds me of old Soap Operas

But in all seriousness if you think that this will derail your Therpay than I would stop seeing her immediately.

This also brings up a good issue that may affect some of us at one point in time or another in that we may have a conflict-of-interest with our Therapist and not even know it. For instance the Therapist may be in a relationship with someone we know (even in some cases a friend if it is not a real intimate one that you discuss everything with) and we may not even know it until it comes up in a conversation (sometimes years down the road).

I do see your point and, in a lot of cases, I think you would be right. However, if therapy has taught me anything it has taught me to trust myself and listen to my own gut instinct. My "No" is not an automatic or unconsidered response. It's an informed response, after much thought. I think being open to hearing T's professional opinion is important, but I don't think it should overrule my own judgment or my own instincts. When I've allowed a professional to persuade me, against my own instincts and judgment, it's been a disaster. I ended up with a dentist pulling a tooth that didn't need to be pulled and a medical doctor performing a surgery for a problem I didn't have. I think I need to listen to myself when I have a strong feeling about what is right for me. I think trusting myself is a better course of action than following my T just because she's a T, even though my gut instinct is saying this doesn't feel right/ healthy for me.

Thank-you for this. I do feel as though my T is unintentionally encouraging reliance and dependency, out of a desire to help me. The offer is coming from the right place, but it's not the right offer for me. We have talked about the fact that I have a maternal attachment to her, and she has said that he feels some Of that on her side too. When I told her that something she did hurt my feelings, she actually started crying because she said she felt horrible for hurting me. She said she was reacting the way she did when she hurt her daughter's feelings. I think her offer may have even been a desire to "make up for" hurting my feelings. I don't think her emotional reaction in that situation was wrong because it showed me that she cares about me. However, I don't want to be enabled to depend on her more than is healthy for building a secure attachment and therapeutic alliance.

So I guess the problem is solved then. You´re doing great in T and can handle situations in a healthy adult way. Now working on changing T/friends/students/partners/parents ect. seems to be the next natural step.

Wow. What a complicated situation! I'm impressed with the amount of thought and honest consideration you've given this issue - something that has such a big impact on you personally, but is tangled up in so much 3rd party junk.

Knowing about my T's personal relationship conflicts would affect me, but I would not feel the that I had to address it in my therapy. However, T being involved with ex-T, I could not ignore - even if my T was the client. I would not be able to keep quiet and deal with it on my own while continuing with that T. I would have to address it in the therapy.

You seem to be very adept at recognizing and keeping your boundaries with this T, as well as knowing what you want from your therapy and how to go about getting it. The things I might be wondering about in your situation are why I had to be the one working so hard to make therapy a safe place, why I was so willing to do it and whether my reasons were going to help me progress forward or justify staying in a comfortable place. Not that your current situation is super comfy, but maybe it beats the unknown, never considered possibilities...

Good luck with all this!

sorry you had this info dumped in your lap and are now put in this position of wondering if it is true. i would talk to T about it, as difficult as that would be, and frame it as feralkittymom said about needing to know that you are safe in therapy. i think it is up to you to lead the convo to find out what you need to know to feel safe. agree also that if your T gets defensive and weird about it then it is probably not a good sign. i am really uncomfortable with your T telling you about leaving her marriage for someone else because it seems like she probably cheated. tmi

I found out the one I see, after claiming to have sterling boundaries and never having coffee or whatever with clients, invited the other person I know who sees her over to her house to watch tv together when the therapist's husband was out of town. And then invited the client to do some other stuff too.
It was somewhat unsettling in that her insistence had been so insistent.
And I had not wanted to see the woman outside of appointments so why she told me she had excellent boundaries was a mystery because my own are such that it would not become an issue.
I would just ask the therapist about the rumor.

I agree that insistent insistence would render an unsettling thing even more unsettling in its unsettlingness. Or thinginess. Or may i just say, omg!!

Eta - this is probably why i dont have a lady t right now. What if i am irresistible. What if im not? Maybe I couldnt handle being rejected by a female figure (mom) again? Idk.

Just, Woah..... Dude!

I would say that a Therapist can do whatever they want as long as it is in the privacy of their own home, however I think that having a client over (unless they are having a Therapy session there) is crossing the line. Like I have said before the only time I think that a Therapist and Client should be together in a true personal setting is at Therapy.

I don't know if this will help you, especially because I haven't read the rest of the thread and I may just be repeating what others have said. I keyed in on this part because it surprised me. I think that your feelings are probably the best way to explore what this means to you, and you have every right to ask your T about it. I wouldn't be surprised if she's dealt with this situation with other clients, especially if your town is small and especially if the lesbian community is as well.

But this excerpt that I quoted from your OP-- that's not a feeling, but a cognition. And it may be worth considering whether the way you are thinking about this situation doesn't have some distorted perceptions as part of it. Whether or not a person has poor "judgment" or isn't trustworthy may have nothing to do with leaving her marriage and/or choosing to have a relationship with her former T. Is it "good judgment" to stay in a marriage that is not right for you? The longer I'm married and the more I see couples split up and others stay together unhappily, I see no heroism in being married if it's not working. With the be-with-your-T thing, I guess I don't see this as anything determinative about someone's judgment-- I'm a little more skeptical if it's a 60 year old T and a 20 year old client than same-aged and longer-in-the-tooth therapists. I've known couples that have emerged from therapy-- my wife is trained as a T, but does research and does not practice-- and I've seen quite a few of these. I've also seen many faculty-student and supervisor-employee relationships, which are kind of similar and often forbidden, but they happen anyway. They happen because people meet and people do fall in love, and maybe it takes good, thoughtful judgment (I don't know) to be able to look past the person's role and see who they are enough to want to be with them. Falling in love with an "inappropriate" person shouldn't really be a crime-- if there is no exploitation of one partner, then so what?

It seems to me that your strong feelings about this suggest that there might be a lot going on with you related to hearing this "information." It's obviously not just about what your T has done (or not), but also about how you think about what "right" or not in relationships. If your interpersonal relationships have been problematic, then this might be a hook towards understanding yourself better. And in T, that's golden. Good luck.

It does seem that those who proclaim the loudest that they would never do X or who otherwise make a big fuss about the people who do X, are usually the ones doing X. Or maybe I'm just reading too many news stories about legislators.