[tennisteam]

I have been having a really rough time in therapy, and have tried many times to talk to T openly about it. There are two issues, one is with the time boundaries, as t has been frequently late, cancelled appointments or forgot about our session. The other is regarding his self disclosure, which lately has been a few items of seemingly harmless stories about his past that make me jealous.

I have not brought up my concerns about the particular self disclosure, and I have no idea how. It must serve some purpose as he is the professional. I wish I could give more details here, but I don't feel safe posting on a public forum. I feel like There are too many ways it could backfire on me. I can't believe all I have said already. I know there are people here who have incredible insight, so it's killing me to keep it to myself when I want so badly to out it out there. I admire all the folks here who are not afraid to talk about things. I am terrified to talk to another therapist about everything as well.

What else can I do?

[Leah123]

Hi. I appreciate your concerns. You might consider just printing your post and giving it to him, to save yourself the discomfort of having to say everything. Just hand it over and he'll be able to help you through the rest of the conversation.

If you do not want to even commit that far, and do not wish to share on a public forum, consider hiring a third-party therapist for an hour to discuss your therapeutic relationship concerns. I've done this a few times and found it very helpful. You can see someone in person or hire someone at a moment's notice online, just check their credentials.

The benchmark for me is whether I'm making progress and getting healthier and happier. If I'm not, I talk to my therapist about adjustments. So far, she's been able and willing to adjust, though it's definitely a process, not overnight perfection. If she wasn't able to adjust, was not reliable, and disclosed too much, well.... I'd have to leave. But best is to talk about it first, in my opinion- might make things so much better. At the very least it would be better because you'd know you stood up for yourself and got some clarity.

[tennisteam]

[QUOTE=Leah123;3671706

If you do not want to even commit that far, and do not wish to share on a public forum, consider hiring a third-party therapist for an hour to discuss your therapeutic relationship concerns. I've done this a few times and found it very helpful. You can see someone in person or hire someone at a moment's notice online, just check their credentials.

.[/QUOTE]

Thanks you Leah 123...did you tell your current t when you hired the 3rd party therapist, and did you include you current T in the session. I did not realize this was an option, but I do know t has said he will not continue with me if I am seeing someone else. I guess I wouldn't necessarily be seeing the third party for therapy though. Also, where can I go to find a T at a moments notice online. That is amazing that that is an option.

Thank you very much, a appreciate your other thoughts as well

[stopdog]

I have told the therapist I consult with others of her ilk.

[Leah123]

Originally Posted by tennisteam

Thanks you Leah 123...did you tell your current t when you hired the 3rd party therapist, and did you include you current T in the session. I did not realize this was an option, but I do know t has said he will not continue with me if I am seeing someone else. I guess I wouldn't necessarily be seeing the third party for therapy though. Also, where can I go to find a T at a moments notice online. That is amazing that that is an option.

Thank you very much, a appreciate your other thoughts as well

Hello. Yes, I did tell my therapist that I had spoken to other therapists, after the fact and some of what we discussed. I did not include her in the session: I am not sure she would have agreed, though I have never asked her to do that, so I don't really know what she would say as these days I don't feel the need.

I don't think one therapist will usually keep seeing a client who is seeing another therapist *on an ongoing basis* (though there are exceptions, or you can lie about it, which I don't advise) but I didn't see two therapists full time- I just used others for one-off consultations basically.

You can hire a therapist right now on LivePerson.com or on other sites. LivePerson verifies the credentials and you can read reviews on the therapists as well as read a profile they've written about their style, experience, and training/degrees.

[Perna]

I would find my inner anger at the time problems and tell him how I feel about that. Constant/continued lateness, cancelling, missing or forgetting appointments does not help you in any way and is a failure to keep therapy boundaries, your T's #1 job! Of course you cannot talk to him about more delicate/difficult stuff if he cannot manage the basic therapy setup. He's not a "professional" if he messes that up. See if he can straighten that out first if you want to keep employing him but I would look around, interview, and see if I could find someone I felt safer with, more sure they could do their job.

[tennisteam]

Originally Posted by Perna

I would find my inner anger at the time problems and tell him how I feel about that. Constant/continued lateness, cancelling, missing or forgetting appointments does not help you in any way and is a failure to keep therapy boundaries, your T's #1 job! Of course you cannot talk to him about more delicate/difficult stuff if he cannot manage the basic therapy setup. He's not a "professional" if he messes that up. See if he can straighten that out first if you want to keep employing him but I would look around, interview, and see if I could find someone I felt safer with, more sure they could do their job.

This all something I have been afraid to hear or admit. He's not doing his job. I'm now looking into the option of one-time consultation as suggested by Lynn above, but I think you are right, that I should start looking around and interviewing. I'm so sad because I love him and he has been there for me through so much. But apparently over the past year, some thing has changed for him. I'm afraid I might switch to another therapist and the same thing could happen. I wonder if I'm being overly hard on him - he thinks I need to work on my flexibility, but does that sound right?

[Leah123]

I think it's a judgement call but worth discussing with your therapist. It's so important to bring relationship issues into the relationship. By judgement call, I mean, most of us might believe that being late once in a year for an unusual reason and missing a couple sessions due to a serious illness were unfortunate but understandable and not a reasonable cause to change as that level of inconsistency is likely to recur. I suspect that most of us would disagree if the therapist were late every other week and missed a session every month. Therapy does rely on consistency. Either way, though, it's up to you to decide if the therapy is working well enough for you, but I hope you would discuss everything with him as well- discussing your needs and feelings around his behavior is very therapeutic.

You say something has changed during the last year, see that's the type of thing I believe is critical to bring into therapy, to ask him the question "What has changed this last year? I notice you are missing sessions and late often: I don't trust you like I used to because of this. What is going on and what can we do to fix it?"

[Lauliza]

I agree with Leah, it depends so much on the situation. Many T's or other healthcare providers run a little late if their appointments get behind schedule. They should not take that from your time, however. Otherwise I understand that that happens. Missing appointments would be more of the concern to me. Again, things happen and sometimes professionals need to cancel appointments. But that should be a rare occurance. If it;s not, they should bring up that there are some things going on that are causing him to cancel more than usual. But that is unprofessional and he is not helping you at all by cancelling/forgetting. There is nothing wrong with consulting another T and I don't think you need to say anything unless you decide to make a change.

I think it is more important to bring it up in session though, since it is impeding your progress and should be brought to his attention. It's great he has been so helpful to you in the past so you can tell him that, but also let him know that the missed sessions are not helping you and ask to discuss what can be done in that respect. If he says you need to be more flexible, then that is unprofessional in my opinion. It also is placing the blame on you and being a T, thats the last thing he should do.