T late /jealous of other client

I will start by saying that in 1.5 years, T has only been late for a session once, and in that case he apologized appropriately and offered to add the time on to the end of our session.

I usually show up at T's waiting room right before my session, partly because of my busy schedule and partly because I don't want to see T's other clients come out of the room. But lately I have been trYing to get there earlier to center myself. On Friday, when I got there, I could hear T and some woman laughing together. This went on for several minutes until, right at the hour, she came out. She smiled at me and walked out the door, clearly not in any great distress.

I was expecting T to come to the door to bring me in, since now it was my designated time for therapy. But instead, I could hear him moving around inside his office for several minutes. When he opened the door, it was about 4 minutes after the hour.

When I sat down, he did not apologize. So I pointed out that he was late and that he is not usually late. He acknowledged that he was late by "about 2-3 minutes" but did not apologize.

It is days later and this still bugs me. I understand needing to go over with a client who is in great distress, but this woman clearly was not. From the sound of it, they were having a great time together laughing. And I know that a few minutes late is not a big deal, but I feel like given how absolutely punctual T normally is, the fact that he was late and did not acknowledge it until I brought it up is out of the ordinary for him.

And, I will say, that even though my session that followed was highly emotional delving into trauma, he made sure I was out the door before the hour ended.

So, yeah, I am angry and hurt, and also jealous of this other client. I hate feeling these feelings and it makes me want to distance myself from T.

that sounds really frustrating. I'm sorry t seemed so dismissive...
perhaps that was part of grounding for that client (I know sometimes affter a really heavy session, I will use humor and change the topic to something we can laugh about because it's easier to leave that way)? Or perhaps T and client were taking session bit longer to focus on the good stuff more? Either way, I would probably be frustrated if I encountered the same situation and was ushered out the door despite having a rough session myself (actually, have felt that way a few times over the years when I felt in a bad space to be leavig, but our time was up and either T did not notice my distress, or chose not to address it together in favor of ending on time). Perhaps this would be something to address next session?

Could have been his friend/colleague/family member...
Anyways, he still should have apologize and give you the 4min back... I'd discuss it in the next session.

I hear ya. Especially that it makes you want to distance yourself from your t. But the longterm solution is to build a stronger and closer relationship with your t.

Ive been on both the giving and receiving ends of the laughter. One time t was shouting and i found it upsetting. He was like, ugh, i was trying to book a flight! But i was scared as heck to even bring it up.

I hated when "big beautiful women" came out of his office smiling. Hated it! Then i asked him, how am i supposed to "convert" talking about sad stuff in here, to feeling better IRL? How is THAT supposed to work? So now, i try to leave his office on a light encouraging hopeful note if at all possible. Just cuz we're laughing, doesnt mean we're not serious.

He could have been distracted for a few minutes. It happens.

I know a few minutes is not a big deal and I'm not normally such a stickler for time. But I guess this is where small things get magnified in therapy.

Part of it is that I want to be the most special client to him. Pathetic, I know. But that is partly where this is coming from.

Could you bring all this up with him? It sounds like an important topic to discuss.

It would bug me too, even though I try to "be good" and not crazy about other people being on the dot punctual. I'd hate hearing the laughing, because it makes me so self-conscious of how "unfun" my sessions are, and I hate when people are late in general... especially with T, since it's expensive.

Do you think you can talk with him more next week? I'm starting to see that the trick with therapy is that if it bugs you, you probably should bring it up. I'd think this would be totally fair game, and might be useful/helpful to you. Maybe?

I also think if you don't bring it up... you run the risk of it building up to something bigger in your head, you know? For example, I know that I'm prone to remembering *everything*, not saying *anything*, then suddenly when I get upset enough - having a list of 100 things that someone has been doing wrong to unleash on them ... then it ends up being a bigger, harder to solve problem. Whereas, if you deal with this one thing now... it can be dealt with and over, hopefully.

Good luck...

Maybe he needed a bathroom break?

The one I see tried a few times to be all jolly at the end of the appointment. I think it is a technique they use. I managed to get the one I see to stop. She can have fun on her own time. She has not proven worthy of it with me.

I wouldn't assume just because they were laughing it was a "fun session" T and I frequently will change what we are discussing at the end of a session especially if it has been very difficult. A few weeks ago we had a very difficult session. I cried quite a bit which I NEVER do. I was feeling frustrated that I wasn't "in control" and I happened to see the clock and that we only had about 10 minutes left. So I changed the subject to something totally off the wall. I asked her something person so she started laughing not because I had something THAT funny. Rather I completely changed the subject and turned it on her. She knew that I was done with what we had been discussing and needed to regain composure. From that point we had a very lighthearted conversation til the end.

As far as being a couple of minutes late since he has done it so infrequently I wouldn't take it personally. It may have been that the previous appointment had been pretty intense and he needed to get a quick breath, had a phone message, etc...

my t and i laugh a lot - sometimes about morbid things (when i'm suicidal) because that's how i am. people make assumptions about my mental health based on the fact that i laugh - missing the point that just because i'm laughing doesn't mean i'm not in distress. it's my way of handling my distress because if i didn't laugh, i'd cry (if I could cry).

if you're concerned he's shorting you on time (which you are paying for), then bring it up. four minutes could have been 2 minutes on his clock - it's not uncommon for clocks to be off. however, also ask, how often does this happen? is it becoming a habit? or is it worth taking a deep breath and figuring out how to let go (in which case, discussing it with t in that vein - hey i feel this way, but i would like to let it go, how do i do that?).

I'm really, really sorry

Sometimes I hear laughing through the door too and have brought it up to him. He would apologize for being late though; I know he would as he is most always on time. One time, he was still with a client at my appointment time but needed an extra 5 minutes, so he came out and asked me if it was ok. (of course it was ok-what was I going to do-say
"T, no, I can't wait 5 minutes".)

Apologizing would have been the considerate thing to do. You'd also expect him to keep you at least another few minutes. That's one of the worst parts of this maybe??

Yes, I get jealous sometimes too. I always think he would look forward to seeing me if I was a client from his favorite nation. Now that we meet through Skype, I never see any of them...but I have an imagination!

I totally understand feeling angry and hurt and hope you can talk to him about this more. Rupture and repair...rupture and repair. That's part of the good stuff of therapy.

I laugh with my T all the time, and she is often just goes a few minutes over if we are in the middle of a topic. I think that she does this to help the conversation feel more natural. But she just really isn't the kind of on time T because of this. I suspect that she starts 10 minutes late with a lot of people.

But if it bothered you I think you should bring it up. That's the most important thing.