Kicked out of session

Well, would it be so bad to be terminated? Do you seriously think she's still helping you?
Doesn't seem like it from where I stand... :/

So she wasn't going to see you because you couldn't pay an extra $32.50 but now because of a grievance you filed the insurance company WILL pay the $32.50 and she will see you but you don't understand why? Because.... now she's getting the $32.50. So it seems that you are stuck with the she was willing to drop you for the $32.50 and she wants to move on. Therapists don't own us sessions. I couldn't see the specialized eating disorders therapists in town because they're all self-pay (I eventually stopped on my own). They can raise their fee. Insurance companies drop providers.

It may be that you're not hearing her. She's asking you to let it go. And on this one I tend to agree with her because of the situation, it doesn't matter how many years you have been with her, you got the service at the agreed fee for all those years. I've seen 40+ therapists in the past 18 years. At the end of the day we are clients, not friends.

It feels she is just thinking in a concrete way, rather than being able to put herself and her defensive manner aside and see the symbolic meaning for YOU in this. She is unable to explore with you what the money side of things means symbolically for you. It could be about your need (a perfectly normal and healthy need) to know you are cared for, that there is love there for you. Money and love are interchangeable. She gives so many mixed messages around the money, which can be interpreted as her being wholly inconsistent in her care for you. It's the same dynamic that causes disorganised attachment - not knowing where you are from one minute to another. Money holds huge symbolic weight and your pain needs to be respected and worked with in regards to this. It needs to be understood, for you, why it is so painful. She needs to acknowledge what she is repeating for you.

Your therapist is acting out HER unworked issues with money, love, dependency, having needs, the list could go on, with you. And I expect you stay because it is all too familiar? Infact I expect you would be more likely to run if she was kind and understanding? We have the abuse dynamic in full swing here - the Stockholm Syndrome, where all you can do is identify with your abuser, and it keeps you there. She should know better. You can now equip yourself with the knowledge to get yourself out.

I listened to the recording you posted a while ago, and the video, and she is being abusive of you. It was absolutely clear, the evidence was being demonstrated clearly in her patronising and bullyish attitude. It made very painful listening. It was appalling how she behaved, and she seems cock sure it's you being abusive. As I have said before, it is a dynamic I am unfortunately all too familiar with. It's become all about HER, and your pain is forgotten. She is clearly way out of her depth and needs help. Yes, it can be painful for the therapist to have her failings pointed out. But rather than act out defensively, it is her job to take her stuff elsewhere to understand it, so she can de code the meaning of your words for YOU so you can feel heard. This can lead to healing. If she is unable to help,due to her lack of experience, then she should be admitting that and helping you find someone who can help, not keeping you coming week after week like this. It's unethical.

Right now your therapy is abusive of you. It's not your fault. She is at fault. It doesnt matter how angry you get or how hard you push it is her job to maintain safe and caring boundaries. She isn't doing that. She is acting out in a wholly inappropriate way with you. It is your job now to take care of yourself and remove yourself from that abusive relationship and to get a therapist who can understand symbolically what is happening, so you get a chance to work it through. It sounds like you desperately need to work transferentially. That's what you are clearly needing - to be able to work with how it feels in the relationship with your therapist. I hear you desperately asking for that.

Take care

Moon

Moon's post is an excellent explanation of what is happening in your therapy. She has hit the nail squarely or roundly on the head! I'd print this one out and keep rereading it. No one can force you to move on, just as your therapist can't force you to drop the subject regarding her willingness to terminate you as a client. Personally, I think a good and skilled therapist recognizes when a client is unable to leave an issue and the therapist works with the client until she gets some closure. In most cases, the failure to move on is because the issue is related to an original wound--it needs to be examined and re-examined as long as it takes.

I think you're exactly right, she is worried that if she drops you, you'll decide to file a complaint against her or you'll sue her. She is currently TOTALLY blind to your therapeutic need to work through the rupture. She can't. She's too worried about her own issues and when that kind of thing happens in a person's therapy, no therapy happens. It comes to a total standstill or even worse, it turns into a battle of the wills. It's interesting that you describe your early relationship with this therapist as so wonderful and healing. You battered her walls with your anxiety, testing her and re-testing her (which by the way is perfectly normal). It now appears that the two of you have changed positions--she is the one who is angry and bullying and you attempt to reason out the problems by proposing new ways for the two of you to work this out, in addition to continuing to return to the need to rework what happened in your sessions together. I'm sorry, but I really don't see this as a workable situation but you also need to come to that realization on your own. But if you truly want to move on in your healing, you might need to accept that she isn't able, intellectually, emotionally or physically, to give you the healing experience you're looking for and needing.

No. She was never getting the extra $32.50- insurance only paid $87.50. After she ****ed up my insurance I told her I thought maybe I could pay the insurance rate of $87.50, she said she was happy to keep seeing me but itd be at the rate of $120 per session-$32.50 MORE than insurance had been paying. I could not pay the extra $32.50 she was asking. The insurance was never paying the extra $32.50 she was asking.

But my insurance wound up paying again ($87.50, not 120) and SHE signed the contract to accept $87.50 again. So I don't understand why $87.50 was okay from my insurance for two years, then it was NOT ok from me, then again its suddenly ok from insurance again. But if I ask for an extra session, I get charged $120 instead of the rate she always gets for me. The work is the same. (She did however tell me that she wasnt keeping the fee at medicare rate bc I was too much work). But in turn that begs the question-- I'm still the same work. Why did she sign the contract again and lock herself into seeing me? So she can keep complaining about how my insurance is so cheap and underpays her?

At any rate you are also focusing on the wrong part of what I'm saying, of the problem I have. It isn't directly about the money at all. It's about what the money meant, about how it made me feel, its about her willingness, her desire-to let me go. It's not directly about the money.

I think the thing with accepting less from insurance than from an individual client is pretty normal. I think that if a person is paid less than the going rate by an insurance company, the difference can be written off in taxes. I know it's really hard when you have the mix of therapy being a job for the therapist while also being a very intimate relationship, but the reality is the therapist does need to make a living, otherwise he/she would not be there to help us heal.

ha. would it be terrible of me to print it out and read it to her? she'll just get mad, bc its critical of her. she seriously cannot take criticism at all.

she really doesnt listen to me when i try to explain this stuff. she says im bpd so my perceptions are twisted so i cant rely on them. so i told her im not relying on them, i asked all of you and most of you thought she was saying what i thought she was saying, are all of you unrelated third parties also skewed?

As for what youre saying about my need to work transferentially...you may be right about that. Trying to figure out what parallels I'm drawing there.

except she single handedly caused me to lose my insurance coverage with her bc she opted out of medicare for another client, making in next to impossible for them to pay her. It was her fault. I dont think she should be able to make such a monumental "mistake" then make me pay for it by jacking up her fee.

" . . . would it be terrible of me to print it out and read it to her? she'll just get mad, bc its critical of her. she seriously cannot take criticism at all."

I know you weren't directing this question at me, but I'll answer anyway.
Yeah, it would not only be terrible, but it would only reinforce the stalemate that you and your therapist are engaged in. I agree, she probably can't "take criticism at all." I'm guessing that it's a pretty hard thing for you to handle too. In a way, the two of you seem pretty similar in your struggle with relationships. I'm guessing she has some pretty strong BPD traits and she is struggling to contain her own while working with you. I can't imagine that she is working with a clinical supervisor or a peer group to discuss her continued missteps in attempting to engage you in a helpful and therapeutic manner. The entire relationship has become hurtful to you and you aren't learning any skills or gaining any helpful insight into your issues because you're so busy attempting to prove that she is a inadequate therapist. And she's so caught up in proving that you're exhibiting acting out behaviors due to your BPD that she can't see that she's doing more damage than good. You guys make me tired just thinking about engaging in therapy like this! I sure hope one of you is able to disengage at some point along the line here.

Some things can't be fixed. I had a therapist for several years that was absolutely toxic for me. I spent solo much time and money trying to fix that relationship. A lot of the feelings you describe remind me of how I felt. Anyway, I fortunately fell into therapy with the one I see now and it literally took a good year and a half or so for me to work through that awful toxic therapy and finally get to a place that I didn't *need* to fix that toxic therapeutic relationship.

I don't think you can fix what you're trying to fix.

But she's a therapist. If all a sudden she feels the money is not enough, it's not unethical to let a client go. What if something changes in her life and she's in need of money? From someone who has seen her fair share of therapist and has deal with binge eating and depression her whole life (I manage the depression myself and I'm binge free at the moment out of my own will), I agree with her that you have to let the money issue go. Trust me, I have issues of my own I haven't let go and I bring up in therapy. But if this is going to upset her you have to make a choice. Keep bringing it up and risk upsetting her enough, since it does seem to upset her, or let it go and focus on whatever else you want to work on.

You're still missing the point, just like she is. I don't know how mAny different ways I can say it's not about the money, it's about what it means and how I feel about it. That's part of the work-talking about my feelings. It's not about ethics it's about how I feel.

And her husbands a millionaire, she's not about to lose her house or her hobbies or her anything over $65 a week that she was never getting in the first place.

It's not about equating money with love and if she's willing to let you go over $30 it means she doesn't for care you as a person?

But what if IRL45 does equate money with love? What if understanding the meaning of the money is the work? Does telling her that it's ok for the therapist to charge more and to put the feelings she has about it away (because in telling her to let them go when not worked through, that's what you are doing) make it all ok? This isn't about logic or looking after the feelings of the therapist, it's about the feelings of the client! If we all look at this in a logical fashion, we too ignore and dismiss the feelings of IRL45. Just like her therapist is doing. This is exactly what I mean when I talk about concrete and symbolic. To stay in the concrete is to ignore so much important material and the opportunity for healing.

IRL45 I hear you but don't think you can make your therapist do so. I agree that to show her what is written here would likely cause her to be even more defended and consequently more abusive of you. To remain in that relationship is further harmful of you. What would it mean to allow yourself to walk away? Could you try to put another therapist in place to help you leave?

Moon

\I understand from previous threads that you are staying with this T for at least another month or two right? At this point it seems to be about seeing who "gives" first. I hope one of you does so you can move on with some healthy therapy that serves you well. I don't think she will ever repair the hurt you feel.

You're talking about money as money. You're not addressing the emotional issue, except to say, "let it go".

This is precisely what the T is doing.

Letting go is the end of therapy, not the beginning.

IRL, I'm pulling for you to realize that you deserve better than this. I saw the video you posted a while back. You asked if she terminated your therapy by asking you to leave last week. The way I see it, she terminated your therapy months ago. Everything since then has been arguing over semantics, payment and scheduling, with a whole heaping of hostility (yes, on both sides, but a good therapist won't reciprocate because she knows it's not about her).

If there's going to be any win here, it will be the day you walk away for your own well being without waiting for her to admit something she is never going to admit. I understand why it is so hard for you to do, but that doesn't stop me (and pretty much everyone else who's posted) from wanting the best for you in this horrible situation.

But the therapist is telling her she -doesn't- want to explore it, whether it's right or wrong. So they can keep at a standstill. Either stay with the therapist and use her to explore the areas the therapist -can- help her with or find someone else.

Maybe asking you to pay a fee she knows you can't afford and dropping your insurance company are two ways she subtly tried to exit the T-client relationship without having to come out and say she WANTS to terminate. After all, she suggested that the relationship end because of the insurance coverage. The only reason she is seeing you now is because you filed the grievance and she feels obligated to see you. She may be afraid you will sue her or she will get in trouble if she terminates. So, she is trying to drive you to terminate HER. Maybe the root of the issue is that she finds the relationship dysfunctional and unpleasant and doesn't want to do it anymore. Maybe she is so rude and abusive to you because she wants you to terminate. Maybe she just doesn't care anymore, so she lets all of her own issues and anger show. Maybe she doesn't want to talk about how you FEEL about the money because she is no longer invested in your feelings. A T should never behave that way--- but we all know she is not behaving like a T.

I know you want to talk about how you FEEL about her valuing $32.50 over her relationship with you. I know you want her to say that she cares about you more than she cares about $32.50-- or at least acknowledge that it hurts your feelings that $32.50 is more important than keeping you as a client. But she will never say any of those things. The longer you see her, the longer you will be waiting for her to say things she is never going to say.

If she clearly has demonstrated, through her actions, that she does not really care about your feelings or about helping you get better-- why do you want to see her? If she is not as invested in your well-being as you are, why continue?

If she wants to terminate why doesn't she just say it rather than putting her client through hell? It seems very manipulative and irresponsible to me. If she is really doing this it is not ethical.

I don't get why people cannot be direct. Even though it may be painful it is so much better than having to endure needless conflict and playing the awful guessing game.

Agreed. In this case though, I think IRL has mentioned her T is nervous she will be sued if she terminates. I would have thought there would be a way where a therapist can ethically terminate anyone if they feel they can't help them, but this T must have it in her head that she can't for some reason.

I'm sorry you had this experience IRL. I have not been on PC very regularly since my job started, so I've missed all the in between. I would be horrified to get kicked out. I had an experience in therapy yesterday that had me take a few steps back.... I did post about it last night.

I think she has the personality to TELL you you're done.....so I doubt you've been terminated. Her lack of scheduled Email response is unprofessional, since these were discussed and you pay for them, hopefully, maybe you'll get one yet...she may have not been able to get to it that day. Just trying to see a silver lining here. I hope you are coping well.

I wanted to respond to the question about whether or not to print this thread out and read it to her. . .

I think that if you got some people on PC who are therapists, or studying to become therapists, to state that your t is acting unethically and why, it would give proof that she is definitely not handing your therapy right.

However, I also think that if you do this, you should be prepared for her to terminate. I can imagine she would feel angry and defensive and then maybe just come out and say it's not working out.

PS - A couple of people mentioned watching a video. Was that recently, or about 2 months ago? I saw one a couple of months ago, but not recently.

Few months back

I think I can relate to that part of you that wants desperately to prove your T is in the wrong here - AND for her to admit it. But I highly doubt she ever will now. It almost seems like you are waiting for her to apologize sincerely - to suddenly get it. But she won't. That's the fear you might keep deep down inside - maybe that's the part you are so desperate to prove wrong in this scenario. It's repeating stuff from the past, no?

I could be way off here, so take it for what it's worth.

I like this quote though: "Never waste your time trying to explain who you are to people who are committed to misunderstanding you." - dream hampton