When the therapist resets boundaries

Has anyone experience their T resetting the boundaries of the relationship in terms of outside contact/communications/emails/texts etc? How did you deal with the boundaries being tightened?

After a huge rupture that has basically threatened whether therapy will even continue, my T has taken away my crisis plan ( which used to be to call if I felt really awful, or suicidal or like self-harming). Her new contract is now absolutely no contact outside of the session.
I hate this new contract and haven't even tried it yet. I just told her I was taking a break from therapy to try and decide what I want to do. I feel really angry with her and kind of abandoned.

I can't decide if I want to go back to her now. I hate the idea of not having a safety net of the crisis plan. I can imagine going back and being really angry with her and not trusting her anymore because she took away my crisis plan. And if that's the case, maybe I'm better not going back to her at all.

If your therapist has taken away things or implemented stricter boundaries, how did you react and deal with it? Did it turn out to be a good thing?

Did she give you any other resources to turn to if you're in crisis? If not, that seems really irresponsible. There has to be SOME plan for dealing with a crisis.

Regardless, I would find that really difficult, and honestly, I would probably quit too. Especially if it was done without any reason or discussion. I know I, like a lot of other people, have a really hard time reaching out for help. I'd need a therapist who could recognize it as a GOOD thing if I were able to reach out for help in a crisis rather than doing something self-destructive. I already have this core belief that I'm too much/too needy, and a therapist telling me I couldn't have any contact outside of session would just reinforce that.

I'm sorry you're in such a painful situation. I hope you're able to find something that works for you, whether it's with this therapist or someone else.

There was one (or maybe two) memorable time(s) when i texted t, and he texted me a couple of hours later that he was on his way to pick me up. Then i had to text back that he had texted the wrong person. THAT embarrassed me so much, it pretty much cured me of texting, or of feeling like i need him outside of sessions. Hey, we're not kids, and he knows i can "talk" to anyone on PC at any time. Eventually the boundaries get reset again, to where he's like, how come you never text me? I think it goes in cycles. Maybe she just wanted to interrupt the cycle - thats not necessarily a bad thing, to purposely throw a monkey wrench into the works every once in a while. But yeah it shakes you up. But you go to therapy to get shaken up; to change.

Thanks. I have no idea what to do for the best.

Do you know, it's occured to me that she's purposely throwing a monkey wrench in the works. But I'm not sure. It has also occurred to me that if I hang in there long enough, she'll probably change things again and loosen boundaries at some point. She's changeable enough for this to be a possibility.

Yes, but now I really confused as to when to contact. He didn't state any boundaries at first only the one in the initial letter which said contact crisis team in a crisis then said texting only for scheduling changing after I started asking questions about things between sessioons then he said i could contact if my mood was worsing which I did but i guess i got it wrong as he ignored me.

I don't think of my T as being there for a crisis. I view her as being there for my weekly sessions which is to support me in the long term. I don't contact her in between sessions (except once when I thought I didn't want to return).

When I hear things like this it makes me wonder whether the t is fully aware of the impact of shifting boundaries such as this so abruptly. Do they understand the stess these situations can cause a client? If they do understand, I really can't see a t doing this with the intention of causing pain or undue stress to a client. So it makes me think they don't understand the meaning of between session contact for a client. I could understand only actions such as this only if there has been over-use of the contact and a continued overstepping of the t's boundaries despite conversations with the client. Could it be that you're t just doesn't understand the impact?

My T did not talk about changing boundaries.....he just changed. Very disturbing and harmful to me. I try to remember that a persons boundaries say more about them them they do about you. So it has something to do with the T doing self care perhaps or they are having issues with counter transference. IDK, perhaps I am just grasping at straws. I would hate to think they feel they are teaching us a "Lesson" because it would not be effective since most of us have maladaptive and faulty thinking and would miss the boat about the lesson all together.

Do you think she's performing "tough love" on you?
Did you do anything to overstep your boundaries, like contact her too much outside of session?

My T changed her boundaries after I talked about my transference. I didn't like it at all but she said she had to because there was too much risk that I would misinterpret her texts. We talk about boundaries a lot. I'm hoping as I get better she will relax them. I understood her reasons but it didn't make it easier at all. I feel for you!

I think a boundary like this can help us keep perspective on what constitutes a true crisis and what we can resolve on our own. In a crisis, the usual T protocol that I've come across is to call the ER. I know that may not be ideal or what many clients want, but it's the reality of outpatient therapy. If ask yourself "do I need to go to the hospital?" and the answer is no, then you'll be ok. You might be very distressed, upset, depressed, but not necessarily in a crisis.

I've been in this postition before when I first started therapy with my pdoc and then my T. I tended to reach out to him during times of distress, but I could only do it during work hours. So if it was a weekend I had to reach out to others. Granted I am lucky in that I have a strong support network in my life. PC has also helped me a great deal. And usually by the time it was ok to call, I didn't need to anymore. So I think that can be very empowering. If you don't have a lot of support it can be motivation to find ways of handling a crisis that doesn't involve your T. PC, group therapy or a support group...whatever resources you can use to help yourself cope when you're in distress.

I have to edit to say that this boundary has been in place since Day 1. This is so important and probably why it doesn't bother me as much. This is great food for thought as a future T, because this back and forth with boundaries can be very harmful from what I've read here. Even with good intentions I think it's irresponsible to give something and take it away without a clear discussion.

Yes, maybe that's the arrangement you have with your T but the arrangement with mine was that she encouraged outside contact whenever I felt my mood dipping and needed some support.

I have no idea what she's doing tbh. I didn't go over any boundaries in terms of phonecalls for support as per what she'd encouraged. However the texting was a problem that I thought we were trying to work through. She didn't like the texting because I frequently ended up annoyed with her. But I preferred to text. So we kept it for a while. But it really wasn't good, too much could be misconstrued throught text.
I understand her taking away texting but not the support phonecalls.

I absolutely agree! I told her from the beginning, right from the first meeting, in regards to boundaries, I don't mind what they are as long as you stick to them and don't change them around. I don't react well to having something taken away from me. So If you offer me something, make sure you can sustain it because taking it away causes me huge problems. I'm not sure how much more honest I could have been? It pisses me off that she hasn't taken this seriously.

There may be other ways to think about the struggle you're facing. A time or two, I asked my therapist to engage with me in a way that I wanted around an issue. He tried it without hesitation, but afterwards he and I really disagreed about whether or not it was productive. He believed that it wasn't and suggested an alternative. Although I wanted to insist that things be the way I wanted them, I decided to try it his way. I figured if it didn't work, I could go back to my way.

Short story: I tried it, it ended up working out well, and I'm glad I was open enough to do things differently than I wanted and how I'd always done them.

Rather than engaging in an epic power struggle with your therapist where you refuse to accept changes or quit, why not move forward one session at a time, trying the new boundaries, and see how it goes? You don't have to commit beyond one session, and that one session would probably be less time than you've spent angsting over the issue.

I feel for you Is any of the contract negotiable? No texting, if it was causing your therapeutic relationship to have ruptures, seems reasonable. Cutting you off from any kind of contact, when you had such open access before, seems draconian.

From reading other posts, your T sounds great. It might be hard to see right now, but her new rules are either helping you by becoming a bit less dependent on her between sessions, or helping you by keeping her from getting frustrated with you and burned out. I'd see how things go, and you might be surprised with the good things that could come out of this. Sometimes the most painful parts of therapy are where we have the most personal growth. When I moved from an open access T to a new T with no between session contact, it cooled the potential to develop an unhealthy dependency or extreme transference. It was hard to lose the on-call support, but it also gave me more ability to self-calm. Therapy also became much more tolerable. That said, I know she would be there for me if I was in a crisis - either by phone or by making an extra appointment for me. It hasn't happened yet in over 6 months (knock on wood).

I'm glad to hear your story of trying something you didn't like and it actually working out well. It kind of confirms what I've thought, that maybe I should try it and that maybe it will be beneficial to me. And you're right, part of me has engaged in an epic power struggle over this. I think it's a protective defense. I'm not ready to give in yet. But I also know this is one battle I can't win.

It's so good to hear your experience. And It's good to hear the no contact actually cooled the transference and dependency and made therapy tolerable because that's what i've worried about, that no contact outside of session would make things intolerable. But if it actually cooled everything down and I was able to cope better in between I'm definitely up for that.

I go through periods of feeling like my T is a stranger as well. It's hard to be the vulnerable one! I go from feeling really cared about, to not feeling cared about at all. Close vs a million miles away. Such a push and pull. I have to fight the urge to quit pretty regularly, even with the new T. Nothing is worse than the sunken feeling of being 'just a client'.

Of course it's a defense. Many of us are control freaks and we want things our way, especially if we came from a disempowered childhood where things were rarely our way.

I did just want to point out that you have the ultimate choice. It's not "giving in" if you decide that you want to try to do it a different way, it's not giving in if you decide you can be open enough to consider change. It's not really you locking horns with your T, it's really you locking horns with you.

I listened to my 13 year old interact with a math tutor he works with occasionally. He's a year ahead in math and he's doing complicated algebraic equations that require many steps. He kept insisting to his tutor that his way of calculating some of the steps in his head rather than writing each one down was saving time and was just as good as the tutor's way. The tutor said, why don't you try it this way, just once? If you don't think it's faster and more accurate, then you can always go back to doing it in your head.

So he tried it, and of course he found it worked better, and faster. He was really grateful to the tutor.

Sometimes, we don't have a clear perspective on ourselves. As a writer, I've learned I don't always have a good perspective on my stories (and they're about me even). I'll take something out of a story and my writing group will say, are you kidding? That part needs to be in there. As a therapy client, I've learned that sometimes I get in my own way and T can be just the outside perspective I need. It's always my choice to listen to advice-- whether I put that part back in my story or whether I try to work on therapy differently. I don't see it as weak or submission or anything remotely like that. Just like with parenting and writing, my therapy often benefits when I listen and decide for myself.

If you have the feeling that you don't trust your T anymore, find another one that would be more condusive to your needs.

You're right, I am battling myself. And I really can't see the wood from the trees in all of this. I just feel so much fear surrounding my therapy and I can't decide what is best for me. I have so many different feelings about it all and they are all valid.

What? You cant tell your t, "no take-backsies". T is by definition going to be a series of take-backsies, isnt it? I see it like your standard bell curve. Altho yeah mine is extending over my whole adult life.

Wow, that's rough. I can't believe she did that to you.