Bad termination - more details to my story

The reason I wonder about counter transference is because she seemed to go from one extreme to another in a relatively short time. In the beginning she said as a good mother she would print the emails out and read them. It appears she never did that. Which makes me wonder if she realized what she said and felt like she might be in over her head. Then when you criticized her for not reading them and also her choice of books for you she said the emails were beneficial because they made her see things more clearly. So she terminated you therapy relationship without wanting a face to face meeting which might say that she was afraid of what happened if she didn't have the safety of the phone or computer.

It's getting hazier and hazier. PaulaS, is there a chance your emails suggested that she was coming on to you with the undertones of sexuality you interpreted as her wanting you to address? That's the only thing I can think of that might cause a therapist to be concerned about meeting in person. A good therapist could handle that and work through it, but it would depend on whether or not there was an accusation or more of a questioning. Of course, she could have just been the wrong therapist for you and she realized it, but did not handle it well. Either way, I do hope you can find a therapist to sort this all out for your own well being.

This seems like a lot miscommunication and bad emails/chats. I wonder if you contacted her now if she would be open to meeting? I could be wrong but I feel like I detect some defensiveness about the homosexual aspects to the book. Like it was an accusation. Even if I'm wrong, maybe this is also what she detected and didn't know how to proceed.

My main impression is that whatever her reason- it sounds like her issues.
I have also been wondering if she could have felt threatened by anything...maybe she has done something questionable and is afraid you might report her? That might explain her abrupt termination. Just a thought.

Interesting perspective Hankster. I find myself very much relating to this.

PaulaS, when I read your posts I often get the sense that you assume other people should react in very specific ways which seem obvious to you, so obvious that you do not think you should have to say what they are. For example when you say the T did not invite you to meet with her via email or via phone--did you actually ask to meet in person? Or did you just expect her to know you wanted that? Because it's possible that the T did not know what you wanted, or did not want to assume. And then when she did offer, you rejected the meeting, so--how was she to know you wanted something other than what you said?

I don't really understand your issue with the book, I guess, but again, as I see it: you took the recommendation of a book involving homosexual characters as an obvious sign that she wanted to discuss sexuality, and since you saw this as obvious you took it as a deliberate move on the T's part. But to her maybe it was not at all obvious. Maybe she meant what she said, about being interested in how you saw the portrayal of childhood.

Your experience does sound very confusing, and I'm sure it was painful. I just think many people (myself included) have to learn how to ask for things they want or need, rather than sitting around hoping for an offer. And it sounds to me like you're not always giving people a chance to meet your needs or even find out what they are before you decide they've failed you.

Ok, I see. Yes, it was quite surprising and I think she must have realised that her not reading those e-mails made me disappointed. The least she could have done was to explain it.

I think she perhaps felt getting a bit too close, not in an appropriate way but perhaps she realised she let me e-mail her although she didn´t feel all comfortable about it. That per se isn´t boundary crossing as many T:s uses e-mails as a part of therapy but my T generally didn´t.

She offered me a session to meet in person but not right away, she more or less decided on her own to terminate me. If i hadn´t called her it doesn´t seem she had invited me. She answered my e-mail just by saying she didn´t know how to proceed as if that was answer enough. I mean, she had at least two chances to schedule a meeting, both when she answered to my e-mails where I left the "complaints" and also when I called her.

No, I never thought of her coming on to me and that was not the case but as the book so clearly was about a homosexual relationship and my T also mentioned in the session that the female author lived with a woman I was confused about what she was going at.

Why is it important to mention that the author had a relationship with a woman if you don´t mean anything by it?

I didn´t put it in some kind of accusational way, I said I was open to discuss such matters as sexuality and relationships but that I felt she'd run into the subject without knowing if I was ready to go there or not. That´s also why I felt I had to comment about in in my e-mails to her.

She could have just explained why she wanted me to read the book and we could have discussed that, I don´t think me wanting to know her intentions with the book is that odd.

Yes, I agree there was miscommunication but as I wrote to my T, in the same e-mails as where I told her my "complaints" that I wanted us to find a way to continue therapy I find it strange that she didn´t make some more effort to try to continue.

How do you mean accusation? What was I to accuse her about? Just want to know, I don´t question your thought. I asked her if she had some kind of preconceived notions of me in that aspect that she thought of me as gay. That too, I think was just for her to answer and if she thought I was defensive, perhaps I was, that too should have been something to discuss.

If you wanted to continue therapy, why didn't you say yes to her offer to come in for a session?

I think your story is strange, and you seem to be confused about what I find very clear.

She asked you to come in for a session. You said no. Apparently you wanted her to offer a session "earlier" in what sounds like a bunch of emails and phone calls.

What else could this T have possibly done to continue therapy with a client who doesn't want another session?

I think you have at least some personal responsibility here in this "termination." You quit before she terminated you. Quitting is what happens when you say you don't want another session.

Maybe you get more sympathy from others, especially on this board, if you complain that you were terminated.

The upside of quitting is that you can re-start therapy. Some clients quit and then go back. But you have to ask. Why not just call and say you are confused about how things ended, but you'd like to have a session to clear things up? Then you can ask your questions of your T directly, get her answers, rather than having strangers speculate on her "counter transference" and other issues that no one can possibly know with any shred of reality.

Maybe you will discover that some of your beliefs were wrong, and maybe it is possible to continue therapy and avoid this pain associated with it (but you'll have to give up the benefit of being of victim of termination). At the very least, maybe you will come to believe that this therapy should end, but you won't be supposedly confused about why.

Personal responsibility. It's a good thing. It can often get you what you want.

I think I was quite clear that I wanted to continue therapy as I wrote to her, in the same e-mail as my opinions, that I wanted us to find a way to continue therapy. As she answered very shortly to my e-mail I then called her by phone and the T must of course realised that I wanted to schedule a new session.

But as she almost instantly told me she was very sceptical about continuing I never got to ask her about a new meeting. But I told her in phone that I didn´t want to end therapy and she then say that we were to talk more on the phone another day and we decided a date for that.

After going through all this, then she texted me and asked me to meet with her in person.

Yes, it could surely be that way that she didn´t have those intentions as I felt she had with the book, that she wanted to discuss sexuality but it´s not a kind of threat or anything to question her. That´s why I think this stuff should have been a reason to continue discussing the issue instead of ending therapy.

I told my T on the phone that I can be mistrusting and that I experienced this together with other people as well, to me it´s just such things that should be talked about in therapy.

I didn´t say yes to that as I felt too let down and that my T wasn´t convinced any longer to continue therapy. As I´ve mentioned here several times before, she said those words, at at time when we hadn´t discussed the matter at all, that she was very sceptical about continuing. A T making this kind of statement made me feel abandoned as she wasn´t open and non-judgemental to my "complaints".

This saddens me, as well as clearly shows me, how fortunate I am to be in therapy with a T who's shown nothing but full and continued acceptance of my feelings, experiences in therapy (and life), openness and yo-yoing due to my own struggles with transference. A well trained, gifted T should welcome all aspects of you in therapy, to help you understand your inner turmoil, behaviors, reactions and so forth. It's so discouraging, to hear how some Ts can just terminate someone when they need them most.

If it WAS a countertransference issue for your T, she clearly is not trained or supported well enough to deal with it. I don't know the details, but in my mind, they're irrelevant because it seems you were trying to move forward and better understand something that felt important to you. I hope you'll come to the realization that there is someone out there better qualified and interested in helping you sort through what troubles, excites, intrigues and conflicts you.... and why.

Hi Paola, I feel huge sympathy for you, I hope sharing your experience more fully has been helpful here, I can see you are having a difficult time. I feel the same as justaname. Hearing your experience has made me thankful that my T reacts in a supportive way to my inner turmoil. I would be devastated if she reacted the way your T did, by talking about termination. I don't think your experience is easy for others on the board to understand, I hope the responses have been helpful not hurtful.

Yes, it´s painful realising how fragile a therapeutic relationship can be and how you can put your trust into a T and then experience how a good relationship can turn bad within a very short period of time.

I think that if the T works within the psychiatric field, they are more trained to and used to people being very "back and forth" but with a T who´s working in a private practise and to that more freely chooses what clients to work with, I think there´s a greater risk to be terminated. And that due to reasons that several other T:s hadn´t seen as reasons for termination.

I really hope I´ll find a new T, at the moment I just mourn my former T, thinking of what she´s doing now when the Christmas holidays are up and so on. I know I won´t get any answers to that but it´s still more or less impossible not thinking of her and if she perhaps has thought of me. It makes me very sad...

Thanks for continuing reading mo posts, I know you have read several of them now. Yes, it´s helpful being in here and to talk about different kinds of problems. The pain´s still there but you get to hear about similar stories and get new perspectives. Some responses are hurtful but I think it´s unevitable as there are so many different views on therapy and how therapy should be like.

I wish I´d found a new T already but I´d rather look some more than just choose one without being convinced she´s the right T. Painful though, especially during holidays. I feel a bit angry at my T, picturing her having a "cosy christmas" although I of course don´t know if that´s true. Feeling angry for her leaving me that easy with all my problems and hardship around finding a new T.

At first you said you read the book and found that analyzing in the context of your childhood was rewarding. It wasn't until you read literary reviews of the book that you noticed the significance of the homosexual relationship.

But in your later post you say that the homosexual relationship is the central focus of the book and you seem offended that she was trying to force the issue. That's sort of a jump, isn't it?

Literary analyses often focus on sexual topics. It's an academic thing. Every book ever written can be analyzed for how it relates to feminism or modernity, etc. Don't read any of this junk if you simply like reading books. It's boring as hell. Just because homosexuality may or may not be a theme in a book doesn't mean (1) that's why your therapist asked you to read it or (2) your therapist asked you to read it in order to force you to talk about issues you aren't comfortable with.

The second motive is sort of a WILD accusation to make of a therapist to whom you have never discussed sex with. I'm super curious to know what the book is to see if I'm off but it sounds like you jumped to conclusions.

What was the book? I'm not sure it's much help since the relationship is over, but as some people pointed out already it sounds like you terminated and not the other way. She asked you if you wanted a session, really I'm surprised you didn't take her up on it since you seem to want one. In the world of therapists it's on the client to ask for a session not the other way around, my therapist has never asked me to come in, I ask him for appointments.

Also about the book, I don't think it's wrong to bring up your thoughts with a therapist but maybe it's how you did it. Were you hostile or angry with her? She might have assumed there was no trust/connection between you two. I also think it's unlikely she'd recommend a book to introduce a topic in session. If she wanted to bring up homosexuality I'm sure she just would ask about it. I don't know what that would mean to you, or to her... In my mind sexuality isn't a big topic for therapy. We all have one, unless you have some issue with it, like ED or something, it seems like a non-issue to me. Therapists more than anyone should be cool with gay/straight whatever... Current theory is were all on a continuum anyhoo.

Some therapists just turn out to be bad therapists. It sounds like she was one of them. Most people here can't seem to accept that there are bad therapists out there and are much more comfortable blaming the client for something like this. I think it brings up a lot of fear that maybe their own therapist could harm them in a similar way.

I am sorry this happened and it is so confusing and painful for you.

I know there's bad therapists out there. I've had my share. I think people are questioning the OP because they're giving contradictory information. Ex.: wanting T to not terminate but rejecting a session when offered. Or even suspected motives about the book.

I don't know if the OP's T is "good" or "bad" in general. But from what I have read, there are a lot of contradictions and unrealistic expectations.

Honestly, I think the OP should ask for a closure session. Because only that or time will help.

I thnk it's difficult to write all the details of a complex situation. I hear the OP so very different from many of you. I hear that it felt to the OP that the T essentially decided to terminate her, unexpectedly, and offered her a session to be terminated. I totally understand that hurting a lot. The OP is the client. The T is the one paid to know how to do things in a therapeutic way, which from what I hear didn't happen. Maybe the day will come when the OP will want to have a final session with the T. She clearly isn't ready for that now. Clients don't have to be ready to do whatever the next step is on a timetable. Sometimes they need time to process, grieve, be angry. and sometimes the client is right the the T really messed up. I actually don't think the issue is whether OP should go for a final session. or whether she has issues (she undoubtedly has issues, as do we all - including the T). She is hurting. and wants support. and judgement is antithetical to support, no matter how accurate the judgment might be.

I agree with puzzle_bug.

I apologize if what I'm going to say is off or insensitive. I don't want or mean to be seem as unsupportive or without empathy for what you, the op, went through with your former therapist. I get it that you often feel that people who post on your threads are hurtful or unsupportive of your needs. But I will say that I feel that what is going on in regard to your relationship with your former therapist is confusing, convoluted and unknowable. Why do I say that? Because "I FEEL & THINK," that your description of what happened with your therapy is convoluted and unknowable.

None of us are able to truly know, read, or hear what happened between yourself or your therapist. We can hear you interpretation of your session but is your interpretation. I know full well that I often misinterprete or misunderstand what happens between me and my therapist. I NEED to go back and talk about what I thought or believed happened. I'm often wrong.. . . sometimes I'm right. But guess what? I can't know unless I sit down, state what I thought and listened to what my therapist thought or believed and then, and only then, we are able to talk things through. It isn't about me coming on here and stating what I thought I heard or believed happened. I need to sit in front of that person, not matter how painful, and talk about what I THOUGHT WENT WRONG.

I am not saying that what you said is a lie or something made up. Reality is, and all of us in therapy get this more than we want to say, what happens between us and our therapists is something that is secret, repressed, unconscious, mysterious, not what we think or believe, concealed or hidden by dissociation or just plain out of sight! The only way anyone of us, you included, PaulaS are going to uncover what happened in the session, is to sit down, face-to-face with the therapist in question and talk about what one's perceptions are about what happened. If you're not able to make that call to schedule another appointment, that's okay. It's where you are at right now, at this moment. But it is a major hurt on your personal health for you to tie yourself up into a pretzel of confusion and hurt by trying to figure out what your previous therapist meant when she terminated you. I truly wish you peace on this issue.

The confusion the OP conveys just proves that this is a bad therapist. A good therapist wouldn't leave someone feeling this confused and lost and hurt. One thing the OP has consistently said is that the therapist said she felt skeptical about continuing therapy. Who would be able to trust a therapist again after they said something like that?

I don't think talking to the therapist again carries any guarantees or even high likelihood of uncovering what really happened - particularly not if the therapist lies.

Yes, it was rewarding but still confusing and disturbing when I found out that the book mirrors a homosexual relationship and also "coming out" to some extent. It isn´t any kind of jump at all, I said I found out about the litterature analysis and the homosexual relationship is a focus in the book although you as a "common" reader can´t tell just by reading it.

Even if it wasn´t my T:s motive to bring me to talk about sexuality by telling me to read the book, it´s still valid to be confused about it. If the T didn´t have any such motives she could have just told me after she read my e-mails. She should have used my perhaps suspicious thoughts about her motives in therapy, discussed the matter further on.

Or else you just say that if a client does something wrong, for example wrongly accusing a T of something, then the T has the right to terminate you. Then you can´t speak freely and the therapy is no longer that safe place where you should be able to talk about anything.