Devastated!!!

I just have to write and to express all my sadness at the moment. I don´t know what to do, I´m devastated about things that happened. I just want to escape from all this but there´s no way out, I don´t drink and such.

To those who haven´t read my former posts, I was terminated some months ago by a T who couldn´t handle complaints and she terminated me against my will, I got abandoned. Since then I´ve tried to find a new T, not just to talk about the former T but mostly to try to solve several other problems in my life.

I´ve seen several T:s and some weeks ago I found one that seemed nice and understanding. Here it´s standard to have three evaluation sessions and then you decide if you want to proceed into therapy.

I saw this potential T three times and I told her from the beginning that I was able to meet with her on either Wednesdays or Thirsdays. She didn´t work on Fridays. The question about available appointment times was brought up all three times I saw her and she knew I was interested, I told her so in the meeting and also when I wrote her follow-ups on e-mail. (She told me it was ok to contact her via e-mail).

The first and second time I saw her, she told me there were available appointment times on Wednesdays and Thirsdays and she also told me there were NO special time frame within which I had to get back to her. In the third meeting she suddenly told me there were no available appointments on Thirsdays any longer.

She also knew from the beginning that I choosed among a couple of T:s but I was very clear every time that I thought of the sessions with her in a positive way.

When I realised there were just available appointments on Wednesdays, and just only one slot I e-mailed her after the session and asked her for how long she could hold on to that session. She told me she could hold it for a week.

The thing here is that she let me see her for three evaluation sessions and as I talked positively about her and the sessions I just counted on that she also knew she would be available if I choose to begin therapy. I´ve had the evaluation sessions during three weeks, one session a week and as she every time told me about the same available slots, I thought I could count on that.

I found her behaviour quite strange because who lets a potential client into evaluation sessions without even knowing for sure there´ll be available slots when the evaluation is over? It was just plain "luck" that the only time on Wednesdays hadn´t been scheduled, it could just as well have been and then I hadn´t even had the opportunity to choose.

The other thing was, if she noticed that she got many enquiries and she noticed there were almost no slots left for me - why didn´t she tell me? Why did she let me continue in evaluation?

I e-mailed this potential T about this, she wanted me to e-mail her, not call her and I first got the answer that she believed I should see another T. She said believed and I both e-mailed her saying that I was still interested in seeing her even if I asked her about this thing about the available sessions.

I then also called her and left her a message in her voicemail and just said I wanted to talk to her about the whole thing and I left her my phone number.

Now, just half an hour ago or so, she sends me another e-mail and says her offer about therapy is no longer available. Of course she blamed me, she talked about negative transference!

Wouldn´t every potential client who sees a potential T expect the T to have available slots if you decide to proceed into therapy? How can this be negative transference?

As we several times talked about available slots - how can this be a reason for her to deny me to continue? I don´t understand any of this. Perhaps someone here at PC understands...

Think about it this way; do you really want to start therapy long term with someone who is so wishy washy? You are already having problems with this person. Thank goodness she didn't start this after six months of investment.

I would think a therapist who could not handle what they label negative transference would be a very poor therapist indeed. Plus I would find it quite off-putting to have the therapist placing labels on me like that.

I think most therapists are fairly incompetent at dealing with most clients/potential clients.

She sounds like an idiot to me. You're better off not getting involved with her. To be so quick to label your interactions as negative transference just strikes me as insanity on her part.

Sounds like you asked a lot of her but that's ok. It's ok to need reassurance, it's ok to be undecided. After the previous experience all of your fear and feelings are valid and any good T would contain them and handle them. She couldn't so it's good she got out now. Who would want therapy like that?

Why not reply to the older T, the one set to retire. You may be able to do some valid work and she sounds not intimidated by what you need.

I am so sorry.

I'm truly sorry that it didn't work out the way you wanted, PaulaS.

First, I'm vert sorry you're going through this, I understand it's very stressful. I think her comment about counter transference was odd so it may be a good thing after all that it didn't work out. I think it's still important to put your expectations in perspective though if you items to look for another T.

My T and pdoc are both in very busy offices and all appointments are first come first serve. That means open appointments for the next week are usually filled if I don't make a decision by days end. They do not "hold" appointments, especially for new clients. I know it can feel personal and be hurtful when appointments are given away, but it's not personal at all. There are a lot of people who need help and it's not fair to them to "hold" an appointment for someone who's on the fence when someone else is ready to be seen. If you depersonalize the therapy experience and view it as a professional service (which it is) this may sting less. At one point I was a little demanding of my pdoc and wanted longer appointments (50 vs 30 minutes). It was hard for them to squeeze me in and finding appointments became stressful. But the process reminded me that he has other clients, and a lot of them. I said to him at one longer session that I'd go back to shorter appointments because I knew there were other people who need his time time too and sometimes more than me. He agreed that I was right and I scaled back. It doesn't mean he didn't care, it meant there are other people besides me who need his time. That's not always easy to accept but it puts the relationship and a therapists role in perspective. I hope this helps a little because you clearly want to make a change but are having trouble trusting that it can happen and you will be ok.

I really do not believe it is a client's problem to worry about whether there are other people out there "more deserving" of paying for a provider's time or more in need of it or whatever. I do not view a therapist as "squeezing me in" - the woman has an appointment or she does not it. If she says she does, then I am as deserving as anyone else of buying that from her.
I also don't think of them as all that super special to think they are doing me a favor by allowing me to come to an appointment.

Like some others have said, it's better you know this T couldn't handle things (her own issue) now rather than later....though I know it still hurts.

I'm struggling to reply about the T not holding a time slot for you, so forgive me if this comes out wrong. I understand and don't understand the T's decision. First let me start off with the situation of holding a time slot in general. Normally, at least here, you would have only one evaluation session and would then have to make a decision. T's normally won't hold reoccurring time slots unless you're their client. They do this as a profession and need to make money. After 3 visits, you didn't confirm if you were going to be a client nor confirm a time slot, other people did confirm, so her schedule filled up. The same situation would happen with any other professional or doctor. Other people need help too. That's the part I understand.

The part I don't understand is why the T said the things she said to you and her actions afterward. She probably shouldn't have allowed 3 evaluation sessions. She probably shouldn't have inferred that she will hold a time slot for you. And if she did say those things, then she should have at least informed you that her schedule was filling up.

It's easier said than done (because I know it now adds to your abandonment feelings with Ts), but you're just going to have to push onward. Not every T is a good fit. This one wasn't. What happened, happened, and you can't change that.

Like someone else mentioned, why don't you try out the older T?

I said nothing about anyone being super special. Maybe a favor was done for me by my pdoc but it's not unusual to request to be squeezed into a busy doctors schedule. Ts have longer appointments so maybe that's not possible in he context of therapy and was a poor example. Either way, the reason I point out that other clients are important too is because they are. Not better, not more deserving, but they exist and have just as much claim to available appointments as anyone else. With this in mind they aren't going to hold appointments for undecided clients when another one is ready to take that same spot.

Service providers tend to have very packed schedules and some want to accommodate as many clients as they are able to. It's not a rejection of anyone as a person if they can't wait for you to make a decision, it's just the reality that other people might want their time too. It has nothing to do with how deserving anyone is, it is about time and accessibility.

It would seem a bit more personal in this instance because the therapist used the term negative transference.

The older therapist sounds good, as others have said. As for retiring, that is still a ways off and you can make good progress.

Also...Wasn't the issue over things you wrote in emails that led to the termination with your previous therapist? And now this one? I'm not saying it's you, but the medium--emails create a lot of misunderstanding and conflict for most people. As an experiment, maybe try not sending emails with whomever you end up with, but waiting for in person sessions.

I agree. That makes it very personal. What an odd accusation from a therapist you're not even seeing formally.

Thats a good point, about the emails. I used to ask a coworker / friend to edit my emails before i sent them out. She would usually delete a sentence near the end, a "kicker". She'd say, you were fine, up til that point! But then i always went just a little too far and got my dig in. I would delete it per her advice and keep my job for a while longer Self-sabotage is very hard to overcome. You are SO SURE you are doing the right thing! Maybe that sureness is one of its signs. When it truly is the right thing to do, you dont worry about it as much; you just calmly do it? Idk.

Yes, Paulas dodged a bullet here with this T. The counter transference comment was personal (and stupid, I think).

Aside from that it's still important for the OP to realize that there is a part of this scenario - the lack of available appointments or ability to temporarily hold them - that was not personal and is fairly common.

This is a great idea!

Paula,

I am so sorry this didn't work out, either.

I'm sorry it didn't work out.

The reality is that the evaluation session is for both you and the T to see if you want to work with eachother. For some reason, she decided she did not want to work with you. This is what happened with the last T as well. There is a dynamic at work here that is important to tease out.

I'm not suggesting that it's your fault, but rather asking you to be open to some of the feedback you've received and see if your actions may be precipitating this response.

I suggested that you book a session to discuss your concerns with the T, as opposed to emailing her. I said you could always stop going if you decide she wasn't for you. She provided you three evaluation sessions (which is very unusual; most provide only one), yet you tried to continue the evaluation process via email instead of booking a session to discuss it face to face. Your response to my suggestion indicated you didn't really take my feedback into consideration at all, which is a pattern I see with you: you ask for feedback, you get it, and then you ignore it.

You can hold on to the argument that 'she said you could email her', but I think you know that it's a grey area. I don't think she meant you could continue the evaluation sessions with her via email. She asked you to make a decision, and you didn't. It is within her right to decide whether or not she wants to work with someone who will respect her needs as well. Yes, even T's have needs.

I think group therapy would be a great option for you because it will allow you the opportunity to work with a T in a social setting. Operating within a social framework will help you learn how to work with other people who have needs as well. It's a delicate balance.

So sorry this happened. On the positive side - you did have doubts about her - so maybe she really wasn't the right T for you? I guess she couldn't contain your anxieties (if that is the right word) about re-starting therapy. I agree with the others here who have posted about emailing, I also don't think it is a good way of communicating in therapy. I also think that when you find a T and have had one evaluation there is a different approach you could try - you could just start with them and see how it feels talking to them for one or two or more sessions, you don't have to decide at the outset and make a commitment to stick with that person, and you can also talk to them as you go along about your doubts/ how you are finding it?

Yes, how could she be so sure it was negative transference at all? I don´t understand it. Was it perhaps just another way of blaming the client for the situation, not taking responsibility although the client is the weak one?

I find this interesting as I´ve now thought more and more about the negative transference this T claims she experienced and as that´s a normal part of therapy, why just not take the therapy from that point? I said this to her when answering her last e-mail even if I know she won´t get back to me anymore.

The T experiencing negative transference seem to be a bit of a clue to all heartbroken people here at PC. I now talk about posts about being abandoned in some way or another, a too common problem as it seems. How is it even possible that a T can´t receive this? Isn´t it a part of the healing process of the client? I think I know that much that I´m sure it´s the way it should be.

Thanks for the comment on the older T and encouraging me to meet with her again. At the moment I´m not sure at all, I don´t have that much of an apprehension of her really and I don´t know if I´d manage to find out. I don´t know if I want to go through this again. Perhaps my problems will stay unsolved, it doesn´t seem to be any help.

I got this odd thought about cutting myself in the arm, I didn´t try and I don´t want to have cutting wounds but the thought emerged though. Some kind of physical pain could perhaps relieve my feelings at the moment.

She was talking about she felt the negative transference from me to her but perhaps that´s as bad as counter transference. Perhaps it was a sign it hadn´t worked out anyway.

It´s perhaps some differences between our countries but the important thing with this holding vs not holding appointment times is what information the T brings to the client. If the policy is he/she doesn´t, then say so. If the policy says an appointment time could be held, then tell for how long.

Not saying anything about this is simple negligence. In my case I also specifically asked about this, I showed her I wanted information about when having to get back to her, when to decide what to do.

I think you´re right but how is it possible then that so many T:s have their own issues? How can they pass the licensing process? More of a rethoric questions perhaps.

Yes, as you say the T has to go either way in this, telling the potential client from the beginning that you can´t hold on to slots or the other way around, that you can. This T did neither, she let me have evaluation sessions, she never told me if she preferred to have just one such session or if it was ok to have three (as it normally is in my country).

No T seems to be a good fit at the moment and now I nearly don´t have anyone left to contact.

This is interesting (I mean that in an honest way). I didn´t think of it out of this perspective. Why is it an odd accusation? Is there any certain flaws to use such an expression as she did? (I know the term negative transference per se)