Need different perspective ! Disrespect of my Boundaries and now I feel not understoo

First ** english is not my mother tongue **

Second**doing phone and in person session Integrative/Feminist Counselling since 4 years**

Phone counseling from time to time due to distance.

I was wondering if someone could give me a different perspective in how I feel I was treated. My Therapist (female/lesbian) and me (female/lesbian) talk to each other over 4 years, there were ups and downs but always managed to connect again. This time after the session I feel this connection is broken or ruptured. What happened?

- I rang up and different person answered the phone, it was the agreed time...this happened a few time now and I was asking who it was (e.g her partner ...her sister ??)

Her answer: I always want to bend boundaries ??

I feel she is getting extra careful , extra tide and someone paranoid in protecting her boundaries. e.g: I am not saying where I go on vacation and so on.

I was so pissed off, angry and felt violated somehow.

Is it me ?? or her problem??

<Anything would be helpful, as I really feel upset

I expect the situation between a therapist and me to be private - so I would not like if someone else answered the therapist's phone. It would be a big deal to me and I doubt I could continue with one who let such a thing occur.

My former pdoc has an answering service. I would assume it was the answering service picking up because it rang too long or the line was busy or the t had it set for them to pick up. I wouldnt automatically assume that the young man who answered my pdocs phone was his young lover! Not answering your questions about her vacations is another matter. I wouldnt say you are being disrespected by your t; i would say it is raising questions about disrespect in the transference.

Thank you and this explains my feeling of not being understood by her, that she put out this situation in the first place.

Thank you stop dog and hankster for your reply...hmm...Hankster could you explain more about why it would raise a question about disrespect in transference ?

There should be a clear boundary between you and your therapist. You should trust the therapist to decide who answers her phone (it sounds like she uses an answering service.) It is no ones business where she decides to go on vacation. I think in the lesbian community, boundaries are very blurry sometimes. Don't assume it has anything to do with you personally. I hope you can resolve this issue and feel better soon!

I only saw one therapist who used a service to answer calls (the first one I ever saw about 30 years ago and answering machines were not yet everywhere and certainly no voicemail etc)- and the service clearly identified themselves. And why wouldn't therapist just tell the client that they used a service. I checked with the one I see now who gives out her home number to make sure no one else would get her messages. I would not blindly trust a therapist.

I do phone sessions with my t ever since she moved, over 2.5 years ago now. It would be a huge deal for me if someone else answered her phone at our scheduled time - in fact I think I would immediately freak out and assume that something had happened to her. And I think that I would have EVERY right to ask who that was - because like SD said I expect the situation between t and me to be private, so why would someone else be there answering the phone, is that person listening to her side of our call? Oh that would bother me to no end and I would say so to t.

I would not feel comfortable with someone else answering my T's phone at our scheduled time. I've never been to a therapist who uses an answering service; that seems like a rather outdated practice for a therapist in private practice. I've been to medical doctors who use an after hours answering service, and the service always identifies themselves: "Hello, this is the after hours service. Is this an emergency?" I can't imagine that a T would have a service answer for her when she knows she is expecting a client to call in for an appointment. It sounds much more likely that this is someone who lives in T's house (like a partner). I would NOT feel at all comfortable with T's family member/partner answering the phone. It would give that person access to my phone number, my name, etc. I expect that information to be confidential.

If she is using an answering service she should tell you. That is crazy and ridiculous of her to not answer that question.

If you asked for her on the phone and she came, I don't think who answered the phone is a concern or matters. We all have friends, relatives, partners, etc. in and out of our homes but they are not part of a relationship with another unless we make it so? Your therapist cannot know the exact moment you are going to call and she might have been in the bad? It is like calling an office, you do not care who answers the phone, you just want to talk to the person you are interested in.

If the therapist normally answers the phone herself then she shouldn't be surprised if you ask her who it is if she suddenly doesn't answer. That boundary is up to the T to keep- if she can't answer either let it go to voicemail. If she wants to use an answering service you should be made aware of this, either by her or the person answering the phone. Given the confidential nature of counseling random people shouldn't be answering a therapists phone line that they use specifically for therapy. If someone does her clients have a right to know who it is when they do call. Phone therapy should not done on one's private residential line.

Hi cloudy thank you for your input, she is not using an answering machine or service. The person I talked to lives with her and something I get frustrated because of my privacy being violated.

Thank you a lot for your feedback here and it is absolute important to maintain my boundary and her´s. In my case I am trusting someone far away and don't want my phone conversation to be overheard.

Hi Perna, thank you . We have scheduled session so I do not believe she can´t be on time she always is but many times her whatever person answers.

I only saw one therapist who had a "home office". She was very professional, clients entered from an outside door to the office into a small waiting room; when the session was done, I exited directly from a door off the office, not the waiting room. That meant that I never saw the client who arrived for the next session. I never saw the inside of the main house or any family member because she had a lovely garden screen with climbing plants installed to screen the office/driveway from the main house and that driveway. She had a phone in her office with an answering machine but it was not the same phone line as the main house. During off hours, the answering machine picked up and cautioned the person that if "this was an emergency situation" the caller needed to go to the nearest emergency room for help. Never did another person answer those calls.

I think that if a therapist has an office in the home, he/she needs to make the extra effort to make sure that family members, friends, or guest in the home do not pick up the phone, even by mistake. That's why it's possible to install more than one phone line in a house, and it is a business deduction so the complaint of an extra expense (if used) is not kosher. Personally, I think your therapist's issues with you crossing boundaries is way out of line. It's her job to protect your confidentiality and if something happens to compromise that, it is HER job to investigate, respond to your worried/anxious questions for as long as it takes to reassure you and her job to correct any problems that caused the breach. . . not to mention apologize sincerely. Jeesh, it makes me crazy when we're expected to apologize and address any behavior that is out of line (which is normal when you're struggling with personal mental health issues) and a therapist expects a pass or gets pissy when they're confronted.

Thank you for your response, now everything makes more sense to me and it is simple not my issue, not my concern and I can let it go after I say a few things.

I want my name professionally protected and like you mentioned if needed make an extra effort and install 2.phoneline.

Thank you all for your input, I feel more relaxed now -never thought coming here would help me in this way...was only in reading mode.

Hi NYC78,

fellow German here.
Assuming that you're living in Germany your psychotherapist must be a member of a professional body ('Psychotherapeutenkammer'), assuming that she is a "psychologische Psychotherapeutin". There are different organizations, depending on the region where you live.
If she is a (medical) doc offering psychotherapy, she should be a member of the regional "Ärztekammer".

All of them have a professional code of conduct which they are obliged to follow. I'm not allowed to post URLs (yet) so you'll have to google Psychotherapeutenkammer & Berufsordnung & [Your Bundesland]

They vary slightly but all of them have in common, that premises for practice must be separated from private areas.
I would think that this should include seperate phonelines for practice and for private use - in order to prevent exactly what has happened to you.

I can totally understand that you are upset and I too feel that this is a violation of your privacy, and this she should apologize for. I'm not sure however she needs to tell you who the person was who answered the phone and I would try to keep this separate from the fact that the organizational level of her practice is clearly not following professional standards.

She should definitely take the precautions necessary to prevent this from happening again, either to you or to some other client. And she should no longer fail to understand that she really crossed a line by violating your privacy. If she keeps insisting that there's nothing wrong in the way she organizes her practice/private life I would seriously consider looking for someone else. Since she shows such bad judgement with regard to privacy and even though there are clear rules by her professional body, I wouldn't be too confident that this poor judgement doesn't extend to other areas as well...

Hope this helps a bit.
Take care and all the best,
c_r