What happened at my session

Just wanted to follow up on my saga from the “Why do clients cancel their sessions?” thread. Context: I had been for my very first couples session the week before, at which, my husband and I decided to get a divorce. Talk about starting couples therapy off with a bang. We agreed to come back the following week for another couples session. The next morning, I called T and left a message saying I would like an individual session also, and I really wanted it before the next couples session (which was yesterday). A whole week passed and T never called me back. I felt ignored and abandoned, plus I had a ton of emotional stuff come up over the week due to the divorce decision and was really falling to pieces. I was thinking I might cancel the couples session as I didn’t think I could function there with all this emotional upheaval and in such a fragile state.

So for yesterday's session, I arrive on time and then a woman joins me in the waiting room. We discover we both have sessions booked for the same time. Uh oh. Same thing happened last week—a man showed up at the time for my session. Turns out he was wrong and T had him leave. This time, T checks his schedule and he has indeed written us both in for the same time, even though I have had this time slot every week for eons. But wait, this isn’t a disaster! Suddenly I see that this woman is a way out of my dilemma. I will back out and let her take the session. Then my husband and I won’t have to have a couples session without my first having had a solo session, which I dearly need. What a great solution, so I offer the slot to her. She says well, no, that’s OK, you take it. And my T says, yes, they--meaning me and my husband--are in crisis mode and should take the session. (Somehow it is weird to hear your T tell someone else that you are having a crisis. I guess we really must be in crisis if he is telling strangers that. So it’s not just all in my head--this really is gut wrenching.) I say, no, that’s really OK, I really didn’t want to come today anyway. The woman says, no, no, it’s fine, I really don’t have to be here either. T is kind of like, what? neither of you wants to be here? Neither of you wants this session? It’s kind of funny. But T is really pressing for me to take the slot and finally I say I didn’t really want to do couples again until I got a chance to see you myself. And he says well the next slot after ours is empty due to a last minute cancellation, so we quickly shuffle things, I take the first appointment, and then my husband joins us for the second hour. The woman leaves.

We talk a bit first about how T never returned my phone call from the previous week and we resolve that issue. Then we get to the real stuff, why I so needed that solo session. T can see I have totally cracked open and he just provides support, empathy, and that holding thing that T’s do without actually touching you. He just invites me to sit in my sadness, and I tell him some of the most painful things and let out some of the hurt, and I cry and cry and cry, and he is like “I can feel your pain” and I see him lose a few tears too. I really needed that. After our hour, I feel so much better, kind of “shored up” and much more ready for whatever comes next. I do tell him also that it is all moving too fast for me, and he suggests that slowing it down would be a good idea. Then my husband arrives and we have a couples session for an hour, and that goes pretty well. I could not have done that without the individual session first. T suggests to my husband and me that we move more slowly, so that is good.

Anyway, everything turned out well. I can’t believe how much that individual session helped me. Also, I learned that my T welcomes me to have individual sessions in addition to couples each week. I had been wondering about that since he never returned my call and I had been feeling like maybe I violated some rule/boundary. Turns out the woman who was double booked with me has both individual and couples sessions each week too, so it is not unusual for my T to provide that. And in our couples session, T formally invited us each to have individual sessions too, so there is no confusion on that. (My husband declined, and I accepted.). The challenge will be whether T’s schedule will have slots to accommodate me.

Today I was still feeling so much better and functional and less falling to pieces. Whatever T gives me needs to be bottled, so I can just take a spoonful whenever needed.

(((Sunrise)))

Simply amazing that happened and worked out so well.

So glad you resolved the phone call.

Great work, it looks as though you can move ahead now and the stall is stalled.

I am glad that things evened out a bit for you and that your T advocated for your good care.....to come on in and talk.

Take care...I am sure it is a difficult time.

That's wonderful. It worked out so well that you were able to have an individual and then couples.

wow sunrise, what a lot to deal with even before you even got into the therapy room

Sunny, that's beautiful that your T cried along with you.

I love him for that.

Gosh, I can't imagine what it would have been like for you if you weren't able to get that individual session 1st. You obviously needed it so badly. Your emotions were so ready to go.

I'm glad you are doing a bit better.

Thanks, everyone, for your supportive posts.

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mouse_ said:
wow sunrise, what a lot to deal with even before you even got into the therapy room

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Yup, but it was OK. It was a distraction from the session at hand that I was dreading and almost provided me a way out of something I did not want to do. Seriously, it seemed like providence had dropped her in my lap.

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pinksoil said:
Sunny, that's beautiful that your T cried along with you.

I love him for that.

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Me too.

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Gosh, I can't imagine what it would have been like for you if you weren't able to get that individual session 1st. You obviously needed it so badly. Your emotions were so ready to go.

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I don't think I could have done the couples session without the individual session first. I would have insisted the other woman take the session. Remember that fantasy I had a while back about cutting myself open with a knife and bleeding onto T's floor? Well, I think my individual session was kind of like that. It felt good to have that fulfilled.

sunny I'm so glad it all worked out well for you in the end. I'm really glad you got the individual session that you wanted and needed. It's great that he will see you individually while you are doing the couples sessions. That must have seemed as if you had traded one for the other and that would have been upsetting to me, I think.

How do you feel about your T's seemingly sudden scheduling ineptness? It's funny how you describe both you and the other woman saying neither of you wanted the slot after all. I wonder what T was thinking! Good thing they have sturdy egos!

I like what you say about what the T gives you being "bottled" so you can take it when needed. My UK friends taling about "bottling" as a holding in (feelings) and so "bottling" what the T gives you sounds like internalizing T/therapy and is our goal . Great metaphor !

hey. yeah, i'm glad it worked out for you too. it is great that you can have an individual session before your joint session and it is great that you got to tell him that you were fragile at the moment too.

its great how things work out sometimes huh.

:-)

Thanks ECHOES and alex_k.

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ECHOES said:
How do you feel about your T's seemingly sudden scheduling ineptness?

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Well, this was the first thing we talked about in my solo session: how he didn't return my call all week and how for the last two weeks he has double booked someone else during my session time. These are professional goofs that affect therapist-client relationships so they needed to be discussed. My T is very transparent and doesn't play games such as "I won't call her back to teach her that she really doesn't need me," etc. So his failure to call me, as well as the 2 double bookings, were a professional lapse, not some sort of convoluted therapeutic action. He apologized and explained to me that he is really overextended professionally right now, and he talked about how his practice has grown in the last year and is now completely filled up, how he gets close to 50 or more professional emails a day and can't find time to reply, much less deal with the the phone calls, and every second is scheduled, including his time going from one appointment to the next in his car when he is offsite (he schedules phone calls then). I asked him very directly, "what are you going to do about this?" in a no nonsense tone. It was almost like I was an employer and he was an employee, and I was demanding accountability and better job performance. Later, I realized that I kind of am his employer! (or at least one of many.) I do, after all, pay part of his salary. He responded very professionally with a list of steps he was planning to take to solve the problem: hire a receptionist to help deal with calls and emails, take one morning a week off for personal time (so he's not run so ragged), and budget in 1 unscheduled hour each day to deal with paperwork, calls, etc. He said he would have to prune his client list to achieve this. (Aaaackk! Don't prune me, I wanted to say, but held back.) Anyway, it was a good exchange, he realizes his actions are affecting clients, and he has a plan to fix things and do better. Then we shifted to the heart of our session, the stuff that I had come to share with him.

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It's funny how you describe both you and the other woman saying neither of you wanted the slot after all. I wonder what T was thinking!

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Well, I found it kind of amusing, and I hope he did too. I think he also got the message that his failure to handle the scheduling properly had caused me some angst.

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alexandra_k wrote:
its great how things work out sometimes huh.

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It is indeed. I had several scenarios in my head for how things might go that evening, but how it worked out is not one I had ever dreamed of.

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I asked him very directly, "what are you going to do about this?" in a no nonsense tone. It was almost like I was an employer and he was an employee, and I was demanding accountability and better job performance. Later, I realized that I kind of am his employer!

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Congrats to you for dealing with this the way that you did. You are right.... all parts of the equasion... he, you and your husband (when he is there) are all accountable.

You are so right on.... Good for you!