[fuzzball541]

So when your T use to be there for you outside of session and no longer is, what did you do? He said he doesn't want to communicate with me everyday. Which I can see, & I never expected it. He use to answer my emails and or call me to check on me. He does not reply hardly to any when I send any and never calls. He won't be my support outside of session any more. He suggested a support group, hospital if I'm that bad, medication, and or get family involved. But he has agreed that my H will not be that person with what I've told him and basically have no family available to be that support.
How do you cut your T off like he wants when you are struggling pretty bad? And get use to the changes of him no longer being supportive. During session yes he is. Which he is not expected to outside but hard once he was even calling at night or weekends when he wasn't at work to make sure I was ok
He feels so cold, how can he change so easily?
He told me to have patience and everything will be ok. But I'm the one needing the help. So of course to him it will be ok. He also apologized for what he did, having it go on for too long, the support outside of session.
Again I know he was not expected to & I never asked him to.
Thanks!

[Leah123]

I would feel hurt and worried, but to approach it positively, try thinking of it like a baby bird being urged out of the nest, i.e. as a growth opportunity that can become amazing.

I have relied in the past on support groups, volunteering and posting personal ads to get support and make friends. So there are lots of options for developing helpful relationships that are free and not too difficult to start.

I think that's the best way to get used to the change in therapy. Now, as for when you're feeling really out of control, in that case, what I've done is use crisis lines or free chat lines. Crisis lines can help with severe emotional upsets and chat lines like 7 cups of tea online I've found are really helpful if I'm just feeling stressed or upset and need to vent or just know someone cares.

Also, if you have nice coworkers or hobby partners or others- you could try slowly opening up to them about your life, not just the troubles but also positives and maybe doing fun things together. It can really help us to get outside ourselves and focus a lot on those positives either through volunteering or just making friends- "fake it til you make it" actually works tremendously well sometimes in my experience.

[SkyscraperMeow]

New T? There are therapists who offer out of session contact. There's a thread somewhere hereabouts talking about it. Lots of people contact their therapist outside session times.

Changing the rules without consultation is not ethical, or therapeutically useful. It does happen every now and then, and honestly, I have yet to see ANYONE who it happened to really overcome it. There are people on this board still struggling with it months after the fact.

An honest answer from observations of others is that you can't reasonably expect to handle this and just stop. It's not reasonable for him to expect you to.

Frankly, I think suddenly changing boundaries on a client is grounds for immediate termination of a therapist. However, clients hardly ever seem to actually do that, which is kind of sad, because the pain lingers for a long time.

[fuzzball541]

Thanks for giving me suggestions. I'm lying awake thinking...I have session tomorrow. I try to make him see my point of view but he said he will not change what he said he is going to do. And that's when he said to have patience.
It's hard having it & then it be gone just like that. Started off with no reassurance of his care..he told me he won't...then it went to less email replies, he stopped calling me. He will occasionally call me back if I call him.
He said I see you twice a week. We don't need to talk everyday it's not healthy.
Some days I'm ok with not seeking support but when you are pretty depressed it's hard. Also my anxiety & panic attacks r pretty intense and I have this new health issue popping up that I don't leave my house as much.
Just struggling with it all right now!!

[Leah123]

Originally Posted by fuzzball541

Thanks for giving me suggestions. I'm lying awake thinking...I have session tomorrow. I try to make him see my point of view but he said he will not change what he said he is going to do. And that's when he said to have patience.
It's hard having it & then it be gone just like that. Started off with no reassurance of his care..he told me he won't...then it went to less email replies, he stopped calling me. He will occasionally call me back if I call him.
He said I see you twice a week. We don't need to talk everyday it's not healthy.
Some days I'm ok with not seeking support but when you are pretty depressed it's hard. Also my anxiety & panic attacks r pretty intense and I have this new health issue popping up that I don't leave my house as much.
Just struggling with it all right now!!

My therapist taught me some techniques, when I asked, to help handle panic attacks. If your therapist could teach you some, or you could work on remembering what he's said or done that helped you with them, maybe you could feel that you were taking him with you without him having to actually be present all the time. You might consider DBT based practice of distress tolerance and mindfulness skills too- they're helpful with letting you observe hard emotions you're having, and not making them worse, plus finding enjoyable and meaningful ways to divert yourself.

This is the cheap workbook I used for that, I found it super helpful for getting through the worst patches.

http://www.amazon.com/Dialectical-Be.../dp/1572245131

I would find a new therapist. I think what he did was extremely cruel. I know it's "for the best" blah blah blah, but he should have thought about whether the outside contact was in YOUR best interest from the beginning. It almost sounds like he was stroking his own ego with how much you relied on him.

I'm so sorry this has happened to you and you're in such pain right now. It makes me very angry when therapists move boundaries around suddenly and simply believe that a client can just deal with it or things will get better eventually.

I think that Leah's post about finding new ways to self-soothe is important, and I would definitely suggest you go into your appointment with your therapist and strongly suggest that he HELP you with developing these skills. You might even want to look on line for a DBT self-help book to work on with him. Take ten or fifteen minutes each session going over the skills. It doesn't come easily, but over time they do help with the emotional dysregulation you're talking about in your posts.

Concrete suggestions on what he can do until the skills develop? You might want to ask him to record/make a disk of him going through a meditation or relaxation exercise. Sometimes when we're in an emotional state, it's not what our therapists say to us but the sound of their voice, the reassurance that they're still out there. I had a good friend who had an arrangement with her therapist that she could call his office answering machine as many times a day or night as she needed to hear his voice. Just hearing him say the "usual" phone message greeting" was soothing to here. She admits to listening to it 20 or 30 times a day during a particularly bad patch in her therapy. She could even leave a message, but she knew from their negotiations that he wouldn't return a call or respond by text or email. It was hard for her but she learned over time that that was the "rules" of engagement and she had to begin to rely more on other means to soothe herself. When I was in the midst of a very serve depression, my therapist had to go away for several weeks. She knew how bad things were for me but she also was strong enough NOT to blur the boundaries by saying she'd call or email or text me. We came up for a plan of what to do if I felt suicidal and then we agreed upon a taped message on my phone with her voice reassuring me. It didn't solve everything, but you know what? I got through that time. It wasn't a great time in my life and I would have preferred I could have what I wanted, when I wanted it, but I can look back now and say, "Yep, I survived it and I'm okay today."

You can get through this. It sounds as though your therapist isn't going to go back to the way things were before, not matter how bad things get for you. That hurts! Perhaps your only option is to get him to help you develop some stronger coping strategies (and that doesn't include his silly reassurance that things will get better eventually) or to find a new therapist who will allow the kind of out of session contact you crave. The only problem with that is that is that as you can see from this board many of the therapist who allow this intense level of contact eventually get depleted and decide they have to curtail the amount of out of session contact, and then you'd be back where you are now.

[Leah123]

Originally Posted by SkyscraperMeow

New T? There are therapists who offer out of session contact. There's a thread somewhere hereabouts talking about it. Lots of people contact their therapist outside session times.

Changing the rules without consultation is not ethical, or therapeutically useful. It does happen every now and then, and honestly, I have yet to see ANYONE who it happened to really overcome it. There are people on this board still struggling with it months after the fact.

An honest answer from observations of others is that you can't reasonably expect to handle this and just stop. It's not reasonable for him to expect you to.

Frankly, I think suddenly changing boundaries on a client is grounds for immediate termination of a therapist. However, clients hardly ever seem to actually do that, which is kind of sad, because the pain lingers for a long time.

Just to offer some perspective, as I've been on both sides of the therapeutic fence, the therapists who welcome and sustain *daily* out-of-session contact and maintain twice weekly sessions for *multiple years* of therapy is an extremely short list, especially if they're not compensated anything for all the additional overtime. It sounds like your contact with your therapist has been declining somewhat over time, not that he stopped everything cold turkey one day with no explanation, and that he may still return calls and rarely, emails, but that he's wanting you to transition to multiple sources of support and self-regulation. That is part of the therapeutic process, to use what you gain in therapy and build externally, though of course it's hard! We wouldn't be there if that was super easy for us or if we didn't need the additional support, so I definitely feel the conflict and pain, but some discomfort can be incentive to grow: that's happened to me so many times in therapy- I got pushed and I rose to the challenge and came out feeling better over all in time. I've also stumbled at times and needed to regroup, so it's a process, certainly, the old three steps forward, one back. But as someone else said, that's definitely something he should be able to directly help you with in session by either practicing techniques or giving you homework or brainstorming how to build that external support network and skills to ease your distress.

I hope you two can work toward helping you get better soon. I know it's hard to feel so awful so often, but it sounds like maybe he did not, in his professional opinion, feel like the contact was helping you make progress and he wants to build a more effective plan with you. I think about how medications may be helpful for a time, for example, and then the efficacy declines or they prove not to be the right choice- I wonder if that's his sense therapeutically. Does that ring true? How long have you been seeing him and depending on the frequent contact? Are you in crisis, self-harming, suicidal, etc.? Do you have a care plan if things are severe?

[SkyscraperMeow]

Originally Posted by Leah123

Just to offer some perspective, as I've been on both sides of the therapeutic fence, the therapists who welcome and sustain *daily* out-of-session contact and maintain twice weekly sessions for *multiple years* of therapy is an extremely short list, especially if they're not compensated anything for all the additional overtime.

Well, there's a couple really good points here. 1. How much out of session contact is suitable and 2. How much of this question is actually about money, not the best interests of the patient.

It also raises 3. Regardless or not of whether it's 'for the best', a therapist making unilateral changes in the therapy could easily destabilize even a fairly stable client. Doing it to one who has grown accustomed to daily contact is nothing other than cruel, and has, on more than one occasion that I've seen on this board, led to an immediate, damaging downward spiral that the therapeutic relationship does not seem to come back from.

Also, I strongly disagree that there's any therapeutic value to slowly changing the rules around contact behind a client's back as if the client is too stupid to notice. It's patronizing in the extreme.

It would be one thing if a therapist broached the subject gently a couple months before this process started and straight out said 'I think the contact has become counter-productive, let's work on ways to help you get more support outside these sessions from outside people, and over time, we will taper down our own contact.'

What this (and several other therapists) apparently think is okay to do, is just decide one day, implement the plan, and never damn well mention it to their client, which is about the most destructive thing I can imagine doing to someone who already has abandonment issues. (And stands a pretty good chance of giving someone abandonment issues if they didn't already have them.)

This issue of therapists suddenly becoming non-responsive after encouraging a lot of closeness is one of the most common on the board. It causes vast amounts of unnecessary pain and often seems to land the client in a worse position than where they started.

I firmly believe that any therapist who wants to play magic man (or woman) behind the curtain, deserves to be terminated immediately. That's not an ethical way of conducting therapy.

[Leah123]

The client knows how the change occurred- part of it was gradually per the initial posts, and the therapist has continued to occasionally respond, but less over time. And we don't know what talks the pair have had about it- the client does not want the change, but that doesn't mean the therapist has not been forthright or that it might not be the most ethical thing to do in this case.

I completely agree with your statements about the importance of therapist working on skill building and making changes thoughtfully, openly, gently.

We don't know that none of that has been done, we know how the client feels about less contact.

I hope the therapist did not let themselves get burned out and shut down on the client, which I think would be hurtful, and regardless of the cause, I hope you feel better soon OP and get the help you need from your therapist and others.

P.S. I absolutely did not say anything to prompt this:

Originally Posted by SkyscraperMeow

Also, I strongly disagree that there's any therapeutic value to slowly changing the rules around contact behind a client's back as if the client is too stupid to notice.

I don't agree with that at all. I would never see a therapist who didn't share their approach and talk to me at my request about the process and potential changes. That doesn't mean I have veto power over my therapist's decisions either though, nor should I.

[SkyscraperMeow]

Originally Posted by Leah123

The client knows how the change occurred- part of it was gradually per the initial posts, and the therapist has continued to occasionally respond, but less over time. And we don't know what talks the pair have had about it- the client does not want the change, but that doesn't mean the therapist has not been forthright or that it might not be the most ethical thing to do in this case.

I completely agree with your statements about the importance of therapist working on skill building and making changes thoughtfully, openly, gently.

We don't know that none of that has been done, we know how the client feels about less contact.

I hope the therapist did not let themselves get burned out and shut down on the client, which I think would be hurtful, and regardless of the cause, I hope you feel better soon OP and get the help you need from your therapist and others.

Sounds to me (judging from this thread and OP's other thread) that what's happened is the therapist stopped responding as much / at all, and then when the client bought it up, the therapist only then admitted what was happening. This approach has been mirrored in several other PC user experiences. It seems to me to be something that some therapists think is okay to do, to make changes behind the scenes without their client's knowledge, and only admit it if it is mentioned. Which strikes me as a weasel way to conduct therapy.

I don't think a therapist is ethically bound to provide unlimited out of session contact, that would be madness, but if you've allowed someone to depend on you that much for years, you need to take a great deal more care in the transition, so that your client does not end up in a heap. Doesn't sound like that's been the case here.

[Leah123]

Yes, the other thread had more detail, I just found and skimmed it- I wish this thread was a continuation of it.
http://forums.psychcentral.com/psych...s-therapy.html

It sounds like the decrease had been gradual but not explicitly stated, from that thread, and that emails and calls continue, the therapist accepts them but does not reply, while the twice-weekly sessions continue. So I wonder if there's room for compromise during a transition window, especially since the therapist has apologized.

I do think up-front conversations and skill building and transitions are all important in cases like this. I hope the OP gets those things now and grows into a healthier place.

[Cinnamon_Stick]

My therapist all of sudden changed out of session contact with me and it has been hard to accept it. I was talking with her on the phone for awhile and talking about things I did not want to talk about in person. I was also trying to have therapy via email because I can only see her once every three weeks. I can still email her but I can't talk about issues that are for sessions and she does not answer in depth. I can call if its something big or I am in crisis but not like I used to. I understand the change more so now but I wish I had some warning. I came to a session and she told me these things changed. Less contact has been better for me because I was relying on her for everything. Now I am weaning myself off from her ( I was totally dependent on her) which I think is healthier because some day therapy will end. I use self soothing techniques and I talk with my husband more. So it has been a good thing in the end but it hurt and she let me down and shouldn't have changed things so fast because it hurt.

My advice to you is to find some support outside of therapy and have your therapist teach you self soothing and other ways to cope. Another thing that has helped me the most is to internalize my T's feelings and things she has said and the work we are doing. I know she is still there but I feel it inside without having to hear from her.

[SkyscraperMeow]

Originally Posted by Leah123

P.S. I absolutely did not say anything to prompt this:

I don't agree with that at all. I would never see a therapist who didn't share their approach and talk to me at my request about the process and potential changes. That doesn't mean I have veto power over my therapist's decisions either though, nor should I.

Yes, I must have mis-read, or just made up your post in my head. Sorry about that!

[fuzzball541]

Originally Posted by Leah123

Just to offer some perspective, as I've been on both sides of the therapeutic fence, the therapists who welcome and sustain *daily* out-of-session contact and maintain twice weekly sessions for *multiple years* of therapy is an extremely short list, especially if they're not compensated anything for all the additional overtime. It sounds like your contact with your therapist has been declining somewhat over time, not that he stopped everything cold turkey one day with no explanation, and that he may still return calls and rarely, emails, but that he's wanting you to transition to multiple sources of support and self-regulation. That is part of the therapeutic process, to use what you gain in therapy and build externally, though of course it's hard! We wouldn't be there if that was super easy for us or if we didn't need the additional support, so I definitely feel the conflict and pain, but some discomfort can be incentive to grow: that's happened to me so many times in therapy- I got pushed and I rose to the challenge and came out feeling better over all in time. I've also stumbled at times and needed to regroup, so it's a process, certainly, the old three steps forward, one back. But as someone else said, that's definitely something he should be able to directly help you with in session by either practicing techniques or giving you homework or brainstorming how to build that external support network and skills to ease your distress.

I hope you two can work toward helping you get better soon. I know it's hard to feel so awful so often, but it sounds like maybe he did not, in his professional opinion, feel like the contact was helping you make progress and he wants to build a more effective plan with you. I think about how medications may be helpful for a time, for example, and then the efficacy declines or they prove not to be the right choice- I wonder if that's his sense therapeutically. Does that ring true? How long have you been seeing him and depending on the frequent contact? Are you in crisis, self-harming, suicidal, etc.? Do you have a care plan if things are severe?

Yes, he says he felt the contact was not helping me, but it was....maybe i didn't see it then? Yes, I'm in crisis... Care plan? I am suppose to go to the hospital if it becomes unmanageable....
It's how he went about it that is throwing me in a spiral...cold turkey..after all these years it was there...
Thank you so much for your reply....it's so much to take in. I never know how to respond to everyone's input.

[fuzzball541]

Originally Posted by Leah123

Yes, the other thread had more detail, I just found and skimmed it- I wish this thread was a continuation of it.

It sounds like the decrease had been gradual but not explicitly stated, from that thread, and that emails and calls continue, the therapist accepts them but does not reply, while the twice-weekly sessions continue. So I wonder if there's room for compromise during a transition window, especially since the therapist has apologized.

I do think up-front conversations and skill building and transitions are all important in cases like this. I hope the OP gets those things now and grows into a healthier place.

I guess I should have continued on my original post but it didn't seem like my question would have been out there? And I was not in a great place at the time I posted this.
Hopefully I can clear things up
I've been with this T for 5yrs....anxiety, agoraphobia brought me to him, and my dad's health was declining. Within a mth of seeing him he gave me his email for in between contact, he asked if that would help. I didn't email too often. My dad passed away and things were just worse for me. I did not call my T at all only emails.
We increased to twice a wk a few yrs later and have been at twice a wk since. I continued to email him At this time he gave me his phone number to call him whenever I needed to.
I would email him my struggles etc and told him I did not expect a reply all the time because that would be too much, I would use email to get things off my chest.
He would reply quit often even on weekends or evenings. He would call to check on me often if he was worried about my email I sent or just knowing what I was going through.
I became reassurance seeking in session and outside. Even though he was supportive etc I thought it wasn't genuine. How could it be real when I meant nothing.
He told me I was not allowed to seek reassurance of his care. I had to see it. Well I then noticed his emails were less there and how he responded, his words were not as warm. I asked about it. He said nothin' changing just my reassurance of my care. Well he wasn't emailing as much still after I asked him about it the first time and he said nothin' changing. So I asked again, it feels different I see the difference. He then stated he will not be responding as much to my emails. I noticed he didn't reply in the evenings anymore, and hardly on the weekends (usually once during the weekend) Then he started to not answer during the day as often during the week. And his answers were not full of care like they were. I brought this up...I was spiraling out of control and felt hurt and not safe with him not being upfront. All he said was no more reassurance....yet he stopped much of his outside contact
I asked him about this and then he said yes, I can not be your outside support in between sessions.. I have to look elsewhere.I do not have a supportive H with all my struggles, that's what I go to therapy for he says...
If T knew all this when he said no more reassurance why didn't he tell me then? How does he expect me to adjust if he just all of a sudden stops most of his contact. When I've been use to it. He would occasionally call me and check on me when he knew I was not doing well, even a couple evenings and even on the weekend.
It all feels cold and I want to run away....it feels cold also because he wasn't upfront on his plan, and he knows right now I have difficulties with self harm, and suicidal thoughts...at times what he is doing is causing the increase of these issues.
He says I need to be patient with this adjustment...it will all work out. He told me he busted his butt to show his care and it didn't seem to help much and he felt it was detrimental to me to continue with his support. I keep telling him what he is doing is way worse for me...he see,s to have this attitude of this is what I think is best for you so this is what we are doing. It was unhealthy. He apologized for doing it for as long as he did....but now I get to suffer without his support of what he helped in doing.....well he will talk about in session...but it doesn't seem helpful because it's his way....
I asked if we could work something out but not to the extent it was.....but it doesn't seem like he will budge...I just cant handle going cold turkey after all these years...it's hurting. He also kinda sounded today like well you do get to see me twice a wk....like what else do you need?!....well to me that's not enough right now...
I asked him if it even bothered him how he did this, or it's prob really easy for him to not reply anymore....he said you don't know, you can't read my mind...how he is lucky he doesn't have to suffer through this...I do.... I wonder if it does bother him to see my cry in session about all this. I can't even look at him....
Odd how this all started with me thinking he didn't care and now with all this change I really think he doesn't!

[Leah123]

I'm sorry you're suffering. I hope you will be able to work on developing those really important external support sources and self-care to ease the pain and also to get you to a better, more stable and balanced place. He should be able and willing to work (or continue working) with you on techniques to deal with panic attacks, overall emotional regulation to ease the self-harm impulses and where and how to get multiple sources of support.

[fuzzball541]

Originally Posted by Cinnamon_Stick

My therapist all of sudden changed out of session contact with me and it has been hard to accept it. I was talking with her on the phone for awhile and talking about things I did not want to talk about in person. I was also trying to have therapy via email because I can only see her once every three weeks. I can still email her but I can't talk about issues that are for sessions and she does not answer in depth. I can call if its something big or I am in crisis but not like I used to. I understand the change more so now but I wish I had some warning. I came to a session and she told me these things changed. Less contact has been better for me because I was relying on her for everything. Now I am weaning myself off from her ( I was totally dependent on her) which I think is healthier because some day therapy will end. I use self soothing techniques and I talk with my husband more. So it has been a good thing in the end but it hurt and she let me down and shouldn't have changed things so fast because it hurt.

My advice to you is to find some support outside of therapy and have your therapist teach you self soothing and other ways to cope. Another thing that has helped me the most is to internalize my T's feelings and things she has said and the work we are doing. I know she is still there but I feel it inside without having to hear from her.

This is how I found this forum was seeking support after this change....I still need to work on my T's feelings...I've recently started recording sessions, we thought it might be helpful for me to re-listen to them to hear his care.....I'm sorry you had to go though something like this too....I really like my T...after being with him for so long you get to know them...he doesn't talk about his personal life very much at all but we have music in common and his sense of humor would show through...

[musinglizzy]

fuzzball, as I said in your other post, I'm right there with you. In fact, it was finally, after months, brought up at my last session last week, and it ended up being a horribly difficult session. I'm thinking about canceling my next one, I'm having a really hard time. I don't know if one ever "gets over" sudden boundary changes without discussion. I've been suffering for 7 months now. Just want you to know I sure know what you're going through, and it's heartbreaking. Skyscraper Meow, I cant tell you how much I love and appreciate your posts!

[SkyscraperMeow]

Originally Posted by Leah123

I'm sorry you're suffering. I hope you will be able to work on developing those really important external support sources and self-care to ease the pain and also to get you to a better, more stable and balanced place. He should be able and willing to work (or continue working) with you on techniques to deal with panic attacks, overall emotional regulation to ease the self-harm impulses and where and how to get multiple sources of support.

To be fair, her therapist has had literally YEARS to do all that with her. If he was going to help her develop external supports, self-care, etc, he could and should have done that five years ago.

What he has done is lure her into dependence through offering email support and calls, and now he's decided that he's done enough and doesn't want to do anymore. He's more or less lured his own client out onto a ledge she wasn't on in the first place, and pushed her off.

This is hugely unethical, and frankly, I don't think a 'sorry you're in pain, why don't you try some self care' cuts it here. She's been actively damaged by her therapist who failed to provide appropriate care and then made it her problem when his misguided treatment 'failed'.

I dislike the way therapists excuse one another for completely bizarre and hugely painful mis-steps which cause not just discomfort, but trauma and damage.

I'm glad your therapist has "apologized" for making mistakes, but I kind of get the feeling that he's taking the oomph out of that apology by going on to tell you that you don't know what he's feeling about making that mistake and trying to reassure you again with the silly statement that you need to give the new plan time to work and you will feel better eventually. Reality . . . he screwed up majorly and he needs to put as much time into correcting things as he did when he was screwing up calling you and emailing you in the evening and on the weekends.

I really am sorry that he's created this mess. I can clearly hear your pain and anguish about these changes. As painful as this might be to hear, he's probably right on the money about him making a mistake and allowing something that actually lead to making things worse for you. It appears from you posts that the emailing and phone calls were not helpful in the long run for you. They didn't move you from crisis to healing but instead seemed to escalate your need for reassurance and out of session contact. As much as we might appreciate and crave that kind of out of session contact, it can lead us to need it more and more and more; somehow we aren't able to turn the contact into enough reassurance and evidence that our therapist is there for us and we can move on in our healing. This isn't, however, your fault and it doesn't mean you're a bad person or a difficult client or any other dreaded description some therapists pin on clients. It means that he screwed up and had loose boundaries and is now not recognizing how much he screwed up and he's downplaying the effect on you, probably hoping and praying that things don't get worse if he just keeps telling you that it'll get better.

I wish I could tell you that he'll go back to his old behavior and you'll have the level of support and reassurance you had. I don't think there's much chance of that. I like that he suggested that you tape the sessions and use them to listen to during the hours that you're not in session BUT I think that's pretty passive on his part. He doesn't have to DO ANYTHING to correct and make good on his statement that he knows he made a mistake. A tape of your session is good, but it's also pretty boring to listen to Kind of long and with silences. I think you might also benefit from a special tape with his voice doing a meditation or a short talk of reassurance. He needs to work to wean you off of the mistaken plan he used by giving you unlimited personal contact outside of session. He needs to sweat a bit here, not just tell you things will get better!

He also needs to recognize that he needs to sit and LISTEN to your pain and anguish about this mistake for a LONG as you need to talk about it--yell about it, cry about it, or rage about it. He needs to recognize on a really really deep and meaningful level how much he's HURT YOU! You might want to email him this thread. Sometimes therapists just parrot what their therapy books tell them about resetting boundaries and they don't get on a deep emotional level how much they've hurt and damaged their clients. Please take care, you're going through a lot and he needs to do more to support you through this rough time.

[fuzzball541]

I don't have much time to reply to everyone's posts right now but I'll come back. I had session with my T yesterday and told him he has hurt me pretty bad. That it feels like he is just sitting there not helping me get through this.
I emailed him after session and reminded him of a note he wrote stating how I'm not alone and this will always be a safe place. I said I need a new one of these. He replied and stated this...have faith that we can get through this. Push yourself to be open with me in session so you can be reassured by my warmth, support and encouragement. I know you can do it if you commit.

Hard to see all that support etc. prob because I'm hurt. And afraid if I talk about this he will change even more, which I told him.

[Cinnamon_Stick]

Originally Posted by fuzzball541

This is how I found this forum was seeking support after this change....I still need to work on my T's feelings...I've recently started recording sessions, we thought it might be helpful for me to re-listen to them to hear his care.....I'm sorry you had to go though something like this too....I really like my T...after being with him for so long you get to know them...he doesn't talk about his personal life very much at all but we have music in common and his sense of humor would show through...

My T has made a recording and a video of her saying comforting things and I did not pay her to do so. I think she did them because she knew she would be changing the out of session contact. Honestly I would rather have the recording and the video instead if talking on the phone or frequent emails. I also started recording my sessions in May and it has really helped me. I can go back and reflect on what was said as I forget a lot.

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[musinglizzy]

Originally Posted by fuzzball541

I don't have much time to reply to everyone's posts right now but I'll come back. I had session with my T yesterday and told him he has hurt me pretty bad. That it feels like he is just sitting there not helping me get through this.
I emailed him after session and reminded him of a note he wrote stating how I'm not alone and this will always be a safe place. I said I need a new one of these. He replied and stated this...have faith that we can get through this. Push yourself to be open with me in session so you can be reassured by my warmth, support and encouragement. I know you can do it if you commit.

Hard to see all that support etc. prob because I'm hurt. And afraid if I talk about this he will change even more, which I told him.

Just know you're not alone. I've been suffering for 7 months. The last two days have been very hard for me, since we revisited the subject in therapy on Thursday. I've been feeling very hopeless and sad ever since. Horribly sad. I think, probably for both of us, they could have really avoided all this pain by talking to us about it, instead of changing things then letting us just figure it out on our own. That was more hurtful to me than the boundary change. She didn't respect my feelings enough to talk me through it, help me through it, just, as you said, cut me off cold turkey and didn't say a word about it until I noticed and brought it up. I'm afraid I'll never recover from this hurt. So, you're not alone. And I really appreciate your post.

[AllHeart]

I was just reading an article on ethics in psychotherapy. Thought of your situation when I read this line:

According to The American Psychological Association's and American Counselors Association's Code of Ethics, it is downright unethical to do harm by fostering dependent relationships and/or abusing power.

I would think a t fostering a dependency with a client for years without teaching that client any coping skills whatsoever, followed up by cutting the cord on the dependency cold turkey knowing the client has no other support or learned self coping skills is not only unethical, but shows colossal incompetence on t's part. Might be worth checking into.