when T hurts you unintentionally...

how do you handle the unavoidable pain of the therapeutic relationship? sometimes i cant handle it at all... on Wednesday i was 15 minutes late for our appt... i have been seeing T for 3 years... have been late ONCE in all that time... 5 mins late due to traffic... have never missed an appt.... this time the road was closed because of an accident... was 15 mins late... and even though i know i was her last appt... she didn’t extend the session... not even one minute...

i feel hurt... and yet feel like i understand that the boundaries... or rules that she has have to be unbendable... for her sake i guess... but i don’t know how to deal with how this feels...

sometimes when i feel hurt by her i think about therapy and what it means... i think Freud was a genius... businessman... get someone to fall in love with you, get them to pay huge amounts of money for the privilege... and you can do pretty much whatever you want... and they will still come back... because they need you... and want you... and will suffer the slings and arrows of love to just be near you... for 50 minutes twice a week.....

GOD!!! what does any of this mean...???!!! i love T and will continue to love her... but today i feel hurt... and i don’t know what to do with those feelings...

she does her best for me... within her boundaries... i do accept that... but sometimes i wanna smash the hell out of those boundaries...!!! and yet i know come Monday i will be counting the minutes til our session... crazy??!! who knows... therapy is a wild ride...

i feel bad already for writing this as i know my T has a good heart... and would probably be upset to know i felt this way... but its never easy when we see things from the other side of the fence is it??

Nikki, you just posted almost exactly how I felt one session. I was also 15 minutes late. We had horrendous rain that day and I left at 4:30 to make a 6:15 and I was still 15 minutes late.

There was someone after me but he wasn't sure he'd make it at all. Well, he made it so we ended on time. I was very hurt at first. I am always early for appts about 10 minutes. I think I canceled once in the beginning.

He has seen me late sometimes like 5 or 10 minutes when he has someone in his office and three times took a call in another room for 5 minutes or a bit longer.

I have never said a word and just accommodated him. He always apologizes and I accept it. So, this one day that I ran into a problem and was hoping we could work around it. He did say I wish we had more time but we don't. So that softened the hurt feelings a little bit.

Sometimes when I think I'm his only client (which is a lot of the time) I realize that I am not. He had someone after me that day and even if he didn't, I'm not sure it would make a difference. I found myself wondering if he accommodates others but not me for some reason. That is something I'll never know so I try to push it out of my head.

This is part of the reason that I don't outright cry in sessions. Although, I almost did two sessions ago. I could just see that happening at the end and him saying okay see you next time. The rejection from that would be huge for me. I can't cry on a time schedule so when I feel like I might and it's close to the ending time. I stop.

It's not something I wish to discuss with him though. I'll just need to keep in mind that he needs to be consistent with his clients and good to himself too. This isn't a deal breaker for me. But I totally understand how you feel.

I've always thought it best to be honest if our therapist hurts us, otherwise, how are they to know their actions cause us pain? Correct them when you feel you've been done wrong. This gives them the chance to explain themselves, put the situation in perspective, and allows you to be honest with what you're feeling.

This is a very interesting topic.

I am so dense about my feelings sometimes, that I may not realize if my T has in some way hurt me until well after the fact. I'm trying to get better at that. I remember one time he said something that really was a punch in the gut, although I didn't even recognize it. I went home and cried and cried and cried and wasn't sure what was wrong, but I knew. It was during a self disclosure by my T and he happened to say he was divorced (in the context of saying something else), and that just hit me like a ton of bricks. Because I am going to see him for help in leaving my husband and getting divorced, and for some reason, I had assumed that he, the expert on marriage and relationships and communication, would be happily married. And the divorce process has been so painful for me, that I felt this huge outpouring of empathy for him over his past divorce, that he had to go through that. I just really, really hurt, on his behalf. I didn't want him to have gone through that; I felt almost protective and helpless because that had already happened to him. And I cried and cried at home and just felt kind of clueless about it. I just didn't want him to have had to feel that pain. Then that lead to feelings of profound hopelessness, like if my T, who is so together and does marriage counseling and is a relationship expert, can't make a marriage work, then my own hope--dysfunctional me--for a healthy marriage or longterm relationship is nil. I just felt totally hopeless and went into a depression. And all this without being being too aware of it. About a month or two later, I had this dream about T, and in our interpretation of it together in session, my feelings about his being divorced came up and I let him know how that knowledge made me feel completely hopeless. Wow, did he ever take me in hand and fix that problem! He talked about his marriage and why it failed and the fabulous new, committed relationship he was currently in, and how one's ability to have successful relationships grows with each failure. It was just totally awesome and really healing to have this conversation. It restored my hope. And I got his "listen to me" command, and that intense look me in my eyes, pull his chair up close to me, practically knee to knee move that he is so great at. Anyway, that is the biggest example from my therapy where my T has unintentionally hurt me with something he said.

If something like this ever happens again, I hope I can be more self aware and realize what is happening and address it with T more quickly.

I just started with a new one. I had the first meeting for the interview, and then last week was my first "real" session. I ended up being 15 minutes late because my brother drives me, and he over slept a little, and then we ended up getting lost. I'll admit I was frustrated that he didn't get up and didn't get directions if he didn't know how to get there, and I said that to her in my first minutes of the session, and she said to me "Well he seems like a rude and inconsiderate person" in an extremely mean tone. That was the first thing I ever said about him, and while I did feel angry at him in that moment, he is hardly a rude and inconsiderate person. Her saying that made me hate her. I may be calling to try and get another therapist because of it. She seems like a mean and judgmental person.

I wonder if they realize how they can be hurtful sometimes. At least at my school, where I normally seek therapy and had a good relationship with mine, they had a 15 minute gap between sessions in case people did need to go over a bit. Sometimes you can't fit it all into a 30-45 minute session.

Nikki,

Sorry you are hurting--this is a great post & thread.

I supose the best way to handle these inevitable hurts are to discuss them with T like the adults that we are (LOL). But, of course, in the relationship with T, we are rarely adult-like and often child-like. Then we become conscious of our behavior and feel ashamed to express the hurt.....arghhhh, so difficult, isn't it? I was late for the first appointment I had with T because I got lost on the way there. He did not extend the session. However, once or twice he has extended the session when I needed it and when he was able to because there wasn't anyone waiting. The more our relationship grows, however, the better I get at communicating my needs to T.

Sunrise,
I was also surprised and disappointed to hear that T was divorced and don't quite know what to make of this information, but feel that it has an effect on my ability to take marriage advice from him. I imagine it will come up when it needs to!

I think the start/end times are to help "contain"/frame the therapy and need to be consistent. I use to get frantic getting to my T and would always be way early :-) but occasionally would be afraid I'd be late. One day only about 6 years into therapy :-) I called to tell her I might be late! (instead of just showing up late) and that there was traffic, etc. and it felt so good!!! There was a connection made between us, she didn't have to "worry"/wonder whether I was coming or not or what had happened to me (since I never missed or cancelled sessions) and so it was a "nice" thing (for her) and the connection made me feel like I didn't have to be so frantic about getting there anymore; after all, it would only be 5-10 minutes of a 100 minute session and there'd be more sessions in the week to come, etc. But it was a real breakthrough and I never got "worried" about being late again.

After reading here, I'm realizing my T and I have a pretty loose frame, but it is secure enough for me in all the ways that matter. My T is always running late. I think only once have we started a session on time. Nevertheless, I am always there on time, and I enjoy waiting in the waiting room and reading the interesting books, or snoozing. When we start, I don't even notice how late we are. I leave minding the session time to him. We always finish late too, but since we start late, maybe it is still only 50 minutes. I know sometimes we do go longer than that, but I just don't keep track. I figure it all evens out. It's up to him to worry about the time, not me.

I have canceled twice on him without 24 hours notice and he did not charge me the fee for the missed session, even though it says he will do that in his informed consent form. One time, it was due to bad weather/snow and I just couldn't make it in. The other time was just last week when I had two sessions 2 days in a row (first couples, then individual), and I ended up taking the couples session for myself and so didn't need the second session for the following day (I had let him know in advance I would be coming alone for the couples session). So we canceled that one in person and it was only about 14 hours notice, and he did not bat an eye or ask me for the extra money.

So he breaks the frame, I break the frame. I don't get hurt by this, and he doesn't seem to either. It all seems to work for us.

Also, my T does stuff in session that I know other people here would probably go ballistic over, or at least not really approve of. But he didn't do this stuff when we were first getting to know each other. He waited until we were pretty close and had a strong rapport. He eats in session if it is at meal time. I'm fine with that. He makes us tea. Occasionally, he will feel his cell phone vibrate and glance down to see who it is. During times of a personal crisis for him, he has, in fact, answered his cell phone just to tell the person (usually a family member) he can't talk right now, ask if everything is OK, and he will call them back shortly. I am OK with that. He doesn't do it if I am experiencing something really intense such as crying or EMDR. He has done this just a few times and always apologizes/explains the situation. Also, sometimes at the beginning of sessions, before we really get started, he will do a "business" type call, such as checking with the repair shop to see if his car is ready. Another time he had an emergency situation with his computer and had to get it up and running and needed to talk to tech support on the phone before they closed, and my session was in the last hour before they closed. So he called tech support on his cell phone, and when he was on hold, he did therapy with me, and when he would get a person on the line, he would pause our therapy and talk to the support technician. This lasted about 20 minutes of our session, and only happened that one time. (Anyone going ballistic yet? ) There were a couple of moments when he was talking to the tech that I felt, hey, I just cannot do this and considered asking him to hang up. But he was so dang good at it, that I just went with the flow and tried it. It actually worked great. I found I had to be really honest and efficient in my answers to him during the moments of free time while he was on hold and could talk/listen to me. I had to cut to the chase and just spit it out, no words wasted. His ability to multitask was amazing. He could chat with the tech, and immediately jump back in to our conversation without skipping a beat. It was actually quite awesome and I am glad I had the experience (but wouldn't want this to be a regular occurrence!). I know that latter example sounds really bad, but I actually liked that he felt comfortable enough with me to break the frame to do that, and I felt our being able to work through that together helped build our relationship. (On the other hand, I have a history of putting up with truly awful c**p from my husband in a really tolerant and understanding way, so let's just hope this wasn't some kind of dysfunctional transference.)

Anyway, I think all this stuff, combined with my T's frequent self disclosure (always therapeutic), add up to a really loose frame. But it works fine for us. I'm kind of an informal, easygoing person, and he seems to be too. Go with the flow.

Good heaven I couldn't deal with any of that sunrise. Wow! The most my T has done is to be about 5 minutes late a few times. I think if he ever answered the phone I'd walk out. A couple of times his phone has rung because he forgot to turn the ringer off, but he immediately silenced it and apologized. He's never eaten or anything like that. But it's not like it's a big formal atmosphere. That's just not part of the norm there.

But in answer to the original question, I remember my T hurting me by cutting me off when I was repeating something. He had asked for clarification and I couldn't figure out what was unclear, so I sort of said the same thing again differently. And he stopped me because he'd already gotten that part. That happened a couple of times and I felt stupid and that was painful. Later on I did tell him that though., and we talked about it and he asked me to make him aware in the moment if he had done something like that so that he could work on it. I promised to do that. Naturally it hasn't happened again though.

So yeah I'd say talk about it! It's helpful and I felt closer to him afterward.

Sidony

I had that experience once with T. Traffic held me up, was late, never been late before and she said we still have to end on time.

I swallowed that up like a good little girl. One part of me understood, the other part was filled with intense rage.

I think looking back, it was because it was a reminder of who she really is and the reality of the relationship, a working relationship and not a friendship.

But geez didn't hurt!

I had a T that made me really mad at him and I realized I was taking it out on the world so I called him and told him I am very angry with you right now. He told me it wasn't his job to make me like him. He told me he was intentionally mad. He wanted to make me feel something.

Jbug

Wow Sunrise!

I wonder if your T is doing this on purpose as therapy? That seems like a lot of extraneous stuff going on when he should be with you. But if you are okay with it then that works for ya!

My above post really isn't that big of a deal to me. He's been there for me much much more than he hasn't...

LOL sunny.

Eating would drive me nuts. I had a T who kept stick pretzels in his desk drawer and would pull a few out from time to time. It made me feel out of place or invisible... Soooo boring he would have to snack to stay awake!

I think I would have been somewhat offended by the tech call and would have been feeling sorry for myself that I didn't have his focus and attention the whole time. I would have felt time-pressured in my responses and it would have been disruptive and too distracting for me.

However, once I had a psychiatrist I liked a lot who used to be horribly late routinely, but it didn't bother me because he always had all the time in the world for me no matter how late he was running. And he gave free samples sometimes and told me once that often he ran late because he had been talking to pharmaceutical reps to get the free samples.

So I guess it just depends.

But, yesterday... In session we were talking about repression and about anger (I claim to rarely feel it, but really I rarely admit to it or acknowledge it as such, I think) and speaking my mind. Her cell went off. TWICE! It's gone off in one or two previous sessions too. She answers and says I'll have to call you back. This time, the call was in the middle of something really difficult and important and it totally interfered and ruined the moment. Trying to get back to where I was, it rang the second time.

She was quick that call, too, and when she was done, I told her "That is REALLY interfering". When I said that, she said "That's my emergency cell.". (Meaning I guess, "YOU have called on it!") and that one call was "about a medical appointment for me.". (And now I wonder what she has going on medically that she told them to call her on her 'emergency cell'!!)

I just said. "I think I'm done for the day." and handed her her check. I would have denied feeling angry at that point; I would have said I was leaving because time was nearly up (10 minutes left) and no point in getting into something. She asked me to stay and talk about it, got me to admit to feeling angry and we talked about that. I told her "This is MY time!". She did say she would try to accomodate me. (now I feel angry AND critical).

Time was up. I left very unsettled. I had been angry and critical and I thought she seemed perturbed. I worried she would not want me to come back and realized there was no "So, 3:00 next week?". Ended up calling her cell on the bus, couldn't hear it ringing so I hung up. A few minutes later it rang and it was her; I still couldn't hear on the bus and told her I'd call her when I got home. Before I got home she called again and I (you guessed it) couldn't hear but I was only a few blocks from home and finally called her when I got home. Twice. On her cell. After the first call I felt like she was upset with me and had to call back and ask her if she. (I would have stayed distraught and worried all week).

So anyway, what a session about anger, repression, and saying what's on my mind.

Oh, and I did mention the pillow and how I felt and it kind of fell flat. Oh well.

Let's see.
My first T started poking into my dysfunctional side in the first session. I think she mentioned abandonment in the third session. I felt extremely nervous before every session and was slightly late before everyone with her. I had a dream about her walking out of my life. In the next session, T informed me that her clinical supervisor ordered her to work out of an office that isn't on the bus route. I then told her about a thought of suicide that I had had (grandma died in the month before the session). She said twice that she would call me personally with the name of a new T. First week, no call. I think I called her voice mail because I was really get a strong feeling of abandonment by this point. She sounded as sick as I will get out. I was so happy and relieved that she was sick because it meant that I was being abandoned. She was told me that my thinking was "irrational." I sat in the corner and glared at her. I ended up writing a letter to her and sharing it with my new T.
New T: She brought up the subject of anti-depressants. She tried so hard to persuade me to try it that she failed to ask me why I was so opposed to them. I wanted to share my pro's and cons list.
Pdoc: I started an anti-depressant and in the next appointment, Pdoc said something about wanting me to work through my resistance. My brain seemed to almost be unable to function. I said that it was a scheduling issue because I delayed in scheduling (assuming that she remembered my worries about lossing hours at work which would end my health insurance). She replied that a mental health issue can interfere with work and school. I said that I had thought I was going to cry myself out of a job. I went home and cried all over the place. She missed one appointment which made me have to go without ADs for two days and then she says that. I felt dizzy by the end of the session!
Interuptions: My Pdoc got a phone cal in the middle of a 20 or 15 minute session. She was responsible for the in-patient in addition to the out patients that she was seeing. I couldn't believe that the agency would do it that way.
Current T: A person touched the door and we didn't know if it was a knock or just a person passing by. The person poked his/her head in and asked T if she had seen someone. The person apologized to T for interrupting her bought never onced even agnologized my presence. I just laughted. Afterwards, I found myself annoyed because I completely forgot everything that I had talked about before the interruption. I like to think about what we talked about on the way home. I couldn't remember anything of what we talked about before the interruption. So, I ended up wasting some of my money, my insurances money, my time and T's time due to the interruption.
My T drinks water during session, takes notes and sometimes puts away the file from the previous client in session. I don't think I could stand it if she ate during session or received phone calls much. The tech call would probably cause me to ask if we could re-schedule the session for a more convenient time. I am this way because I feel that the co-pay ($26) is high enough that I was my money's worth. Also, I tend to but in an adverage of an hour of planning before each session. I know that T has to go from person to person, so I can give her up to the next client when it is time. I want most of her undivided attention when she is with me. $26 is almost three hours of work for me. I think that should give the privledge of having her undivided attention. I might get grumpier about this because my new insurance doesn't cover mental health. So she now costs me $110 an hour! So, I am greedy when it come to therapy time.

Every therapist has different policies regarding this situation but I would guess most would end the session at the "regular" time.

When something similar happened to me, my t did end the session at the regular time. The next time I saw her, we talked about how I felt hurt due to x, y & z. She listened and then said, "well, I have some extra time today, are you able to stay an additional 10 minutes?" ... so by asking for what we need sometimes, we can sometimes get results.

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almeda24fan said:
Wow Sunrise! I wonder if your T is doing this on purpose as therapy? That seems like a lot of extraneous stuff going on when he should be with you. But if you are okay with it then that works for ya!

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Nah, he's not doing it as therapy, it's just stuff that happens. (Plus my T is very transparent and would not play games like that.) It only seems like a lot of stuff because I put it all in one post. That has been over a period of 8 months. Almost every session, I get his undivided attention and there are no phone calls. And he is really, really good at giving undivided attention, so oddly enough, even when he made the tech support call, when he was on hold and turned to me, he was fully there, he just turned it on. It was powerful.

I'm sorry you had kind of a rough session last time, ECHOES. I'm sorry the phone calls have been disruptive, especially that one coming when you were disclosing something important. (((hugs))) It's great you guys called each other so much to resolve the session. (Too bad about the pillow discussion. I thought that was such a cool topic!)

I'm trying to think what it would take for me to get angry at something my T did in a session. What would he have to do? I think maybe take a phone call during something really important would do it, like a traumatic revelation from me, or during the EMDR protocol, or during a moment of sadness and tears. That would probably make me feel mad or rejected. But I don't think he would ever do that.

It is interesting to me that we have progressed to this level of comfort with each other. At first when I saw him, he did not eat, and did not make the occasional "car repair" type calls right at the beginning of session before we got started when I had just entered his office. In fact, the client before me would leave his office, T would poke his head out and nod to me, then go back into his office, shut the door, and presumably do those business type phone calls on his own. Then 5-10 minutes later, he would open his office door, and usher me in, and we would start therapy. Now, as soon as the previous client leaves, T takes me inside with him. He doesn't do his business type calls in private because he is forgoing the opportunity to have 5-10 minutes by himself before seeing me. I like to think he feels at ease enough with me to know he can do those little calls before we start, in my presence, instead of making me wait out in the waiting room. It kind of makes me feel special, if truth be told. I know he does not feel so at ease with my husband, because he said to me once when we were talking about maybe having to reschedule a couples session, that he hated to have to do that so soon because he had only seen my husband once so far. So I understood that there are different boundaries for longtime clients with whom he has a bond and rapport and brand new clients whom he doesn't really know yet.

Hi All... thank you for your replies... the weird thing is when i posted this i immediately felt unbelievably guilty for expressing negative thoughts about some parts of how therapy works... i felt nervous to even check the responses... but i am so grateful for your replies... and grateful to know that a lot of other people know what i am talking about!

Sunrise... wow, your T is somewhat unconventional... not sure i could handle that kind of stuff, but if it works for you then that is great.... :-)

I think talking about any issue that upsets you is certainly good advice... not sure if i will mention this to T tomorrow or not... we have another one week break the week after next and i think that is on my mind more than anything else...

anyway, take care all.... Nikki x

That is a great way to look at it Sunrise. Your T is very comfortable to be himself around you and it doesn't impact a thing.

Isn't the therapeutic relationship just awesome?!

My therapist, yesterday said two things which were very hutful, inaccurate and uncalled for. I will have to address this with her when I see her next time.

Overall, I walked away with some very good ideas.

EJ

Janniebug,

That is really interesting.

The T I saw yesterday is exceptionally knowledgeable about a wide range of topics, however, she failed me in a couple of areas yesterday.

Even though three of her comments hurt me, I still walked away enriched. Everything comes at a price.

Somedays I just feel like a gigantic sore.

EJ

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Nikki4520 said:
Sunrise... wow, your T is somewhat unconventional...

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Hey, I think I like that!

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Nikki4520 said:
i think Freud was a genius... businessman... get someone to fall in love with you, get them to pay huge amounts of money for the privilege... and you can do pretty much whatever you want... and they will still come back... because they need you... and want you... and will suffer the slings and arrows of love to just be near you... for 50 minutes twice a week.....

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Nikki, this made me smile but also had such a ring of truth about it. When you think about it, it really seems like a brilliant racket, doesn't it? Sometimes therapy even seems to share some elements with prostitution. You pay a person for an hour of love (or sex). The client expects to be the center of attention and expects the other person to "put out" and satisfy his/her needs. (I wonder if therapists ever see themselves that way?)

I think that as much as we like to think we are bonding with our T's ... Mine brought a reality home recently amongst my depression. I suppose we wish our T's to empathize...but to what degree? Mine said... no matter what kind of life you are having, my life is just fine. That was an interesting reality. It has stayed in my thoughts for the good part of a week or so. That did kind of hurt but it is a reality...and a separateness.

I like the seperateness because it means that I can share my pain without making her life awful. So, I want her to empathize in that she tries to understand and imagine in some small way what I am experiencing and feeling. However, I also want her to keep herself seperate from my hurts and fears. Otherwise, I can't work with her.
T has only a few times allowed my feelings to get under her skin and responded in an off way. At first, I was afraid to talk about that subject again. T still seems to struggle most with my distaste for psychiatric drugs. I find that she responds in a way that makes me suspect that she just can't quite conceive of why I am unnerved/scared of psychiatric drugs.

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SecretGarden said:
I think that as much as we like to think we are bonding with our T's ... Mine brought a reality home recently amongst my depression. I suppose we wish our T's to empathize...but to what degree? Mine said... no matter what kind of life you are having, my life is just fine.... That did kind of hurt but it is a reality...and a separateness.

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That's interesting, SG, because mine has said on several occasions to me how great he is doing right now and how great his life is, and I find that a positive thing, very reassuring. And that is why he tells it to me--it's therapeutic for me. I know (and Hopefull also mentioned something similar) that I was reluctant to share some c**ppy childhood memories with T because I was worried about inflicting them on him, and he reassured me how strong he was and that he was in such a good space in his life right now and had lots of experience receiving bad memories from clients, so he could take it. I was never hurt by his revelations--they only helped me. I would not want him to be experiencing what I am right now in my life. I don't mind being separate from my T. I like that we are individuals and differentiated from each other. But I like our bond too.

I remember my former psychiatrist took a phone call for a car repair during one of my appointments. He got off the phone and made sure to let me know he was rebuilding a Mercedes. I remember the word "show-off" coming to mind.