[bolair811]

Hi all,

This is my first actual thread / post. I'll give a brief synopsis of my situation, but I still need to do an introductory thread I guess.

Long story short, In 2011, I was abruptly and unethically abandoned by my former female therapist of 5 years. I can explain more in my intro post. It absolutely devastated me. I didn't think I could ever go back to a therapist. In 2013, I had bariatric surgery and my surgeon highly recommended I go to an eating disorder specialist about my food issues. I was hesitant, but decided to try it again with a male therapist thinking that I would only discuss those issues. (i was incredibly naive I guess) It's been about 18 months, and I feel like we have a good rapport and connection, but I still haven't really developed a complete trust in him that he won't abandon me the way my former therapist did. He knows about everything that happened with her and agrees that what she did was unethical and understands why I'm so terrified of trusting him completely. We have talked about transference issues, boundaries, etc and he's tried several times to reassure me that he's not going to abandon me the way she did. I wish I could let what she did to me go, but it's so hard. I don't even want to trust other people in my life. I've always had issues in that area, and my former T was the first person that I EVER trusted 100% and told my deepest darkest secrets to.

Any thoughts or suggestions or advice? I've made good progress with him, but there are things that I really should talk to him about, and I know there is transference beginning to happen and I'm incredibly scared. I want to believe him when he reassures me and it's like 95% of me trusts him, but former T made me feel so safe but then she turned on me.

Current T does EMDR and has extensive training in trauma. He has not really mentioned trying EMDR around this issue, but I'm wondering if anyone here has tried it and had success.

That was way longer than I meant it to be. I would love to hear any thoughts, success stories, etc. Thank you.

[Out There]

I'm sorry to hear what happened with your former T , trust issues are difficult. Perhaps you could explore using EMDR with current T? My regular T isn't trained in EMDR but I worked for a while with an adjunct EMDR / trauma specialist and in combination it was quite effective.

[atisketatasket]

I guess the first question is, what do you mean by complete trust? Is it trust that he won't abandon you, or something else (things you want to tell him)? Do you think that complete trust is necessary to achieving whatever it is you want to achieve out of therapy?

I did not trust either of mine completely - I would call it a working trust in them and that's it - but I don't think I needed to completely trust them to get something out of therapy with them. But since my basic attitude towards therapists and all medical professionals is that a little suspicion is a very good thing, our situations are probably totally different and therefore so is our need to trust in our therapists.

Also, it sounds that you are talking about more than eating disorders with this therapist. Do you want to be talking about more than that? I ask because you say you were naive to think you could just limit the therapy to eating disorders, and I can't tell on the screen if that's an expression of regret or not.

I don't know how to be able to trust a therapist again after being betrayed by one if that is what you want. It may be like after a bad relationship ends; if you start a new one, eventually you just have to take the plunge and trust the new person - or at least trust that you can survive another betrayal.

[PinkFlamingo99]

I'm going to be upfront and say that I don't believe in transference beyond it being a natural reaction to being hurt in EVERY situation, not just in therapy. I think you are wary and I think that is normal and healthy too

I had a very similar experience and it messed me up badly in the spring. It was after 5 years for me too. I have come to realize that complete trust like that is not neccessary healthy and if it feels unnatural, you can't push it. You don't need that kind of trust for therapy to work. I now realize that complete trust in anyone is unsafe and unhealthy and I would be wary of any therapist who expected it. I think maybe instead it's healthier to work on how to deal with the abandonment fears and how to try to calm yourself. Also, maybe a med change would help? I never thought meds would help me with my obsessive fears of abandonment, but I honestly believe finding the right one got me through the past year alive.

There is refuting evidence about the efficacy of EMDR. You can look up studies on it online. It has helped some people here.

I also have trouble trusting anyone in the mental health field now. But my new therapist is actually helping me learn to cope better and take care of myself better instead of only talking. I think in a way, those abandonment fears in my case come from the fear that I can't take care of myself.

Bariatric surgery is hard. Has he helped you learn any coping mechanisms to replace overeating? Are you getting your protein and vitamins? All that stuff affects my mood and anxiety a lot.

[gayleggg]

Time is the only test to trust. Does he respect you? That is truly important.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I am so sorry. I had the same thing happen to me after seven years with a therapist. It was terrible. And it ruined my trust in everyone. I went through 8 therapists and never trusted them one bit. Then i found T #9. She is awesome and wonderful and we both knew it would take a long long time to trust her about anything. I do trust her now, mostly, but i still wait for the day she will totally abandon me.

[NowhereUSA]

I don't know the best answers to all of this.

I think it might help to see if you can work to find a place of security within yourself. We get attached to our therapists, I'm attached to mine, but the actual therapy we do can be done with anyone sitting in his chair (my T is male as well). As long as the person is competent, I don't need *him* specifically. I just need *a* therapist. A therapist who is ethical and is skilled.

I don't know if it would help to focus on trust in a smaller way - that is, you don't have to trust that he will never abandon you, but can you find some small measure of trust that says you know that if he needs to end therapy for some reason that he will do so ethically?

I'm just brainstorming. I'm sorry that your previous T abandoned you I know that trust is a hard thing to learn, while I don't have trust issues as a result of T issues, I am terrible at trusting people. It has taken me a very long time to get to a place of trust with a lot of people in my life, not because of them but because of my own experiences.

[bolair811]

Thank you to everyone who replied. I'll try to respond to the questions as best I can.

I guess when I say 100% trust him, it's about being able to trust that no matter what I say or talk to him about that he won't do what my previous T did. She made me believe that ANYTHING I needed to say or tell her would be ok and "honored", but in the end, that wasn't true. And it wasn't about any sort of threat or danger to herself or others or anything like that. When I said I was naive to think that I could "only" talk about eating issues, I just meant that I was silly to think that my problems with binge and compulsive eating were not tied into my other problems (depression, extreme anxiety, trust issues (that were there from childhood trauma), etc.

I think instead of just trying to convince me over and over, current T is trying to help me trust and feel confident in myself that if he (or anyone else I love or care about) goes away for some unforeseen reason (he gets into an accident, dies, etc.), that I would be able to handle that, and it wouldn't completely paralyze me in grief. I like this idea of strengthening my confidence in being ok if someone really important to me leaves for whatever reason. It's complicated by the traumatic experience I had at a state psychiatric hospital during a severe depressive episode that occurred about 10 months after T-1 abandonment. I'm terrified of getting back to that point. I have such a strong fear of abandonment that I don't allow myself to get close to anyone. The result of that is that I'm incredibly lonely but also incredibly fearful of letting myself love anyone or accept love in return. That is what I want to change. I don't want to be so terrified of emotionally intimate relationships.

He has helped me figure out triggers for emotional / compulsive eating and ways to help myself get out of the cycle when it starts, stress management techniques, etc. The eating problems are one piece of a much larger pie that includes a lot of family relationship issues, work stress management, history of emotional neglect / sexual abuse (he doesn't know about abuse yet), etc. I do feel like he is extremely respectful of me and my needs. He has never done anything that gives me a reason to suspect he is anything but a highly ethical and completely professional therapist. I guess that's why it's so frustrating for me that I can't just get past those previous issues. But really, that incident was only a retraumatization of my childhood emotional neglect and abandonment, which current T says is part of what is making this so difficult for me to overcome.

Thank you again to everyone. I really appreciate all the insight and suggestions from you all.

[DelusionsDaily]

There's nothing wrong with being cautious and taking your time trusting another T. I think that is more than reasonable and almost to be expected given your previous experience. Don't rush it...and trust your gut instincts...if you're not ready to share something by all means wait a while. Trust is earned even in the T/client relationship.