"Special treatment" in therapy

Sometimes posters on PC mention receiving special treatment or attention from their therapist. I am wondering how common this is, and what form the special treatment takes, or how common offers of it are? Was it useful to the client or a source of harm? Is it done as a matter of course by therapists (to make the client feel special), or for clients who are in crisis?

"Special treatment" is being defined as something that the therapist normally does not offer to clients - e.g., touch, (extensive) out-of-session contact - or something that violates their licensure requirements (e.g., doing therapy across state lines if that's banned by their licensing board). I'm also kind of defining it as something meant or claimed by the therapist to be positive for the client.

I don't mean things I would regard as part of a therapist's job, such as listening attentively.

I put yes, but i am not sure if it was special or not. Very early on in therapy, I was really depressed, and asked for an extra session. She sensed that I needed a lot of time, and extended the session to almost 3 hours I was appalled when I realized the time, and took me awhile to tell her that it freaked me out; i didn't want to abuse any time privileges, and secretly i was worried about her boundaries.

That only happened once, and she said that the benefits of having a private practice was she could be a little more flexible. She said she knew I was not doing well, and needed the extra time. I was able to open up to her about some serious stuff, and it DID take me awhile to do that.

She is very ok with e-mailing, calling, and i have texted her a few times because she says that is the easiest way to get ahold of her on weekends. I am very wary about abusing any of this, and have had multiple conversations with her about it. She always tells me that it is ok with her to have contact outside of session (she also is married and has two small children!), but she isn't a therapist 24/7, so it might take some time to respond. That actually made me feel better, like "Ok, she isn't sacrificing herself to her clients."

I have no idea what my therapist does with his other clients, so I have no way of knowing if what he does for me is in any way "special" or if that's his usual style. He has done things for me that I considered particularly beyond the call of duty, but I suspect he would be that attentive to other clients in similar situations. I could be wrong, but really no way of knowing. He's never claimed special treatment for me. He has said my whole family and I are particularly important to him because he has gotten to know us all so well, and perhaps some of what he has done is beyond the call of duty because he feels rather invested in our whole family, but again, that would only be conjecture.

Yes, I received special treatment. Still do. My responses to your poll is that the special treatment was helpful and that it was also harmful. The special treatment resulted in a dual relationship that has turned out to be significantly helpful and healing for me. Getting to this point did cause some harm though. The confusion the special treatment brought about and the constant fear of having it taken away was so intense it made me suicidal. I know these reasons sound trivial but there is plenty more to it, and, the depths to which the confusion caused me is something I really can't explain in a paragraph or two. And that's not the question posed here anyway.

For me, I believe taking favors from a therapist to be a very very bad plan. I do not want to be beholden to a therapist.

I have outside contact but it's not special treatment- it's the way he works with everyone. Coaching between sessions has been one of the most useful aspects of this round of therapy - it's really helped me figure out how to take care of myself and to keep myself from falling into the pit of despair I used to be very familiar with.

I have read a few of my therapist's books and nothing he does with me seems out of the ordinary from the way he treats anyone. I am happy that the way he treats me seems to be totally in line with how he treats his other clients.

I technically can't answer this question because it hasn't happened yet but I will be moving soon and she has offered to let me contact her for about a month or two even though I'll be across state lines. We have decided on a end point but she is offering it to me for a short period of time while I transition into a new job and city.

I don't know what therapist does for other clients. She once brought me a gift from a trip but she maybe does it for others too

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I don't know if I would call it special treatment but T has offered touch and he just said it wasn't something he used extensively as part of his practice generally. The jury's still out about how I feel about it all round!

I voted 'other' because I have no way of knowing if my t gave me 'special treatment' or not. She supported me in many ways beyond the limit of the 50 minute session, but I assume she responded similarly when it was needed with other clients as well, therefore any 'extras' could not be classed as 'special' treatment.

T said it more important that you feel special then the act being special.

I feel like T does some special things for me. One would be allowing me to email her. She hasn't put any restrictions on my emailing so far. And I know she doesn't normally do emailing with other clients. Another thing, come time for termination, she will write me an encouraging letter to help with the transition. She has never done that for a client.

I have to wonder why a therapist would ever tell a client they are the only one the therapist does x for. To me, that seems more about the therapist than the client.

I had my T tell me once I was the only client with whom he'd use a particular (difficult) word. It appealed to my vanity, made me feel smart and special, and at the same time it felt horribly manipulative. I was upset with him at the time, and it seemed like the comment was intended to mollify me. But maybe I'm just cynical.

Current t doesn't do anything for me she wouldn't do for other clients. She offers extensive outside contact to clients she believes both need it and can utilize it without it becoming a problem. She also goes overtime as she has availability if it's needed. We've had many conversations about this in the past year. I dislike the concept of being special...
A previous t continued seeing me at the clinic several weeks after she left the job. We had talked about ****** transitions with my previous 2 t's,and she was trying to allow me some control in this one. As soon as I realized I was her only client at the clinic (and she was no longer getting paid to see me), I called that session our last. It sucked, but it didn't at the same time. I have a huge fear around being seen as "special", as that was how my abuser tried to justify/explain/make desired my abuse. But t taking the effort to try to make the termination easier for me was nice of her...

I would panic if t tried to tell me I was special or do anything special for me. It has almost always come with strings attached, and i'm guessing it would in therapy as well (though not necessarily the same strings). I think I agree with stopdog when she said that a t who would try to underscore how "out of the ordinary" something is, is likely doing it more for themselves than the client.

My T offers some outside contact, she will invite me to email if I need to after a difficult session, but I assume she does that for all long term private clients (she also works in NHS so maybe not there). My T will usually only run over for five minutes if she started late, though we have gone over for a few minutes a couple of times. It's good. I like the boundaries.

My T does give me special treatment as in she lets me contact her while she is on holiday, which she has said she doesn't allow other clients to do. I am also allowed to contact her whenever I want to, either by text, phone or email. I email quite alot and might text her when in crisis but never phone her out of the blue although I'm sure she wouldn't mind. She has said she would move mountains to speak to me.

I feel it has been helpful to me for the most part. I think T does it because she knows how insecure I am and how I never believe that people care about me that much so she is trying to make me see how much someone can genuinely care. I am aware that it may not be conventional by way of boundaries but seems to be working for me right now.

T also makes me tea, offers me other drinks and asks me if I want to stay a bit longer if I'm having a hard time. I usually don't take her up on staying longer though.

No, and yes - my T is flexible and I have never been under the impression that I get some kind of generalised cookie cutter treatment, and there is one aspect of my therapy which he's said that nobody else has had, but that's only because nobody else has ever requested it. (I asked about it because I was curious.) I have no doubt that all his long-term clients get "special treatment" because we are all different and need different things, and he is very pragmatic.

My t brought me back the Eiffel Tower. Obviously he could bring back only the one

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I've been wondering if my T has done something special for me. I find breaks hard, we haven't had a break for a really long time. I've been wondering if she took a week off during this time, but still saw me. It sounds unlikely. But it is possible. I don't think she would tell me as she never talks about other clients.

I think my T (and many others) sometimes tailor fit their course of treatment to their specific clients. So, it would make sense that some clients get different privileges than others. T has said he does not give all of his clients his cell phone number and tells them it is ok to text. So, I suppose that can be considered some form of special treatment. It only occurs when things are bad I need to be grounded pretty quickly. Though, I am pretty certain that he has given it to other clients.

Last summer when he was on vacation, he did tell me that he was out off the office, but wasn't actually going to be out of state the whole time and if I needed him I could get a hold of him. Then asked me not tell anybody else that, because he really was trying to take time off from work. So, I guess that is some form of special treatment. I can't remember if I actually did get a hold of time then, but it comforting to know that he would be available for me.

I put no because I honestly am truly surprised at the relationships people have with their therapists through email or texting or whatever. But I forgot completely that my therapist hasn't earned a dollar seeing me in 4 years. I pay the agency but he defers his fees. So I guess that's really special treatment that I'm so used to I don't think much about it.

Lol you never fail to make me laugh.

Yea, and it did me harm. Logically I knew nothing was going to happen beyond therapy, but that was in my logical brain. My emotional brain was carried away by intense longings and fantasies as a result of her singling me out.

The special treatment was:
- more self-disclosure with me than any other client (her own admission)
- lot of email contact, some quite intense, beyond her usual boundary
- sessions that frequently went long

I would also add that the whole relationship felt far too intimate, familiar, and seductive. Cant say for sure, but likely not her norm. So really the primary aspect of special treatment was the basic nature of the relationship. In the end, many confusing and devastating mixed signals.

I answered "other" because I'm not sure, mostly regarding my marriage counselor. The fact that he allows me to e-mail and text, and occasionally talk on the phone, with him individually could be considered unusual for a marriage counseling situation. It came up recently with my T, who's in the same practice, and she said she if she was counseling a couple, she probably wouldn't feel comfortable talking to one of them outside of joint sessions, though she said that's also just how she operates when she works with couples (I think she mostly sees individuals).

I know MC sees some other couples (along with individuals, particularly teens/young adults, which are his specialty). But I have no idea if he allows individual contact for any of those couples. It's a bit more complicated, because I have the transference thing with him, so he and I also had a couple individual, in-person sessions to deal with that early last year. Now he's said he wouldn't want to do that (because it could potentially interfere with the couples counseling and also my therapy with my T), but he's fine with e-mails/texts and occasional phone calls. I generally tell H about them either at the time or afterward, sometimes showing him the e-mails, and we'll often discuss stuff that came up there in session. So it's not like a big secret. And H says he's OK with it. But it may be a bit unorthodox in terms of couples counseling, so could potentially qualify as "special treatment."

I should add that we were seeing him off and on for a year or more before any of this came up (though I did e-mail him once or twice with a question on an upcoming session). And it's been less than a year that I've had his cell number. So I think at first, it was to address the transference, then there were still some lingering issues regarding that (still come up from time to time, which apparently is common with that sort of thing). Then there have been a few occasions where I've really needed support, like earlier this year, and have reached out to him in addition to my T (he's especially good at reassuring me.) T realizes that he helps me, and she's OK with my contacting him in addition to her in times of crisis (we've discussed it). So I think this is a case of tailoring boundaries to the needs of the specific client, as some others have mentioned.

my therapist treats me as special, but i think she does that to everyone, just because that is her personality. so yes i get special treatment, but i bet i am not the only one.