[acceptance]

Today, i had the first appt. of the day . I arrived and knew my T was not in. As I did not see his car. I went in and waited. He walked in 5 mins past my appt time. he immediately took me in. picked up a notepad and started the session.
it was a slow start, as i felt he was not prepared.
as i updated him on my past week, he picked up one small thing and just focused on that. it was not a pressing issue. the topic was out of place.

If he had read notes from a previous session, he would have known more about my updates, what was the bigger picture . what i had told him last week and how things had progressed. He would have remembered he had said we would discuss something in detail in next session, it would be helpful to me. ofcourse we didnt discuss any of it...nothing even close to it.

I did pay him, but i felt the session was a total waste. he was not prepared at all. he was in a different place.

this kind of thing has happened to me before a few times. where he is exiting with one client, and then takes me right in. with no break for himself, or to review the notes.

which makes me think..do therapists even prepare for sessions. how do they prepare?

i had no way of knowing todays sessions was going be this way...otherwise i would have cancelled and not wasted my time/money.

i wonder if T felt the same way, that he was not fully present and was not at his best.

i usually do lead the session and i was doing so, by updating him first. but he missed the bigger picture and focused on something quiet minor for the whole session. it felt like, dont bother me with anything else today. we are just keeping the session light as i have no idea what we talked about last week.

do you feel your therapist prepares for ur session? or just wings it .

I am not sure what kind of response i will get by saying the following...but i feel this was unfair to me. i did everything i was supposed to. (i came on time, i engaged, i paid, i left on time). T should have atleast read the notes from prev. session, if not that, he should have engaged more.
i pay $60 for every session, that is ALOT of money.

thanks for reading, i am just disappointed and wanted to write it out to see how common is this? once in a while is still $60 out of my pocket.

Good question. I don't know if my T prepares but most of the time he seems to remember things from the last session. Sometimes I bring up things and he seems to remember. I don't know if he prepares or not, but he seems to be prepared. I know it's sometimes difficult to say what you need, but maybe next time if this happens you can say, I really want to talk about_________ . That is what concerns me. Sometimes when he talks about things I don't want to talk about, he asks me, is this something you want to go over? I'm not sure, though, if he reviews his notes beforehand. Sometimes he'll refer to his notes in session which doesn't bother me at all. I hope you are able to talk to your T about this.

My current T prepares extensively - it's obvious that he does, and I've also asked him about it - but I have seen Ts who clearly did not. T sometimes forgets things I've told him, because he can't possibly read all his notes from the past four years every time, but I've noticed that when he has been unclear on something he'll always read up on it in preparation for my next session. He also checks out books, music, and occasionally even films I've mentioned, if he thinks they are relevant to my therapy, and he also keeps up with current research (but that's not just for my benefit, naturally).

I think it is part of a T's job to prepare, and I do think it's unfair on the client if a T is constantly badly prepared and doesn't review their notes.

I don't know. But I've never had to question whether she does our not.

[stopdog]

The first one I see does not in at all as far as I can tell. I don't think the woman has a plan or clue.
The second one seems a tiny bit more on the ball, but I doubt there is any preparation in any meaningful way.

For me, I used to think they might have some idea about what was supposed to happen or that they had some plan of some sort. But after 5 years, I have not seen any evidence that either of them actually does anything but sit there and murmer inane platitudes at best and irrelevant obvious statements as usual fare. I can't imagine how it takes any effort or anything really to do those things. I more look at it like I pay them rent than a fee for them to actually do anything useful. The therapist has never actually done anything helpful that I can see. So there would be no need to prepare - they just spout off their usual pointless crap and hope.

My T definitely does. Often he has his notes open when I come in and when I say "I want to pick up where we left off last session" he always immediately knows what I'm talking about.

[awkwardlyyours]

I think it depends on what is meant by preparation.

If it's just about remembering stuff I've said even a while ago, she remembers things I've said that I didn't think she'd registered.

If it's in terms of continuity from session to session even if there was some important / intense / heavy-duty stuff -- then nope, nada, zilch. Recently she said in one session that we need to do / talk about X in the next few sessions. But, in the next session, when I brought up that she'd said that, she appeared to be totally befuddled and it's like starting from scratch every time.

I am mostly okay with the lack of continuity because it's how I generally think / function as well (flitting often from one thing to another). But, I can see how it might annoy someone.

[catnip123]

My T reads her most recent notes and the most recent session summary before each session. The session summary lists 3 things that we talked about and 3 things that are on my to-do list before my next session. I get a copy of the session summary at the end of each session.

[Chummy2]

PrevT had at least 15 minutes between sessions. I know she writes down notes after sessions and also looks at the notes from last week's session. A few times she let me in and she said ''let me get a quick look at what we did last week''. This T also had a good memory.

Current T doesn't leave time between session. There has been many times that she let the client before me out of the room and welcomed me in. I feel it would be better if she would leave a little bit of time between sessions. Now she takes notes during session, which I don't mind. But it would be better if she could prepare herself a little bit before my session. Her memory isn't like that from PrevT. She sometimes forget things that are a little bit important. But the sessions don't feel wasted. She is in the session, she listens good and she gives good feedback.

[Victoria'smom]

xxx T certainly prepared.
xx T glanced at last weeks notes.
x T didn't prepare at all.
I'm hoping new T prepares better then my last two.

[feralkittymom]

I think if a T needs to prepare, then they should prepare.

I know a lot of teachers who do endless (to me) preparation for their classes. Yet I find them to be very poor teachers. Others appear to never prepare--everything seems spontaneous and genuine--and they are brilliant teachers. I suspect both prepare, but some prepare in the ways that enhance their work, and others just spin their wheels.

So some Ts, maybe despite lots of time spent recording and reviewing notes, consistently miss the boat. Others, blessed with fabulous memories and who maintain a strong engagement with their clients, may spend very little time preparing, yet regularly achieve a profound connection with clients.

But I think the responsibility for learning ultimately lies with the student, regardless; and the usefulness of a session ultimately depends upon the client. Teachers and Ts can just make the task more or less difficult/ tolerable.

[baseline]

Acceptance, have you discussed this with him? I agree that they should be expected to be prepared. Would you feel comfortable redirecting him. For instance, you could say that at our last session you said we would discuss ......Maybe he needs a reminder. I hope things get better. My pet peeve is being interrupted during my time. He works in a medical office and has people knocking with questions on my time.

[atisketatasket]

No. 3 was the only one who ever prepared or ever seemed to have a plan for the session. When our plans did not match up, that could cause some friction.

As long as they remember my name and key issues - and then let me do the steering - I'm happy.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[kecanoe]

Mine don't prepare although T3 sometimes mentions that she has asked her peer group about something that we are working on

[justdesserts]

I don't think my t reviews notes or where we left off last time. He allows me to direct the session and talk about what is most pressing for me, unless I ask him before hand to help me talk about something specific. However, he has never been unprepared for a session in that he forgot something important or seemed as though he wasn't present with me in session.

[Ellahmae]

Mine prepares for me as much as she can - usually though it's hard to gauge where my sessions might lead - too many switching factors. She does have a broad underlying plan for each session.

[granite1]

i dont think my T does. she doesnt take notes at all and has a horrible memory . im ok with that sometimes it is a great thing if she doesnt remember i feel im better off

[ruh roh]

I don't know if my therapist drinks, but that would be the way I suggest she get prepared. I know I would if I had to see me.

[ABeautifulLie]

I'm not sure if or how my T prepares for sessions. She has an excellent memory and rarely writes things down so that isn't a problem for me. Ususlly she will ask me how I'm feeling and we base our sessions from there. For some issues like CSA or sui thoughts she tell me that she wants have a session about it but it's up to me and I can stop at any time.

I don't know how my T keeps and uses his written records but I know that he prepares to session reading emails since the previous session. He encourages between session emails with patients and uses them this way on hid end, to frame the next session. I often send him a summary of what I want to discuss prior to our meetings and he thinks about that as well. His memory about past sessions and email content is very impressive so I am sure he thinks about outside of session as well.

My guess is that former T probably did not prepare much or at all, his memory was also rather poor. He would just let me talk about whatever and the sessions did not have any structure or progression unless I made them that way.

[WrkNPrgress]

I would say yes, most good therapists DO make notes and will recall previous conversations. I would call your T out and tell him exactly what you wrote here. That you felt he was not prepared. It's your time and it's valuable. You have a right to stand up for it.

My Therapist has varying times of taking me in but they're almost always a little after the hour. I know there are times we end 5-10 minutes before and I am in my car before the end of the hour, and I know from the waiting room that clients before me leave 5-10 minutes ahead of my time. This leaves her actual session time at 45minutes total.

I wondered if this was just slacking but one time she was running late and as I walked in she took the file form her cabinet and looked it over in front of me. This file is on her desk for every appointment and it's pretty full. So I'm assuming she does make notes after each session, the reviews them beforehand.

That being said, there are different methods. I aslo had a Couple Counselor who was always running late from session to session. We're quite certain she wasn't taking notes between sessions as she always took someone in as we left and vice versa. BUT, she had the memory of an elephant and always recalled what we had last talked about and referred directly to recent conversations and past sessions, no problem. We always assumed she took some time at the end of the day to make notes - or she was a spot-on genius.