New boundaries implemented

This is cruel and abusive.

I agree that it seems cruel what she's doing. (I'm also puzzled as to how an e-mail is more intrusive than a text...) You need to find someone else. I know it's hard because of the attachment. But it will probably only get more painful...

It may well be that you contacted her more than she wanted, and only you know the content and tone of the content - it's entirely possible she felt harassed if you repeatedly contacted her, but she's fostered that by not replying. I can understand your anxiety increasing without acknowledgement or response from her. I see it like a kid with mum who hasn't responded, they often then start with "mum, mum, mum, Mum, MUM!!!". Yes mum feels harassed but if had answered the first time... And for clarity I'm using this as an example, not saying your in the midst of maternal transference.

It's ok for her to want to set boundaries about contact out of session, I know you know this, but the way she's done that isn't ok because she's played on all your fears. In the above example, if mum started withdrawing from the child as a punishment we'd call that abusive behaviour. She should, as other posters have said, give you space to explore what need you're trying to have met with contact and agree to keep talking about it, and to talk through what her tighter boundaries mean for you (eg her pulling away).

In answer to how you detach? Ideally she offers you enough consistent care and nurture (in session) to allow you to trust that others will do the same and, naturally, your attachment to her lessens. Or you make the decision to keep yourself safe and find someone with better boundaries who can give you the care you need. In other words, in exactly the same way we detach in real life.

I'm sorry you're hurting, this stopped being about your behaviour with in between contact a long time ago and is about her not knowing how to work with you properly.

When she told my session would be cancelled if I sent an email I was completely taken aback. I told her that I wasn't avare of somme of the bouderies since she never mentioned them but she didn't listen.

I had to leave a T who I was incredibly attached to because he was hurting me. One of the issues was between session contact. He invited me to email him if I wanted but then shamed me for emailing "too much".
As I once read on here, boundaries can be like an invisible electric fence - you've no idea where it is but it hurts like hell when you step on it.
My advice would be to try to push through the pain barrier and leave. It will be very, very painful, and that pain will probably last a while, but even as I was still missing T1 lots, I realised how much more progress I making with a new T and how much better I felt generally. Now I don't miss my first T and I have passed through the anger and disappointment in him that I needed to feel and express.
Your therapist is being very disrespectful to you. I think moving on would be a good way to show yourself respect, and to value your own feelings.

This all sounds really painful. It is unbelievable that she used the word harassment. hugs.

One of my abusers used to say, "it's for your good". I really hope you can leave her. It is abuse from her to you, unethical, and heartbreaking. Wish you the best Myrto, sorry you have to go through this

She's sounds tough and her rules are a little insane.

I'm sorry but what kind of T is that? Sounds like a dictatorship: she enforces the rules, makes snap decisions without taking your thoughts/feelings into consideration, no discussion whatsoever with the client, threatens and punishes you?!

This is not therapy. She is treating you despicably.

IF you were breaking any rules/boundaries, why on earth did she never bother discussing with you. Instead she slaps you for something you were not even aware was 'wrong'. Oh, please, kick her to the curb.

Attachment doesn't mean you have to accept shabby treatment from others. That will only reinforce her hold on you (+give her licence to treat you however she wants).

Tanks for all the replies! I hear what you are all saying which is: I should fire her. The thing is, even if I am hurt and angry at her behaviour, the idea of moving on is just impossible. If I switch therapists that means I have lost two and a half years of my life. All the stuff I talked about, the vulnerability I displayed it will all have been for nothing. Plus I won't have closure :she won't admit to being wrong she won't apologize. I will be left with nothing.

I think you will lose more of your life if you continue with her.

It's up to you, of course, and I get how hard it is, but I can't imagine therapy with her will be any use from now on. Will you want to be vulnerable with her? Will you be able to talk about what you need to talk about? Will you ever not be on edge, worried you might put a foot wrong and be terminated or punished in some other way?

She sounds like a narcissist. I know it will be hard, but I really do think you need to fire her and look for someone new. Gentle hugs.

You may decide to stay with this therapist for many reasons but I hope your thought of 'losing' two and a half years of your life will not be one of the reasons. Those years must have meant something to you - enough so that you have felt some growth or change or progress. So, it's NOT a loss. It's like your favorite professors - you admire them and they teach you a lot but then there comes a time to move on. They no longer serve your purposes. And the time with them had not been 'lost'.

Same with the stuff you talked about, the vulnerability you displayed. Similarly in school you are challenged and you learn and you expose yourself. All of those lessons serve you as you leave the university for graduate school, for example.

So, please don't let this be your argument for not seeking a different therapist. You may have other arguments that convince you to stay with her but to believe your time with her was a waste if you leave is categorically not true.

Good luck.

Don't throw good money after bad. Ie: don't keep paying just because you invested so far. This is long enough.

Changing therapists can happen for many reasons, and starting with a different therapist doesn't negate any work or progress you've made previously with an older therapist. What we have to do though is realize when a situation has run its course for whatever reason. It could be because we've simply reached the threshold of what we can accomplish with a particular therapist. It could be because one or both of the parties has changed (as relationships change and individuals change) in a way that makes maintaining a healthy working relationship impossible. Staying when the relationship is no longer working (in therapy or in real life) creates pain, anxiety, additional crisis, etc. Sometimes we have to know when to move on and find healthier relationships/situations for our own self-respect and sanity. Hanging on in the hope that one will get an apology and/or satisfactory closure simply continues to expose us to that unhealthy relationship. The fact is, some people simply will not ever change or apologize or give us satisfactory closure. To hang on waiting for something that just may never come just keeps us in a constant state of crisis with that individual.

I hope you can find that place within yourself to move on, even if the ending is not what you would like it to be, remembering that your need/desire for therapy is about internal growth and health. You can continue to work on your personal goals and healing with a different therapist; this therapist is not the only one out there, and this is a therapy relationship that seems to have run its course and is no longer healthy for you.

Consider checking out "Sunk cost fallacy".

You say you want to remain with someone who will never apologize or admit they are wrong and so, you can't leave because you'll never get closure.

So, taken to the logical conclusion (since people don't suddenly change), you won't ever be able to leave unless and until the therapist decides to terminate you -- which going by her history so far, is likely to end up being equally unexpected and painful to you.

And, it'll be entirely at her whim -- could be tomorrow or a year from now or 10 years from now.

I wonder how that'll feel....

P.S. I say this as someone who's also been unable to easily walk away from toxic dynamics, including with current T.

Sometimes people accompany us for a determined amount of time and then their part in our life is over, for whatever reason. It doesn't mean we have to stick to that person, esp when said person (or the relationship) hurts you. Her usefulness seems to have run out.

Just like some toxic friendships or partnerships... there comes a time *we* have to set our own boundaries so others don't trample all over us.

You learnt through those two years - positive as well as negative (e.g. how a T should *not* treat you). This T is on some sort of power trip and/or delusion.

Another person's trust is precious-fragile-a gift. She is abusing yours. Could you really ever trust her again? Still be open and vulnerable wit her? Or fearing she might switch on you again would you 'restrict' yourself or walk on eggshells?

Again, I am sorry, I know you are hurting but if you stay with her I believe you would lose more productive years. She is not trustworthy nor reliable, let alone competent. Imo.

Do you think maybe you could think of the two years an experience where you learned things, so it's not lost?

I was in a less than ideal situtation for a couple of years. I don't think I would have been better off staying with him, even though I had invested a lot of time and energy. My current therapist is much better suited to me, and I have grown a lot more with him. But I do think that I was much better prepared to do therapy with him, and I understood what was going on a lot better because I had spent those couple of years with the other therapist.

It might help so much more to have a more solid and trustworthy therapist. I'm sorry you are going through this. Your therapist sounds kind of unhealthy.

You have been quiet Myrto, how are you doing? Sending my thoughts to you, if it helps at all.

I can empathize. I had one T threaten to stop seeing me if I didn't show signs of progress and another humiliate me in front of a whole therapy group by telling me I phone too often in between sessions. At the time on both occasions, I felt completely powerless, rejected, shamed and humiliated. I blamed myself when in hindsight, I can see that what the therapists should have been doing was helping me understand why I wasn't making progress and felt the need to phone in between sessions. Instead, they were playing mind games, punishing me like a small child and taking away my power. Like the OP, I was also very attached which clouded my judgement. I should have walked away but I kept going back. In the long run, it has harmed me but my faith in therapy has been restored by meeting with a new therapist. I know it's hard but you can walk away if you choose. I have found terminating therapy to be painful every time regardless of the circumstances. The time you spent in therapy with her hasn't all been for nothing. Every experience adds to our understanding of ourselves.

I think you should do what ends up being best for you, period. If you decide to leave this T, I wouldn't think of it as time lost. Relationships are often fluid and once they cease to serve a purpose it can be time to move on. It is scary, especially if ending a relationship has a negative connotation for you. It doesn't h ave to be that way, however, and it can become something empowering. I can't imagine how staying with, and paying, someone like this is at all beneficial. As someone in the field, I find her "boundaries" bizarre and condescending. Email is one of the least intrusive means of communication I can think of, next to writing a letter. If you called or texted throughout the day I could see feeling annoyed perhaps, but that's something to talk about. Cancelling a session for an email? That doesn't even make sense - you pay her. If she's getting paid who is she to withhold sessions from you, her client? That is grounds for being fired, in my opinion.

Oh, she makes me so mad. You don't deserve to be treated this way, and certainly not because this twat thinks she is too precious to deal with a few emails. If she thinks that qualifies as harassment, what have I been doing to my uni therapist this past year? I must be a real menace! I should probably be locked up.

It irritates me to no end when people use words they obviously don't know the meaning of.

Honestly, it is up to each individual therapist to communicate to their clients what their boundaries are; the clients are not clairvoyant. But this one is so incompetent she hasn't even managed to do something as basic as that! And then she puts the blame on you for failing to comply with rules you knew nothing about. Run, don't walk, away from this one.

It will definitely not have been for nothing. You will come away from it with valuable life experiences that you can apply to other situations in the future, and you will have learned things about yourself. In this case, you will hopefully have learned where to draw the line when someone is treating you like crap. And that is one of the hardest lessons to learn in life.

Unfortunately, we don't always get closure. Sometimes we just have to do damage limitation, which for you involves walking out of her office and never going back. She may be the devil you know, but there doesn't seem to be any comfort in that. She's not safe, she's harmful. She's abusive. Leave her before she gets the chance to cause you even more damage.

This. She might as well have said that. What a ridiculous woman.

All the things I thought were issues, my in security, my need to call, the emails they all went away when I stopped with T. New T has said I can email or call anytime and I have called - you know what? She answered, she replied and through that I find myself feeling completely secure with the relationship. Yesterday I emailed with a scheduling question and then completely forgot I had until ages later. This is a huge deal!

My point is that you are not wrong for behaving how you do, you want her to hear you and to know she is there. She is unable to meet your needs but instead of communicating this to you in a calm way and then discussing WHY things are happening or how to help you, she is imposing massive walls. This shows she is not the one to help you because not only does she not know how but she has no interest in trying.

This is not a service you should pay for anymore. Having an attachment on an emotional level makes leaving almost impossible but you deserve support, compassion and help.

Thanks. Yeah I am considering my options. I need to look for a new T which takes a lot of energy and patience and i don't have much of those. Thank you for all the replies and all the support, it's vert much appreciated.

I had the same thing with first T. it was so painful (she fired me one night, didnt say why, just that she was done with me.) I had no closure with her. i too felt all of my vulnerability was for nothing. it absolutely tore me up to not see her anymore
I was POSITIVE i would NEVER be able to move on. i cried every day for over a year. i thought i was hopeless.
then after two years i found my new t. she is amazing. she meets my needs. and she helped me get over old t. and i have moved on (its been 8 years.) It was HARD. but i did it. if i can do it, anyone can.