therapist just terminated with me

Yes, fighting my corner for me, here, is vital and crucial for my sense of empowerment. His last words in his so called ending letter said 'this is just how it is' which was red rag to a bull, as he doesn't get to call the shots here. It was disempowering but they are used to treating severely mentally ill people who would just crumble and not fight back. I am actually feeling empowered by fighting back. I can take him to court, I can complain to this professional bodies, I can fight for what I need. I may or may not take him up on some ending sessions, if he EVER offers them, because a part of me thinks he is a ***** for how and what he did to me. But he has deliberately made this ending horrible and painful for me and I won't take this lying down. He should know this. He has worked with me for six years and he knows I will stand up now and fight if people dump ***** on me.
for those of you who are thinking 'poor burned out therapist' - he still could have ended with me better than this. He deliberately turned against me, reporting me for putting condolence flowers and a card through this door (well he wasn't returning to work was he?!) and yet this is the same man that I have on recording saying that he would always give me his home address so that I could keep in touch and he fully expected me to turn up on his door if he ever did something so awful as to abruptly end with me (my worst nightmare that he spent years reassuring me that he would never do.). this man has been unethical. as I said before his services have been suddenly withdrawn in contravention of a detailed and sensitive therapy termination plan that we had worked out between us. This has left my sense of trust broken and my sense of security in fragments.

Thank you for the clear explanation! I wasn't sure what the exact motivation was, but it makes sense that you would want to use the process for empowerment.

I think my biggest worry or concern for you is that if the closure sessions are granted that it will add to the pain rather than relieve it, since it would be under less than amicable terms. You may no longer see that warm, caring therapist that you worked with for 6 years. So, I warn you to be careful and if they are granted ask for the session to be supervised to ensure a standard of care. Or at least have a network of support (doesn't need to be a therapist) that you can talk to after the sessions occur.

And even if they are not, maybe you can still have an expanded explanation as to why it happened.

Either way, I hope the process leads you closer to feeling self-empowered and that it that the complaint is swiftly resolved.

I think thats not how therapy works.

When i was in the hospital for a physical matter a few years ago, my t offered to drive me home. I took a taxi home, but his offering made me feel cared for, made me feel i had a choice, made me feel not alone. I didnt need for him to ACTUALLY drive me home. My brain just needed to hear somebody repeatedly saying, i would drive you home, i want to get you a birthday present, etc.

I think your t feels that the years you spent talking about your termination process, WERE your termination process. He would never leave you hanging. He would always be there for you. Where is your love for him? If you didnt come to love him sometime during those six years, you are not going to start to love him now. So in that way, you are more like a brand new client. You never attached to him. I dont say this to blame you or hurt you, but to try to explain what might be meant by "how it is". He never reached you. You never trusted him - not just this last episode, but over all the six years.

I don't understand Unaluna, how you feel qualified to step in and make these judgements about how much I loved and love him, trusted him and have been betrayed. How much do you know about me? Very little. So why do you feel compelled to come out with statements such as this: 'You never trusted him - not just this last episode, but over all the six years."
Isn't this meant to be a forum for support and talking about our own experience, not leaping in and making judgements bases on little evidence, of the OP?

Amen to that. Interesting how far people will go to defend the indefensible. Anything to avoid the unpleasant truth, which is that any therapist can give any client the boot at any time.

The situation is straightforward. It's about a devastating betrayal of trust. There is no way to frame this ending as ethical, unless some sort of therapy doublethink is employed.

Clearly all the bullying is upsetting OP, but people can't resist taking another shot. Isn't therapy supposed to model empathy and self-awareness?

I for one understand what Maria is going thru. It's a particular sort of hell. What else is there to say.

I'm fully aware any therapist can end with a client at any time. I've been seeing mine for 3 years and she's fab but something could happen tomorrow that would end our work together. But that's what it is, work, that I've done in relationship with her yes and if need be I could then pick it up with someone else. We have a strong, close relationship that is facilitative of the work I need to do, but I'm not her friend, she won't be in my life forever and she doesn't owe me anything.

I don't expect her to be available indefinitely, I know where she lives because I see her at her home office but I'm only welcome there for as long as we're working together, outside of that I have no right to visit her home. With respect, it's not me who doesn't think the relationship can end at any time.

I only know what you tell us. I AM basing this on my own experience. You say your t is dumping crap on you by doing this. That does not sound to me like you trust him or that there was ever any love there. I understand "dumping crap". My family dumped crap on me, pretty literally. It took me many years of therapy to get past it, and im still working on it. I say you never trusted him, because i think YOU WOULD REMEMBER the exact moment you decided to trust him, as i did. Its like the first christmas for people like us. From crap, not to blind trust, but to not being a victim; being a survivor.

Eta - im sorry if i upset you. I will refrain from any further comments.

Una---I disagree that someone would know the exact moment they trusted someone. For me, trust comes in increments. It is a process. It isn't linear. To suggest that she didnt' trust him because she feels betrayed by a no explanation of termination of therapy after 6 years seems pretty far-fetched.

Well, it sounds like there was a pretty detailed plan for how termination would happen, and that this would be a process rather than an event, and everyone would know when it was beginning. So I don't think he could have believed they had already been in termination. If they weren't both consciously doing the plan, then they weren't terminating.

I also think that if OP had not become attached to this T and had not loved him, this would not be the gigantic trauma that it actually is. I mean, if you haven't attached, you don't care, right?

Perhaps what you were getting at is more like internalization; perhaps OP had not internalized the T's care and compassion that he had previously shown over the 6 years. But I would think that even if a client had internalized these positive aspects of the relationship, being suddenly and horribly surprised by termination out of nowhere would more or less erase those internalized positive feelings.

ETA: Not trying to "yell" at you unaluna, sorry... I just think that when it comes to T's, a sudden loss of trust, a betrayal or abandonment, can destroy most of the positive feelings from the earlier relationship. Even if OP really did trust him.

That DOES describe it better, like it hasnt been internalized. Im not feeling yelled at, and i dont mean to judge.

I agree. For many of us trust is a process. I have been working with my therapist for nearly four years and I do not completely trust her. I'm not sure why this is but it is. Due to my surgery and her being out of town I haven't seen her for almost a month but when I go (a week from Tuesday) I plan on talking to her about my trust issues with her.. probably won't come as a surprise to her. Sorry to go off topic, it just took me there.

I did get to trust him. I also got to love him and felt safe with him. then about a year ago he started showing that he didn't care about the impact of sudden abrupt cancellations on me and I started to feel f*cked about - and then he said he wanted to retire early and so we fought like hell about a date for that, and he agreed June 31st 2017. It seems the bottom line is what I suspected all the way along, he just earned his income from saying ' and how do you feel about that' to patients who came by and he wanted out and to go and live in the country and be out of it all, not even heeding his professional duty of care to the patients he abandoned in his hissy fit.
Oh, if I sound angry, yes, I am doing angry. But I am not going to let anger consume me, - he isn't worth the breath. Karma will rebound back at him big time. Maybe his current partner will realise what a sh*(tface he is and leave him.

Do you understand that you never had control over his retirement plans and date? You write as if you gave him permission about when he was allowed to retire. Maybe it is your wording, but that seems rather strange and very boundaryless on his part and controlling on your part. He wanted to retire; we ALL eventually want to retire. That isn't about not caring about clients; that's just normal adult planning, but you write about it as if it is unusual or wrong for him to have those kinds of plans. I wonder if part of his decision not to see clients one-on-one anymore is that he is transitioning into retirement and direct client contact works counter to that transition for both him and any clients he would be working with.

He could have felt threatened by this and probably felt you were stalking him. This alone might be enough proof to terminate you, and might be enough for you to lose your case against him.

I think speculating on what caused this therapist to do anything is off base. And telling OP she is a stalker is a bit extreme in my opinion. I don't think the OP is to blame.

I didn't see anyone calling the OP a stalker. I see people explaining that perhaps that was the way her actions were taken by the therapist and perhaps that might explain why he has acted as he has.

I think some of it sounds as though people are looking for ways to blame OP for what happened. I think that looking for ways to blame/shame her to explain his bad handling of the situation is simply off base.
I do think that the therapist handled this very badly. I don't know that there is going to be a resolution that satifies OP, but I don't think she is to blame for her reaction to the situation.

i honestly think the T should be aware and expecting any and all kinds of backlash from suddenly dropping a client after SIX YEARS of working together. i mean, this dude cannot simply think that it's going to all be peachy after this. if he does, he is delusional and incompetent. "this is how it is", man i hate that saying.... it is what it is....no ****!!!!!!!!

I don't at all blame the OP for the dependency her T fostered and her feelings around the ending, she is responsible for her own actions though and turning up at the home of someone who you saw professionally, without invitation, when he is off work for personal reasons is at best misguided. I'm not surprised he reported her, though he presumably gave her his address in the first place.

So no, I don't think she is to blame for her emotional reaction but she is responsible for what she chooses to do with that. Writing to him, turning up at his house, texting him and having other people write to him when he is clear he can't see her - that's quite a lot. Whatever happens she will need to let go of her ex-T and the hope of a satisfactory ending st some point.

I agree that the OP is not in any way responsible for the way this termination was handled. And I also agree that I don't think that when one is the throes of anger, resentment, emotional pain and anguish any attempt to correct this "termination fiasco" would be satisfactory. Pain from abandonment and betrayal is exactly that P A I N. Things could be improved a bit in this situation if the offending T offered a much better explanation and took responsibility for what happened. An apology goes a long way in healing, but apparently, he isn't self-aware enough to recognize how poorly he handled this situation, and the longer he denies his poor approach to the situation, the more anger and resentment he's going to create for the OP (in my opinion only). Sadly, this is where therapists fail miserably. They just don't get how some clients are severely effected by this kind of abandonment behavior, and when it happens, they seem to think it's the client's problem due to their mental illness and it's just fine to walk away without addressing their part of the problem!

Solution? Not sure, but it sure isn't a letter saying, it is what is, have a good life. In my opinion, Ts need to be much better trained and up front when meeting with new clients that therapy is NOT a friendship or relationship that leads to a prolonged lifelong closeness or support. Instead, they seem to work extra hard initially to get the client to "attach" to them and then when it happens and they get overwhelmed, some poorly trained ones, run for the hills. Fostering solid boundaries is a hard balance to create because the "nature" of the therapeutic relationship (it's all about you and you can talk about anything and I'll listen attentively without burdening you with my junk) is seductively sweet--many humans crave this attention so much that they forget that it isn't REAL. It's a work-for-hire relationship. It is close and intimate but it isn't a two way REAL relationship. It's fake in the sense that no one can survive in real life in this kind of relationship 24/7. Why? Because everyone in a real relationship needs time to have their own needs met and a therapeutic relationship crashes when the T seeks to have their needs met or when they get overwhelmed (compassion fatigue, which is their fault NEVER the clients).

Personally, I think that Ts need to stop saying stupid, ridiculous and untrue statements like: "I'll always be there for you." or "I'm in this for the duration." or "I'm not planning to go anywhere. We'll work together for as long as it takes." or "I know you have abandonment issues and I won't abandon you." or any other ridiculous statement along those lines. They are offensive and lead to some clients believing in them. Some people can hear those types of statements and not be sucked in by them, most can't and when things go south, there is hurt feelings and in some cases, severe re-traumatization of the client. T also need to learn how to step up and admit when they make mistakes and take responsibility . . . but in today's world, that rarely happens in any job. Sorry for the long rant but this is an issue that really bugs me.

I would disagree. I do think some of us are simply providing various ways to look at the situation. Sometimes it is hard to see a bad situation from various angles and perhaps seeing the various angles can help some people deal with what is going on. I don't see anyone here saying the therapist handled this correctly. It isn't about blame; it is about seeing the situation from various possible angles.

I understand we do not agree on this and I was not talking about your posts.
I do see some as blaming and shaming the OP but I don't expect to be universally agreed with on this matter.

I see a lot of shaming and blaming going on here. I hope the OP can find some peace for herself over time. It will not happen quickly, and the pain will come in waves, but venting is a helpful and safe way to uncork the enormous hurt that's toxic when held inside.

Weird that strangers on the internet would presume a better level of discernment into a complex thing like this than the person going through it. It's inherently patronizing.

To cut off a client abruptly and then expect total compliance… that is despotism. Anyone with basic self-respect would seek some sort of redress. To discourage this is to invite defeatism and powerlessness.

The suggestion that more sessions with a terrible therapist may prove to hurt more is not a bad, patronizing suggestion. Nor is I saying the T should get away with this - merely that healing doesn't come from the one who hurt. This can be empowering to realize.