therapist just terminated with me

Apparently they only have one 55 miles away?!?!?!?!?!!!

In case it helps to know you're not alone - back when my therapist went bonkers and suddenly changed the entire therapeutic frame on me back in March, I had this exact same problem (I woke up very early and couldn't go back to sleep; then again, I also had a lot of trouble going to sleep in the evening in the first place). I'm sorry this is such a difficult time for you. In my case, there was no termination but my therapist took his sweet time thinking whether or not to terminate with me. Anyway, in my case, sleeping pills worked for a few nights, then nothing worked anymore, but luckily as I started coming to terms at least slightly with the suddenly very different relationship - I started being able to sleep again.

Here is a relaxation song I randomly found online a week ago - it was composed with the collaboration of sound therapists and studies have found it physically reduces stress and anxiety to a very high degree. I hope this helps you, combined with options others have mentioned:

Thanks - Brillskep - I am listening to that now.
I reported my ex T to the police today for inappropriate physical violations.
I feel like I am coming out of a long fog, he is losing his 'hold' on me, and since he wouldn't make himself available so that I could discuss these things with him - then I just look back and think : heck, he just kept getting hold of me without asking, saying it was what a dad would do, but a dad wouldn't just abruptly walk out on their daughter like this. So it all doesn't fit.

You've never written about inappropriate physical violations before. You mentioned a hug and a kiss on the top of the head, but nothing that in any way sounded illegal. What is involved in that?

I would allow touch in therapy only if I was asked permission. So I could ask for a hug and he could ask me if I wanted a hug. and initially he kept to that. And of course I liked the affectionate contact. It helped. But then he started holding me without asking me and pulling me to him, whether we were standing or sitting down or even if I was lying on the floor and I found that really difficult. I especially didn't like being pulled to his body and held tight. That was difficult for me. I used to pull away as much of my body as I could but I never felt able to complain as then I feared that my hugs which were requested, woudl get stopped. Also I never knew how long sessions were, so they woudl run over by as much as an hour. Sometimes - quite often, - we woudl be in the building and no one else would be and the office hours were over and everyone else had gone home. I didn't like that either. Then of course there is all the stuff that I liked but which now take on a different tone after the way he has treated me, like: he would buy me Christmas presents and birthday presents and little treats and send me cards saying he loved me and all of that would seem okay if he really WAS a father figure but he ended up just not caring about me at all, not even caring if I killed myself when he abruptly terminated with me, so of course it makes all the previous stuff just feel totally suspect, like he did it when it suited him and was pleasing him but he just dropped it and me when he didn't feel like bothering any more. I read a website about therapist abuse and it helped me to see that he has been inadvertently chipping away at therapy boundaries all the way along and I didn't feel okay about this but didn't really get what was not okay because I was so caught up in being frightened of losing him.

I'm so, so sorry this happened to you, MariaLucy.

me too

the whole thing feels just such a mess

It's the NHS and your ex-T's mess and you have gotten caught up in it, unfortunately.

Is that maybe why the NHS wants you to go to the therapist 55 miles away? Impractical for you but are they wanting to be careful and try to ensure you aren't hurt again maybe?

I'm really sorry. It sounds to me like the issue was that your therapist treated you and encouraged you to see him as your father figure - which he was not. Accepting transference and welcoming your experience is one thing; normalizing crossing your boundaries by saying it's what a father would do (although a healthy father-daughter relationship does not actually involve lack of respect for personal space!) shows he was trapped in the transferential experience with you, so how could he help you out in a healthy way? I'm sorry things are this way - hope it gets better for you soon!

Thanks. Yes, he tried to seduce me into the father - daughter relationship -even promising it would be there after therapy had ended - and he treated me like a daughter, pulling me close and cuddling me and giving me presents etc but in the end he abused me because he actually treated me like something he had stepped in when he abruptly terminated via a third party.

so I do feel horribly abused.

That sounds very inappropriate and makes me wonder if he also behaved inappropriately with other clients. Maybe one of them filed a complaint and he's not allowed to practice anymore. Sounds like you're much better off not seeing this guy, anyway.

I suspect the same thing.

Yes, I wonder. It is hard to work out because they are not telling me anything. It would be easier if they told me something.

My advocate said to me today when I asked did my ex t really do wrong:
Of course – to touch you in increasingly familiar ways without permission or agreement was to exploit your vulnerability and getting off on being so special to you – he was addicted to being special to you
I spent three hours today at the police station as they asked me lots of questions. My ex T has been stopped from working with vulnerable clients like me whilst they investigate, the police contacted the safeguarding teams for my county who have the power to stop people working. I have to do my video statement on Sunday.
this is such a mess.

You're very brave to keep pursuing this, MariaLucy. Kudos.

I am finding out that in England, unless it is sexual assault, the therapist can basically do anything and it is not a crime. He might be struck off from his professional body but usually even that is hard to do.
Emotional and psychological abuse, grooming of a vulnerable adult, abrupt dangerous termination of a vulnerable at risk client : all these are not crimes in England.

The issue is that you're an adult, unless you're assessed not to have capacity to make your own decisions vulnerable or not you're considered responsible for your choices including your decision to keep seeing an abusive T.

So, had you said no, objected to being held or to physical contact and and you complained and not gone back you could argue lack of consent, if you were under 18 you could argue breach of trust and it would be an offence. If you, as an adult with agency over your own decisions allow a T to hold you and touch you, keep choosing to go back and make no complaint about it at the time I could see the police struggling to prove an offence.

I'm not saying he didn't harm you, you know my views on that but I can see why the police might struggle to find evidence that you were groomed or that you didn't have the choice to leave at any time. I'm guessing that some of the correspondence you've sent your T would point to you wanting therapy to continue so he can evidence you were there by choice.

Sexual assault is actually the only criminal offence he may have committed, because vulnerable or not, you chose to keep seeing him.

I believe the same goes for living in the States. These types of abuse are crimes, but, they are crimes that are not reportable to the police, with any relationship. They are not 'legal' crimes. Doesn't mean they shouldn't be or couldn't be. Perhaps what you have done will help pave the way to make such abuses a legal crime in the future.

Is there no governing ethics board in your country so that you can file a report against this ex-t? What does your advocate recommend you do next, should you chose to continue the good fight?

I've said before in the forum, it just seems to me so ridiculously obvious that a research study looking what has happened to clients who report feeling that therapy HAS caused harm and/or left them feeling interpersonally "wronged" could find some commonalities that might help prevent these situations from happening in the future, as well as -- who knows? -- leading to new understandings.

I studied (B.A., M.S.) math, science, and computer science before I studied psychology (M.A.) and to the hard science mindset that idea just sticks out like a sore thumb.

But there's ZERO I can do about it except for posting here. I am still barely functioning socially. Maybe if enough of us banded together somehow to raise an outcry and push for change, maybe that could help? But until then. . .or maybe an ambitious graduate student in search of a dissertation topic will happen by here. But, realistically, it's probably too much of a hot potato and who's committee would approve such a topic?

The University of Leicester study in the U.K that was posted here several months ago was somewhat promising but unfortunately glossed over the topic of harm in therapy and what the causes were. Maybe they are looking into it more comprehensively now.

So frustrating!!!

Take care of yourself, MariaLucy, best as you can. I hope and believe it will get better in time.

I've seen no indication that the biz is interested in seriously examining its casualties and failures. I think doing so opens a pandora's box for them. I think they are nervous and avoidant on this topic because they suspect that looking deeply at harmful outcomes would reveal disturbing truths. All the focus is on the successes and on the egregious abuses, which are segregated out as anomalies.

The rest of the mild to serious detrimental outcomes are basically undocumented far as I can tell.

There's also the question of how to identify, locate, contact people harmed by therapy. Still, not doing so means operating unethically.

i did a 90 min video statement yesterday. On another site/forum, people have waded in accusing me of seeking revenge by going to the police rather than understanding the nature of the 'grooming' and the dynamics of his powerful role over me.

article
https://thepsychologist.bps.org.uk/v...py-causes-harm

though it doesn't go into the depth of abuse and damage that my therapy has caused me

Can you post a link to that? I haven't seen it.

Here's a starting point:

https://www.theguardian.com/society/...-study-reveals

I don't have the link the other member posted, looks like I had the university wrong.

There are two links in that article that get you to what I remember, though.