How do I stop "stalking" T online? I'm hating myself for it and *TW*...

Let's just call it what it is. If you come out of an experience like this with torturous, obsessive, looping thoughts, you have been traumatized. The limbic system has probably been thrown into dysregulation, some survival fear has been exposed, crippling shame, etc.

For me an essential part of coping is rejecting all the hedging and rationalizing, and not heeding the bulls**t messages that get unconsciously repeated -- get over it, it's about your "issues", you need more therapy.

Re: Yelp, the way I see it, therapists who harm clients need to suffer consequences. It needs to be documented. Emails can be ignored and deleted, Yelp reviews cannot. Yelp is a consumer review site. Therapy clients are consumers. I think it's bad enough that therapists enjoy so many protections within their own system, but somehow they've also managed to persuade clients to not leave reviews, and to funnel all feedback through the therapy system, where, again, they control the narrative. Sorry, i'll shut up about this now.

It is trauma, I completely agree with you there. Another trauma to add to my list, incurred in therapy of all places! However, I think I'm seeing things differently than you because I pinpoint the trauma being down to the incompetency of the therapist and therapy ending too soon due to stupid policies about the duration of therapy which must be adhered to. It is all well and good therapy bringing out unconscious thoughts and feelings, transference and unmet infantile needs, but when the therapist is unskilled in dealing with this, shuts the client down when they bring it up for discussion, or tries to pretend it's not happening to avoid the topic altogether, that's what causes the trauma in my opinion. That and pushing the client out of the door before they're ready to leave due to policies and the idea that they will become "dependent" on the therapist. This can happen, I've no doubt, but rather than push the client away the therapist should be exploring the reason for the dependency with the client and termination should not be happening (in my opinion anyway) until the client has built up enough resilience, relationships and coping strategies to be able to sustain themselves without the therapist. This is why I haven't given up on therapy altogether because I believe good therapy can happen; you just need a good therapist, and unfortunately, as we know, there are many out there who aren't.

p.s. I will give Yelp some more thought. I get what you're saying, I really do, but there's something about it that doesn't sit well with me. Will update again when I've had time to think.

I really truly agree with you on what you have just written above. totally.
I have a book about when therapy goes wrong and it goes wrong terribly. I feel like my very self has been raped. It is brutal and when they terminate leaving a client cut wide open, it is cruel and worse, it appears legal.

I don't know where you are, but be careful with leaving online reviews. Your T could turn around and sue you for slander. There's freedom of speech, but I've heard of cases of slander too.

I really relate to what you're saying. I'm in the same situation after finding my T's wife's Facebook page which includes videos of him that are open to the public. We have SIX mutual friends which gives me even more access to her posts. I don't think I'll ever be able to tell T about it and I feel like a scumbag about it. I've told him some seriously personal things and I don't think I can ever tell him this. Just wanted you to know you're not alone in thins.

I think if his wife leaves videos of him on the public domain then it is obvious you and other clients are going to come across them. Unless you signed a contract with him saying you would not look at any thing about him on the internet, I do not actually think you have transgressed. Maybe the virtuous thing to do is to suggest he sets his wife's privacy settings higher and also really, you should not be a Facebook friend of your therapist's wife!!
Oh the anguish we go through as clients. Sending hugs

I agree 100%.

That's partly what I feel uncomfortable about. I don't want to get in trouble myself and I also don't want to leave a review with the sentiment I feel now and then later regret it. The best outcome I could hope for in finding closure would be to contact ex-T some time in the future when I've calmed down and got my head around what happened and what issues it raised for me, and tell her exactly how opening up unmet infantile needs then shutting me down and pretending it wasn't happening affected me; how ill-prepared we were for termination, how it's still affecting me months later and how this was stirred up all over again when she rejected me returning - just to get it all out of my system.

I'm with you all the way on the recklessness and insanity of shutting the client down when dependency or regression appears. It's beyond stupid. The client is also often blamed, as I was, which is even more nuts.

However, on the matter of competent vs incompetent, not so sure. I think just getting into such an unbalanced relationship in the first place was large part of what did me in.

I waited several months to post a review. To avoid trouble with reviews, i believe the key is avoid making a false factual statement or false allegation. Stick to opinion, subjective experience. If you say e.g. "abrupt termination traumatized me, i am troubled by obsessive intrusive thoughts" I don't think she can do a damn thing.