New Member/Terminated sessions by therapist

Buffy, this therapist doesn't have a clue what she's doing if she's referring to your attachment to her as a conflict of interest. I don't see anything alarming about any of your emails. I'm not sure what the boundaries are that you referred to in the first, but if one was to not email, then it wouldn't matter what you wrote. I'm not saying that's even a valid "boundary" (hate that term) but if it was an agreement between you, then that's a different thing. Overall though, I'm more concerned about you having to bow and scrape for a little bit of humane treatment.

(ps. you might want to remove all the names mentioned in your post, including your own. Just go back and edit your post to delete the names.)

I was also wondering what that "conflict of interest" refers to. Was that clarified in session or in any other form? Is it your interest causing conflict, or the therapist's?

Btw, correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought they changed the time limits for friendship and intimate relationship with the T. Didn't it used to be 7 years for an intimate and 2 for friendship? And now it's 2 for intimate and no time limit for friendship? I know a T can set the limit longer if they choose though.

She told me when I made it clear to her that I am not very clear on boundaries unless someone sets them for me, that if I texted her she wasn't going to respond unless it was to cancel appointments or emergency. But I did reach out at least 4 times since then and she's responded and directed it towards discussing in our next session.

She stated 2 years for friendship of a platonic nature I'm assuming. But to abruptly end our therapy has me thinking she isn't interested in a friendship or perhaps she is and its why she ended our sessions. Its all extremely confusing for me and I'll never trust the answers given to me by her or her colleague.

This is really strange. If she doesn't want to work with you because you broke boundaries then that is one thing. To call it a conflict of interest isn't even true. She doesn't understand what a conflict of interest is or transference or....ugh. She sounds so poorly trained or extremely inexperienced. I don't see anything in her communications that defines the conflict of interest she is talking about. Very strange.

I think the conflict of interest thing is way too vague and upsetting to me. I think she's referring to my crush on her. She stated that she's referred a patient before because she noticed a growing crush. I think she isn't equipped to handle transferance and counter transferance. The abruptness made me feel like I disturbed her in a way she had to rush me out.

I agree I am very confused and its why I shared all this, because I'm too close to it that I'm not seeing it clearly. I've done nothing but be friendly, share, ask her advice and opinion. I am a boundaries pusher but I do so to know how far limits are. She knew this. She just had a major death in the family and I've considered maybe she's not handling it well and its affecting her judgment and she doesn't want that to damage our therapy. I'm clearly still experiencing feelings.

I'm wondering if her colleague will explain this to me as she knows the cause of termination. I mean knowing is half the battle

Apologizing for my earlier post. Somehow it got on the wrong thread. I wasn't trying to derail the discussion here.

I hope your t has a supervisor. She is going to be referring out a lot of patients because transference is very common. Sorry you are hurt by a badly trained t.

If she can't cope with the feelings that her work brings out in clients, I fail to see the point of even starting. Seems she is saying that some feelings are acceptable, and others are not. In the latter case those unacceptable feelings will be dealt with in the manner of punishment (seemingly).

I think a major death in your T's family could affect her practice but it doesn't excuse her behavior. If my Ts had been like yours, they would each have terminated me for the same reasons. I openly told them I had crushes in them and/or was obsessed by them. Fortunately, they each chose to work with me rather than kick me out. My current T knows part of me is/was in love with her but she accepts my feelings.

So, I agree with others who think your T is inexperienced in handling transference. Having a crush on a T is not a conflict of interest! Your emails sound intelligent and maybe even overly accommodating to her. She obviously can't handle a client's normal feelings. I think it will be interesting to hear what the other T says about her reasons for termination. Please don't blame yourself. You did nothing wrong unless it was emailing when she told you not to, but that is something to be discussed, not a cause for immediate termination. I'm sorry this happened to you and I hope the new T will be helpful.

It really upsets me to read about therapists who only talk about boundaries in relationship to their own that the client must observe. I only had one therapist use this term and it was in relation to the need for me to set boundaries with other people. The therapist I see now doesn't use the term, but she does talk about the need to protect myself. There is no talk about her boundaries.

Honestly, if you really do have a hard time observing other people's boundaries, it's not showing up in the emails you shared. I would hate to see you pathologized for something that's normal in therapy. My therapist once asked if she reminded me of my mother (as a way to better understand a bad patch I was going through with her). She didn't call it a dual relationship because it wasn't. (btw, she didn't remind me of my mother, but my siblings, so she was right about the transference, just got the who part wrong.) Anyway, I share that so that you can see how crazy it looks to call transference a dual relationship (if that's what your therapist meant by conflict of interest).

To be honest, I wouldn't be keen to see the T she's referred you to if that's the colleague she's been consulting with about her work with you. Inexperience is ok - that's why Ts have supervision and consultation but I'd expect the person she consults with to help her understand the difference between transference, dependency, dual relationships and conflicts of interest. If the person she's been consulting doesn't understand that and hasn't helped her work through it, it's fair to think you'll have the same problem with her.

If you want to stay in therapy, could you find an entirely new T?

I'm questioning seeing her also. My ex T was pushing for me to see her, really thinks I need to continue therapy. Honestly why would I want to after instilling so much trust in this last one? I always had strong faith in psychology that it could help me but I feel more depressed than I ever have in my life. I think its only a consultation with the new one and by the end I will have to make the decision. For one, I'm certain she's not attractive so that will help me avoid a few problems in itself. I just wish I could Spotless Mind her, forget about her.

The topic of boundaries was discussed in several areas, not just between us but since she became a part of the problem I guess she felt she couldn't help. I think she chooses not to deal with attachment issues. I sensed a codependency issue with her colleague because she spoke with her several times over my treatment. She didn't know how to help me or just didn't want to strain herself trying to help me. I don't know either way it was her method of termination, using an already scheduled appointment to terminate as opposed to offering me one last to allow me time to ask questions. I was bombarded with the news and spent the remainder of appointment in and out of extreme emotional disturbance. If I had let the tears flow they wouldnt have stopped. I had to wait til I left the appointment and lost it in my car.

She's got her own practice but is sending me to her colleague, who apparently is the one with experience and hopefully more tact than my ex T. Cutting the apron strings with such sudden brutal force was the most painful part. I have no way to get closure other than to write her a letter that would probably be treated as harassment and not taken seriously. I've legitimately hit every emotion in the past three days.

Actually that part makes sense, if she was struggling with her work with you, it's responsible for her to consult with a more experienced colleague - it's her professional responsibility to seek support for her own learning. The bit that's worrying is that presumably her behaviour towards you came out of discussion with the colleague you're going to see who either thinks it's absolutely fine (which it's not, of course), or thinks the end justifies the means (it'll hurt now but be better in the long run - and maybe she thinks she can repair any damage done to you by the abrupt termination, which is grandiose in the extreme).

I guess the ing is you'll never know, so you could keep trying to figure up what she meant, and what you did etc but you won't find out what it was actually about. I hope the consultation goes well - I'd go with a list of questions, the first one of which would be what she knows about your case from ex-T and whether she recommended the termination.

What a nightmare. I'm sorry for your pain. Your ex t sounds highly inexperienced and lacks basic therapy 101 knowledge. Her "conflict of interest" label further proves her idiocy and incompetence. Hard as it is right now, this will hopefully end up being a blessing in disguise. I hope your new t works out for you, whomever you decide to go with. Have you asked the transfer t what her out of session contact boundaries are and what her experience is with attachment issues?

5 More Reasons Your Therapist Won?t See You Now | World of Psychology

I've considered the same thing, and I'm going to go into this first session very cautiously. She apparently has had a patient develop erotic transference with her (the new T) and I think she worked through it with her. I have wondered if my old T ever had the new T and perhaps it was her with the erotic transference lol. This will be the third I see in the same building. The first one ended over insurance issues. All private practices. Imagining running into all three of them has me laughing slightly.

In my observation, boundaries serve the therapist while being framed as a benefit for the client.

If the client is expected to talk about their deepest fears and needs, but only for an hour, and then they are forbidden from contacting the therapist outside that, even if in great distress, then in a way the therapist is trampling the client's emotional and psychological boundaries.

If OP was emailing too much, it's probably because therapy has triggered an overpowering need. If the therapist feels it's a problem, first thing they need to look at is the very process they are overseeing. Instead many of them shame the client. When they forcibly restrain the client, to me that is an acknowledgment that the process is working against client needs.

Also in a relationship between two adults, it is wildly presumptuous to think that one can or should teach the other about boundaries.

Man that is so true, I will have a list for sure. I'm also going to ask her what her process is for termination. They took a big chance I would even survive the week til my next appointment, so I'm not allowing any bull in our first session. I wanted to resume therapy where I left off but she wants to start from scratch. Isn't that a little traumatic? I'm so disgusted. I'm giving her this one appointment and if I don't like how it goes then I won't continue. And I will certainly be done with that building.

Thank you for sharing your observation, I definitely agree with you. I think if she felt that therapy with her wasn't working, she should have terminated in a less abrupt and triggering way. What are your thoughts on a proper termination?