How to Dump Your Therapist

I've terminated in planned ways most of the time (e.g. because I was moving). I ghosted a couple of times, just didn't go back. With current T I can't imagine myself ghosting.

You forgot one.

Sad!

Tapering down with T3. I didn't want to make abrupt changes. I have one more appointment early March. I am tapering for me-she was/is ok with however I want to do it. She is a good t. She says the door is still open, I plan to not need it.

I went with email. I'm betting she'll write back and I'll have to deal with that.

Did you forget to tell her not to contact you?
You don't have to open it or read it. You could block her.

Yes, I did in fact leave that out. Hence the banging head.

I shall set a filter so I can send it to a folder and ignore it. I don't like blocking because, what if I need evidence of something someday?

ATAT-Sorry this one didn't work out. Will you be looking for another at this point? Do you have a 2nd therapist now?

I've told this therapist I was quitting a number of times. I think I emailed him to give him a heads up that the next session would be our last. Another time I sent him a long email, to which he replied kindly and with caring; so I decided to go back. When I was really hurt, I've thought about never showing up again. I wasn't contemplating that with a goal to be mean or spiteful; rather it was to protect myself from harm at a time when I was already extremely hurt and vulnerable. Things are better now, and I am still with him. I feel like I committed a long time ago--committed to make it work with him, if that makes sense. Sometimes I've felt more committed than he was. So here I am, still with him.

I had a last session with the one prior to this one. We had a good ending. But we knew a few months in advance.

With the ones prior to that, I can't remember exactly how I ended the therapy. But I didn't have attachments to any of them and no abrupt need to end, so I likely told them in advance or at our last session. I remember telling the one a few weeks prior to quitting that I was on the fence. There was one a few years back who was really shaming and who seemed to have more emotional problems than I did, but I don't remember how I quit with her. She also cancelled a lot, sometimes with less than an hour's notice, which really pissed me off. Especially because she actually charged me for a missed session when I had to cancel due to handling a serious family emergency. I never paid.

It's so difficult to find a good one. Every time I thought seriously about quitting, I remember my experiences with exploring others out there, in addition to those I've worked with in the past, and I know I wouldn't find a higher quality therapist unless it was sheer luck. When I weigh the pros and cons, the scale always tips in a positive direction.

The most important consideration, in my view, is what makes things most tolerable for the client. At least what I've gleaned from the literature, it seems that therapists are used to clients leaving abruptly, or clients leaving then coming back. And since you haven't been working together for very long, email seems a reasonable approach. Leaving empowered sounds a whole lot better than leaving feeling disempowered, which might be an influential decision-making point for anyone trying to decide how best to quit.

I hope you are still ok with ending with this one ATAT. Decision remorse can really bite. Hopefully it will work out for the best.

Oh, I think I'll be okay with ending with this one. Telling me I have a mental disorder, most of the symptoms of which I don't have, and of those which I do have, have a number of causes not linked to disorders and which suit my life situation very well (like, who wouldn't be depressed and anxious over a contentious, ongoing divorce from an abusive spouse? )...and then telling me all my other providers agreed (which turns out not to be true at all) and presenting herself as the hero therapist who was the only one who dared be honest with me...no, thanks.

I have some potential Nos. 5 scheduled this week and next.

Did she write you back?

Not yet. But she doesn't start seeing clients till after noon.

I used a short format email. It was sort of abrupt, but well deserved on his part.

I would never pay a therapist to tell them why I wasn't going to see them anymore. That's a total waste of my money and time.

Yeah, she wrote back. Didn't try to get me to come back (I suspect she is relieved as I am, given how many of her buttons I seemed to push). She did however, manage to give me yet another unasked-for and unlikely (though more likely than the first one) diagnosis in her last sentence.

ive only ever had 2 real therapists. i ended it with my former T by reporting his *** to the state psychology board

ive definitely thought about ghosting my current T

I stopped seeing two therapists, one long ago and more recently a marriage counselor who wasn't a good fit for me. Both times I talked to them in person. I feel like ghosting or emailing or something like that doesn't really seem appropriate if it's someone you've seen for awhile. Part of the therapy may be talking with them about whatever the uncomfortable issue is and seeing if you can work through it together. I know with my individual therapist, our best sessions have been ones where I came to him with an issue between us and we managed to talk it through and move on.

That sounds like a crappy way to end. A diagnosis? What was the point of that? I dont see how that was helpful to you, why she needed to do that.

My first therapist also sent me a long email in response to my termination email, stating quite a few issues he perceived in me and apparently would have wanted to analyze. Also positives. I did not mind, some were interesting to think about others quite off but what he thought anyway.

How obnoxious! Maybe you could reply and provide her with your own diagnosis, the all too common: Therapistusheadinbuttus.

I just cancel the next appointment and decline to make another one (or tell an untruth, "I'll schedule another one later"). They know the level of stress, anxiety, and avoidance I deal with in attending, so they 'get it'.

If it was a regularly scheduled thing (like the anxiety clinic I'm attending right now with preset weekly sessions), I suppose I would be more forthcoming about it...

When I was 19, a therapist I'd stopped seeing actually came to the house (I was living with my mother at the time)... I, uhh, refused to come out of my room, and the two of them just talked instead... I felt guilty about it, but it was like, NO, I cancelled for a reason, dude... Cannot. Do. Anymore. Just wanted to be left alone.

Today i told my t my answer to this thread, about seeing who outlives whom. It came out of my telling him about some neighbors of mine who invited me for a valentines day coffee, which i was kind of insulted by. Like we're so lucky we have bfs and hs, lets invite poor lonely una who has no one to wish her happy valentines day so we can feel good about ourselves! Am i reading that the wrong way? This is not a group of women i hang out with, like you guys. And it turns out, im busy that day, getting rubbed down by ryan gosling

I feel like im being called for an intervention. I tell t, "i dont even want to see you. I cant believe i used to see you 4 times a week." So he said, the time to stop is when the work is done. For once that didnt sound scary. Maybe its time to dig out my books on termination.

Actually I think you may be misreading it. They may really just want to get coffee with you to get to know you better because they like you.

I agree.

Or they want to hear her dish about ryan gosling.

Una, you and my T would have to fight for Ryan Gosling. My T has told me a few times that her H has given her permission for him to be the one person T could cheat with. I saw La La Land recently, and told my T she should see it purely because Ryan Gosling sings and dances the entire movie.

I had to look up who he was. The only thing I know less about than sports is movie/tv men.
Or movie/tv women for that matter.
Or pop music.
Or what it is that therapists are really supposed to doing for the money they are handed.

At first i told him he looked like Jay Mohr and he was like who? And i go, he was with Jennifer Love Hewitt and he got all mad, he goes, no way - shes on my list and she was with HIM? i said only on her show! So shes one of your five, huh? He goes, one of my 500,000.

Then he goes, my wife and i were in this gift shop last weekend and i found a book by jennifer love hewitt but she wouldnt let me buy it even tho it was my birthday.

Honestly hes a trip! Hes my anti-trump medication. Hope for the future.

Eta - i did not tell him that my SIL once told me, like over 20 years ago, that i looked like Jennifer Love Hewitt. Cuz it was over 20 years ago, and he woulda been like 8.