I terminated therapy with my old therapist this month and started going someplace else, where I felt I would get better help therapeutically and financially. My old therapist didn't take my insurance and neither did my nurse practitioner, and I was paying out of pocket. I'm already poor and even though my therapist gave a discount, I couldn't afford it. I also started to realize that they weren't really helping me. With my therapist, I felt like she acted more like a friend and confidant, than a therapist, and i believe I actually saw her in this way for a while. I liked going there, for a while. Like a year. But I began to feel like I was dealing with some things she might not be equipped to help with. I discussed this with her and she didn't outright agree, though we did talk about a possible change in my diagnosis. She did say that if I were to leave, she pointed me in the direction of the place I'm at now. After that session, I kind of took things into my own hands immediately. I called the new place, made an appt, and texted her that I had done so. She said that the next appt would be a termination session. And suddenly I felt like it was fast. During that session with her, she said she also felt like it was fast, because of the deep things we were talking about with my possible diagnosis change. I guess it felt abrupt to her too. I wanted to set up one more appt with her in case I was feeling like I needed to see her one last time. But I ended up canceling it the day before. I gave over 24 hrs notice. But I read on her practice policy, afterward, that she rarely is able to fill an appt within 24 hrs notice. But it also seemed to say that that was ok to do. I think I may have upset her somehow. And I'm having these feelings of like, "She doesn't like me anymore. She doesn't care for me." I received a termination letter from her in the mail today, and it was very formal. There was no "it was good working with you, etc." The only things she said was that she thinks terminating is a positive thing for me to do because she thinks they will be able to help me better than she could. I don't think she meant I needed more help, but I know I need different help from what she is capable of giving to me. And I just can't help but think she personally dislikes me. She used to text me with smiley faces and exclamation points (just reminders about therapy, or answering if I had to change an appt). I noticed though, that the past few months, she hadn't done that and it made me feel disliked. I never brought it up.

[thesnowqueen]

'She used to text me with smiley faces and exclamation points (just reminders about therapy, or answering if I had to change an appt). I noticed though, that the past few months, she hadn't done that and it made me feel disliked. I never brought it up.'

Did anything occur during the period that her style of communication changed? Did it change when you started discussing the possibility of termination? If so, it may have just been an attempt to achieve some distance so that termination was easier... If it wasn't that then we need more info. It seems unlikely that she would have just gone from 'like' to 'dislike'! Personally i get very stressed about people suddenly not 'liking' me anymore, but from an objective perspective i can now tell that this has to do with self-worth, insecure attachment patterns and such. It has very little to do with the other person's actual feelings.

Hey, don't worry! Ts are trained to keep their distance from patients, and they are trained on how to handle emotions both on their end and on the client's end.

While Ts genuinely *do* care about every one of their patients (or at least I hope so!), they typically don't invest a whole lot of emotion into each therapeutic relationship. They do this because they want to avoid (or at least minimize) any sort of emotional attachment on their end. But, that's not to say that your T *doesn't* have some sort of emotional attachment. They *are* human after all; they just won't outwardly express it because they don't want to cause (or worsen) attachment on anyone's end.

So what I'm trying to say is: I don't think she's necessarily as hurt as you may think she is (or she may not be hurt at all... maybe she's proud of you for understanding what kind of help you need... ever think of it that way? ), and this is because she knows she has to "step back". I'm not saying she's a total desensitized b_tch who never cared for you. Rather, I'm saying that she has some sort of understanding about how emotions work and, because of her training, she knows how to work through things like this. It's the nature of her profession. She'll be okay -- I promise! No hard feelings! (And if it makes you feel any better, I recently terminated T #2 (1 month ago). Then I saw him again about a week ago as I was in the waiting room at my counseling office and he gave me a beaming smile and enthusiastically said "Hey, how are you doing?" No hard feelings.)

All that said, I wouldn't invest too much thought into the termination letter. I think she was just trying to take a step back and keep things strictly "business". And if it makes you feel any better, I didn't get *any* termination letter from T #1 or T #2. So I think the fact she sent you a termination letter with positive words means that she does care for you on some level. And if she TRULY disliked you, she would have closed the door on you and said (in a formal way) "I'm not seeing you ever again".

Oh, and for the text message smileys: This is just a random theory of mine (and it's totally possible I'm wrong because I'm going out on a limb here), but maybe she realized that she was pouring too much emotion into the relationship and she was trying to take a step back. So it might not have anything to do with you at all. Again, "keeping things strictly business".

Sorry for rambling

Bluebicycle, thank you so much. You really put things in perspective for me, especially about the smiley thing. I think this most probably the case. Thank you!