Good boundaries?

A therapist I know outside her practice is one of the most obnoxious
attention seeking, domineering, arrogant human beings I have the misfortune
of suffering. She actually tells people she's "brilliant." She sees herself as a magical healer and condescendingly administers unsolicited "therapy" talking to them as if they're kindergarten students. She brags incessantly. I can imagine her using her practice--she bills herself as a "grief expert" no less--as a stage for her superiority and fabulousness.

My therapy was a variation of this, teaching me poor boundaries. My woman therapist, though not as abhorrent as this woman, still enforced herself as socially and intellectually superior, and me as her fawning stooge. I can read her writings years later and realize what a banal kook she is, Ivy League education and all.

I hate what therapy did to me as a person. And I can frequently spot those traits in others who been through it.

I also know one that very much fits the above description, a male. Interestingly, also one who "specializes" in grief and loss. I think there are jerks in every profession.

But SOME of us had to learn to put on blinders not to see the glaring awfulness of the people in our families. Important for survival, not being punished, deprived, etc. Also the terrible conflict because we frequently love them anyway.

So then we go into therapy, continuing to blame ourselves for everything. Until finally the blinders come off and I can see the ugliness in the therapists' behavior, not just mine.

The world really, really sucks when that happens. Lots of jerks everywhere.

This actually fits my two (male) therapists although the first one played it in a different way, claiming from a sort of superior perspective that most clients just achieve an intellectual understanding of their issues, but he can help reach an emotional understanding (I'm still unclear what that means really) and that will provide a solution.

My second one was more the intellectually elitist kind, very proud of his education, career, and his clientele of apparently similarly highly educated, high achieving, successful individuals. I have found him a good match for me in many ways and had a successful experience in some specific ways (not what he seemed to be satisfied with though), but it wasn't because he provided me with extraordinary insights, not even anything I had not already known by myself. I used the interactions with him to beat some stubborn, annoying and harmful addictive/obsessive patterns in a structure, and his intellectual qualities were helpful in a sense that I felt very comfortable with him and he did make great effort to be consistent and professional. He had what I considered good boundaries but definitely also an elitism and often bragging about the high social status of his clients and his own. It actually achieved something with me: that I did not feel like becoming seriously vulnerable with him, it was a bit like both of us holding images. I don't complain because, again, the experience helped to address/fix specific issues but it wasn't more than that, it wasn't anything extraordinary.

At risk signaling of my own arrogance, I've yet to see or read a psych professional say anything more than what is gathered by common knowledge (at best) or ordinary observation. For instance every described "expert" psychological commentatary around a news event is observable by anyone, either that or unprovable mind reading. I see so much shock and awe that is merely smoke and mirrors.

Although my therapist is very sincere in wanting to help me heal, and is very hard working and willing to increase her knowledge and skills in order to help me, I sometimes feel that she just isn't as insightful and attuned to my needs as I expect her to be after many years of therapy.

I really believe that I'm more intuitive than she is, and I also have a knack for picking up on other people's emotions. Both of these things have caused problems in my therapy. Even without trying, I pick up on how my t is feeling. If I disclose something, or ask for something, or do something that causes her to feel uncomfortable or reluctant, I can sense it without her expressing it outwardly. It then affects how I feel about her and my therapy. It affects how safe I feel in the relationship to trust her with my feelings and needs.

For example, let's say we work through something deeply painful issues in my therapy session - or I have shown great courage in disclosing something difficult to her - I often feel very vulnerable and anxious afterwards. These feelings can be very distressing, almost a panic at times because it is so hard for me to share, and afterwards, I fear that something bad will happen as a result. So at these more vulnerable times, my t knows that I will probably email her more than usual and need her to respond.

Usually, my t is good about responding to my email messages. But occasionally, she fails to respond at all. Strangely, it seems to happen at the times when I actually need her support and responsiveness the most! This has caused a lot of hurt feelings and challenges to our relationship. At those times, as odd as it sounds, I seem to be able to "feel" her reluctance and holding back, although I don't know what she is thinking or why she is holding back. I have also felt her reluctance at times when I've wanted her to provide some kind of physical comfort, such as a hug.

Whenever I need a little extra reassurance, comfort, or contact from her and she drops the ball, I can feel her hesitation or reluctance, and I end up responding by stepping back myself in order not to get hurt anymore. It usually leads to a few weeks where I am especially wary and cautious not to be needy or overstep boundaries. After a bit, my t will start encouraging me to reach out via email if I need to communicate something or need support. So I will start doing that. At first, she is responsive and things are fine. But after about 4-6 weeks, she starts dropping the ball again, by not responding to an email message that I send at a critical time in my therapy. She says it is not intentional, but it keeps happening. So again we talk it over, again she reassures me she wants to be there for me, and after stalling for awhile out of fear, I'll start using email when I need to say something or need some kind of reply. Again, she is responsive at first, but slowly, the same thing happens.

I don't know what to do about it! It hurts really bad whenever it happens. I've tried not to email at all, but it feels painful and only serves to make it harder for us to connect at the session if we haven't had any contact in between.

I have major issues with needing my mom at critical times when I was a kid, and my t knows this. My t has wanted to give me a different experience than I had with my mom. But it always feels to me like she is caring and responsive and wanting to help me, just long enough for me to really trust and start reaching out...and then I feel ignored. It always leads to me feeling ashamed and guilty for needing more than I should. It makes it hard for me to go back and see her. It brings out the "I need to be tough and cope with everything on my own" so I am not a burden and overly dependent on my t. She keeps saying I don't have to do it alone, that we can do it together. But then she leaves me feeling alone.

Despite all of the great progress I've made and everything I've learned, this is by far the most difficult thing about therapy for me. Each time this happens, I get the feeling that I'm back at home with my mom as a child, needing her presence, her reassurance and protection, to not be alone and scared...but she can't be bothered or doesn't even notice.

Just want to add something else. Every time it happens, my t says it was not intentional, just an oversight. Or she will say that she didn't reply because I didn't specifically say I needed her to. But she knows me so well by now. There's no way she could not know by now when I need her to reply to a message, not after this many years working together - and not after us already having had issues about this very thing. That is what makes me feel like there is an underlying issue. My t may not feel she is intentionally pulling back, but I think she is. Despite encouraging me to reach out, I think she is reluctant to provide as much contact and support as I need, and I can "feel" it and "sense" it.

It just happened again last weekend. So yesterday, I sent her an email and told her that I think she has an issue with not wanting to give me the support I need. I know she will deny it, like she always does. She'll say it was unclear to her if I needed her to reply.

Yesterday, I told her that I don't understand why we keep having this problem/misunderstanding about email. I said most people in the world communicate all the time by email and text and they don't have this problem. I asked her ... When other people email you, is it really hard to figure out whether to reply to them or not?" I meant it as a rhetorical question, but I would guess the answer is NO. I believe this is an issue she has that is specific to our relationship. For some reason, despite what she says, I think she has some issue with providing me the contact/connection I need when things get too painful and scary in therapy.

I have canceled my session for tomorrow because I'm in that "pull back" mode again. I just have to find a way to NOT NEED the kind of support from her that she can't give me. She doesn't want me to feel like I need to do it alone, but she keeps showing me otherwise.

PS - I apologize for the long rant. I'm not trying to hijack this thread or necessarily asking for advice back. I just wanted to share my problem with "boundaries."

As someone said, therapy relationships can amplify abusive or neglectful dynamics. Someone also referred to the "covert sadism" of therapy. Playing games with inconsistent email responses is rather sadistic.

The other thing that jumps out here is that you are a client paying a professional for a service, and yet she is in control, determining how you feel, dictating terms, yanking the puppet strings.

What are you meant to learn from this? How to be in a relationship with a manipulative other?

Therapy seems to me structured like the cruelest of relationships: intense attention in short-burst parceled-out doses, completely determined by their rules. In every one of of my therapy relationships, the therapist presented himself as superior and life expert, just as the therapist I know non-professionally does. They believed their own hype.

I don't think the doctor's palpation comparison applies because the intrusion in that case is only means to an end, the diagnosis. The intrusion isn't the treatment itself.

This isn't my thread but as member of the PC community it seems to me you have a perfect right to express yourself here. Congratulations on doing it!

Whether it is intentional or not, it sounds like it hurts you and/or causes anxiety, etc. Have you talked with her about that? Yes, her awareness of things, including her intentions, may be all the direct information she has. That's what's in HER boundary. But your needs and feelings are in your boundary, and maybe one of the things she may expect from you is that you tell her those things. I think that's how some people are -- not me. And if they are like that they don't really understand that other people are different. How could they since they don't have the same experience? Still, if the effect of her behavior, intentional or not, is hurting you, then you need to do what you need to do to take care of you. That's something I have learned, finally, I hope.

By the way, I find PC a much more reliable source of support, even though the "relationships" aren't IRL.

It's set up for the convenience and benefit of the therapist, at the client's expense. Clients are like widgets on a conveyor belt. If the client expresses dissatisfaction or distress, they are a malfunctioning unit that must be corrected or replaced. This strains many boundaries, including the need to preserve one's psychological coherence, which is difficult when forced to conform to rigid scheduling and constraints.

Exactly right.

A couple of dictionary definitions of voyeur:
"a person who enjoys seeing the pain or distress of others"
"a person who likes seeing and talking or writing about something that is considered to be private"

By these definitions, every therapist I've talked to has been a psychological voyeur. One could argue that they do not enjoy this, rather they just "want to help". But I think it's both. I think an essential part of the psychology of wanting to be a therapist has to include some fascination with the private lives of others, and a need to gratify this. There is something lurid about a person sitting in a room all day long gorging on the secrets of others. Doesn't make it good or bad intrinsically, but let's not kid ourselves that therapists are paragons of healthy boundaries.

thanks for sharing this peaches. i could have written this exact same thing, and if your T wasn't female, i would swear we had the same exact T. i even had the very same conversation with my ex-T about email responses that you have had with yours and he even gave the same exact responses that your T has. i eventually started to feel as if my T was trying to manipulate me (and the transference) when it came to my reaction to his lack of response to my emails (especially in times when i was struggling). at that point, i decided i was not going to let him manipulate me anymore and i stopped reaching out to my T in emails or in texts.

similar to what Budfox said:

this is how i was starting to feel that therapy was becoming for me. it felt as if my T was playing games with me to manipulate the transference that i brought to therapy and the T relationship. i did not like feeling that my T was f#$%'n with my head just because he could not respond to me consistently. i never understood what i was suppose to take from that and in the end it just felt sadistic, similar to my past experiences, then trans-formative.

in my opinion, Ts that do this to clients who suffer from an unsecured childhood attachment are completly missing the boat and it becomes more harmful than helpful.

I hear a lot of criticism, but very little in the way of constructive suggestions and ideas for change.

I believe criticism is valid even where one does not have the answer on how to fix a broken system.

I didn't realize it's the clients' responbility to repair the mental health profession. In fact I see them get extremely irate and defensive to criticism. One frequent tactic is to "diagnose" those who speak against the intervention or profession.

I'm a former software engineer and like problem-solving. In the past I've offered lots of what I believe are reasonable, constructive problem-solving ideas but nobody in the professions seems to accept that there is a problem that THEY have any responsibility to do anything about. It's all either the insurance companies or the clients.

It amazes me that I get customer service surveys all the time asking for feedback, even from my Medicare Advantage HMO. But therapists? No way, never. I know some people have said that have gotten some but I've been to lots or therapists and never, ever got one.

Until therapists and the therapy profession recognize there are, or might be, problems and want to investigate to see what they might be and the extent, they aren't going to do anything. In other words, they "don't want to change". They see no need to change. They don't see the problems. They are in denial. There's nothing I can do about it if they can't even open their eyes.

Criticism can be constructive. How can there be change if the profession's pathologies are not exposed? The biz is clearly not interested in self examination, they are too busy congratulating each other and bossing clients around. I dont see how anyone benefits from discourse that is all worship all the time.

I set off bow-tie-and-tweed hysteria when I had the temerity on Amazon to accuse a prominent textbook author of arrogance and condescension. Several, even a former APA president, jumped in with name calling, diagnosis and ad hominem attacks. It demonstrated everything I've said in my blog, and then some.

You forgot pipe-smoking.

And chunky sweaters.

I'd like to see your review. Can you send me a link, by PM if you prefer?

I'll pm when I get home.