Your therapists other clients....

Do any of you see them before or after your session?

How does it make you feel? Insecure or jealous or you don't think about it?

Ex T I never saw any of her other clients. She spaced them so they would never meet in her tiny waiting room. Even when we ran over 15 minutes late I never saw anyone else.
I am new Ts last client of the day so I don't see anyone after me. Twice when I arrived exactly on time I saw the client before me leave. I hid in the corner and didn't look at them! Now I arrive five minutes late so I never see them. I would much rather miss 5 minutes of "my" time than bump into her other clients.
I don't think i would feel jealous or anything. I just don't want to be seen myself.

Frankly, I don’t see how one can be jealous in such a situation. The T can extend her/his services to whomever she/he desires.
On a more important note, I am constantly emotionally way too exhausted to focus on these things. Hence my energy has a limited focus.

Then I guess you probably don't know much about feeling shame and feeling defective.

Yes, sometimes. I don't really think about it, but I got to admit it makes me feel jealous.
I remember how I saw T shaking hands with his client. It was painful... Because I was unable to touch him in any way at the moment. I think if I saw him hugging other client, or having a nice talk or anything, I wouldn't like it at all. I know he likes his clients, I know he laughs with them and maybe hugs them... But I don't want to see it!

I also think other clients are more interesting, less weird, more "real" and so on... So he enjoys seeing them. Not me.

Therapists don't have other clients...no...no

T sees a lot of young guys. One guy I used to see before my appointment was always nice to me. But others I met in his cbt group I dropped out of not so great

I feel really emotional whenever I see another client. Intensely, like a punch in the gut both when she chimed me in immediately after her previous client entered the waiting room, and when she chimed in the next client right after I stepped out of her door.

I think it triggers something about how I'm just a patient on an assembly line despite how attuned, caring she is in session.

"Time is up!" and she can just switch focus, I'm just part of her job, nothing more. I leave after opening a can of crap and spilling my guts, and it's like she experienced zero impact.

ETA:

All that compassion, empathy, her saying she wants to nurture me, that she really cares...a crock of feel good shyt that she serves out like ladling food out to people at the soup kitchen.

And me? A effing beggar lapping it up, hungry for impossible things but getting just enough of a taste to awaken hunger...then ohh time is up....she can't wait for me to GTFO, and she gives that lovey-I-care stuff to everyone so it's not like I'm worthy of care or anything. And yet I still can't quit her. Oh and she supposedly feels hurt when I say she only cares as part of her job...when yep... once the client gets out the door...next!

ETA 2:
Yeah and what does this stupid attachment and intense feelings towards my therapist and other patients say about me? Probably something loaded with shame and proof of me being defective. Since after all, she's only doing her job. And I'm this needy loser.

I hear you. I leave devastated... or excited... and all I can think about within the next few hours (days, weeks... lol) it's our session. But I know he forgets about my existence as soon as I leave, because he has to concentrate on the next client and give him all his attention and care. It's his job. And I don't want him to think about me during someone else's session. But it feels weird.

He says he thinks about me between our sessions sometimes. But I'm still just a client. I'm not a part of his life, he doesn't like me as a person... I'm a part of his job. Like a financial report or something. Lol.

Just gotta take them out one by one

I occasionally see T's other clients but it is rare. I am always the last appointment of the day and usually there is no one before me. There have been a few exceptions and most of the clients I have seen have been young females like myself which makes me more jealous... like if the other client were an older man I wouldn't feel as jealous for some reason? I guess I worry that if another client is similar to me in some way T might compare us and have a favourite. I know it doesn't make sense but that is the kind of stupid stuff my brain thinks of.

No need to be a passive aggressive bully. I know it very well. Stop attacking me.

This isn't quite fair. You don't know the person who you are responding to any more than they know you. Yes, their tone wasn't supportive either, but it may be going too far to say because a person isn't bothered by seeing a therapist's other clients that they "don't know much about feeling shame and feeling defective."

I, myself, always saw my therapists other clients coming or going, and it really was of no concern to me either. Like the person you were responding to here, I had so many other concerns, was so emotionally exhausted otherwise, that the least of my concerns was other clients. My lack of concern about other clients had nothing to do with whether I understood shame; I had more than enough of that to deal with -- so much, in fact, that I was seriously depressed, suicidal, and fairly regularly hospitalized. Other clients just weren't even on my radar; I was just trying to survive. I suspect that may be a bit of what the poster was trying to say.

My t most definitely does not have any other clients! He also lives in his room, doesn’t have any family or friends, never goes out to do anything & only thinks about me & is just there for me twice a week! So, if all you OP’s have to share their t with ‘other’ clients, then that must be horrible.

My exact point is this. Thank you for writing it out. Again, i was way too emotionally exhausted to spend time in writing this out. I am very glad that someone stronger than me did so.
I am a rape survivor and very well aware of shame.

Btw, I am a rape survivor and very well aware of shame.
You have absolutely no idea what you are talking about.

It is not unusual, from reading the literature of that profession, for clients to feel all sorts of ways, including jealous of the therapist's other clients. I don't think the OP said anything to imply they meant the therapist could or should not be hired by other clients. I don't understand about 99% of why, what and how people say they do therapy - almost no one seems to understand how or why I do it - but I consider that lack of understanding to be the lacker's problem, not the one doing therapy the way they are doing it

I never see other clients. I don't care about them. I don't like therapy or the therapist enough to think about the other people who hire her

I see other clients sometimes. My T shares office space and a waiting room with other therapists, so if one of them is working, I don't necessarily know whose client is waiting. Sometimes I feel self-conscious about somebody sitting there (especially if I know I look like I have been crying), but mostly it doesn't bother me. I think my T is a good T, and I want her to help other people the way she helps me. I imagine that she is slightly different with each client, so I doubt that they would have the exact same relationship that we do anyway.

Now if I came out and my T's kids were sitting there, I would immediately go blind with jealousy. Buuuut that's getting a bit off-topic...

Never seen any other clients. The first year I saw her, there was a waiting room for when I got there, but her office had a door out to the parking lot so I never had to go back out through the waiting room. Then she moved away and we did phone sessions for however long it was, then she moved back, and now I see her in her home office, and there's no waiting room except my car haha, so she must space out sessions so that clients don't have to deal with the urge to ram each other's cars on the way in/out. (i'm kidding, i'm kidding, I'd never do that!) (But I made you laugh!)

I've seen 2. i was only jealous of the woman. lol.... but i told him about it and why i was, and its all fine. i know he has done things for me he doesn't for others so i am trying to hold on to that and not let the jealousy overtake me

Although one time during year 1, I went in and on the table in the waiting room was a clipboard with her intake sheets and her business card on it, so I knew she had a new client coming in after me, and when I saw it I pictured myself throwing the clipboard on the floor and stomping up and down on it chanting "MY t! MY t!" I told her that story awhile after and she was like "Awwww."

I've switched to evenings so i am his last appointment of the day, which is much better and we always go over. then i just dont even really think about the others anyway, i think about them more when i am at home and wonder who he is with at the time

It doesn't bother me to see T's other clients. I know I am T1's favorite!!!

Seriously, I am glad other people see T and I have referred people to her. She is a wonderful T and I am glad other people benefit from her experience. I struggle with other people seeing me though. Because I am afraid of people seeing me as broken or damaged.

My therapist scheduled a 1/2 hour between clients, so it was rare to see others and when I did, I was to busy thinking about myself.

Its no one else’s business as to whether or not they understand how & why you do therapy. That would be incredibly judgemental. We all have our reasons which certainly don’t have to make sense to anyone else.