My T gave away my standing appt. :(

I would have read it your way too, and still do. Is he an endearingly disorganized type with a messy office? If not, then this seems disingenuous to say he doesnt know you have a standing appointment, and it is his responsibility to know. The frame consisting of ritual meeting times is as much a part of the "boundaries" as outside contact etc. I think he expected you to be a pushover, and now is backpedalling. He is making it worse not better. Things in therapy are stylized and come to have symbolic meaning. It really bothers me when therapists insist on reading in to clients being late or missing sessions as being loaded with meaning, but then when they do it , it is a carte blanche issue.

Yet another here who would have read it the way you did. Your T needs to own his mistake - could you print out his original email and highlight the relevant parts and show it to him? Hopefully then he'll own his mistake, apologise - genuinely - and make amends (for me, this would be getting my time slot back).

Or, you might want to tell him to get lost, and that would be okay too.

I'm sorry, but do you like this guy? He sounds super sleazy the way he tried to twist your very clear understanding into a misunderstanding. He sounds like cheetohead. Also, unaluna's right, arranging to give your time to someone else is not ironic; it's unprofessional and thoughtless. He should have said, "Thoughtlessly, while you were scheduling your regular time, I arranged to give it to someone else."

If you like him, well...I hope he offers a proper apology for being such a ****.

How about this? "I know your therapy time is Wednesday at 2. I've got a patient who now, since I've changed my schedule, can't meet at any other time than yours. Obviously I wouldn't change your appointment without your permission. Consistency is very important. But I don't know how flexible your schedule allows you to be. Would it be at all possible for you to meet on Tuesdays at 3 or...etc.? If not, I understand, but if you could I would be very grateful."

This would have been much better. Then again, he says he does not know when people typically see him, so he would be incapable of writing it this way as he would have to admit it was her regular time. That's what really sticks with me, the way he stacked his stories on each other, and it all rests on his claim that he doesn't know when he sees regular clients. And yet he knew very specifically this was when the other client could see him.

It is not easy to be sure how he really meant what he originally wrote but, like others that reacted to it here, I would not have liked it either. At minimum, it is very bad and confusing communication, whether on purpose or not. I also did not like the "not because I do not like you or do not want to work with you" part - wth, why was it necessary to add that, to me it makes it even more condescending. If this Ts communications in general are so complicated and vaguely layered, I personally would have problems with him as it detracts from client's expressions and draws attention to his too much. If not, I would certainly tell him that it was not necessary to make it so complicated and simply asking whether I could possibly change the appointment time would be possible would have been sufficient. I don't even see why it was necessary to say it's because of scheduling another client - why not just say that some recently arising possible schedule conflict.

Just wanted to thank every one for their responses.

it has really helped me in deciding what i want to do next.

Its good to know I am not the only one, confused by his mesg. and his back pedalling.

i am just thinking why couldn't he have just admitted his mistake . i have seen him for 2 years...i would have appreciated him for accepting his part and it would have built more trust in our relationship. it just seems so childish of him to do this. playing with words and complicating things.

My appt. is on wed. this week. after a lot of thought, i have decided not to see him anymore. there is no reason for me go back. i can not trust him.
I was thinking of going for one last session and letting him know how he has failed.
but decided against it. he will be defensive and i might not be able to say everything that i want to.
so email is better. i can write everything i want him to know.

I do not think I could go back either unless I got some kind of meaningful apology. I would be to insulted to think after 2 years pouring my guts out to a therapist and that he could not even remember our time slots shows perhaps he is way to busy and I am just a number or $ sign.

I believe things happen for a reason and this might be a sign that a new therapist with a fresh pair of eyes and experience is in order.

What a frustrating situation. The fact that he says he doesn't keep track of people's standing appointments is bizarre. I can appreciate the benefits of using an online scheduling portal to make things easier and cut down on scheduling emails/calls, but it's still the therapist's responsibility to keep things as steady and stable as possible by prioritizing standing appointments within whatever scheduling systems they use.

I would still seriously consider meeting with him in person before making a final decision about stopping, though! I don't think you misread things, but email does sometimes have a way of distorting tone and making it hard to hammer out disagreements that are more easily resolved face to face. If you've worked well with him for two years and were planning to continue before you hit this snag, it seems worth communicating about this in person at least once before throwing in the towel?

I agree that it could be worthwhile to meet with him to tell him why you're upset. If you just send an e-mail, then he may not even respond. Meeting with him would probably help give more of a sense of closure, or possibly give him the chance to make up for it, if you're at all open to that. E-mail can definitely be less clear than in-person communication--your T might just be bad at expressing his thoughts in writing. Not excusing him, just saying in his mind maybe he was being clear.

But is it good to meet with someone who manipulates their words like that? I agree with the poster that she runs the risk he will be defensive. He knows she's upset and instead of making up for it, he told her she got it wrong. He could very well make the last session a closure for himself. I wouldn't want to pay for something like that.

Hard to say...OP probably shouldn't listen to me. I mean, I'm going to see MC again today, so... (he also was defensive and twisted my words, was basically gaslighting me. Stupid transference and attachment and wanting to work things out before terminating...)

One session still seems like a worthwhile and not too risky investment in seeing if two years of productive relationship can be salvaged. I might feel differently if they had already been planning to terminate or if they'd only been seeing this therapist for a month or two, but we're talking about two years, and things had previously been going well enough that they'd planned to continue. And I've seen so many situations where something that seemed irreconcilable over email was resolvable once there was an in-person conversation.

his response is not going to be any different than the email he sent.

In the past, he has responded the same way. He wont take full responsibility and somehow asserts that i am partly responsible .
like in above scenario, I misunderstood his email.

when he constantly ran over time with a prev. client into my session he said "important things were being discussed and they needed more time" not once but 3 sessions in a row. he did say sorry, but justified it that it was needed to be done and he will be mindful next time. i told him no need, i will change my appt time. he did turn this around on me making it seem i am not being understanding to the prev. client and how he does give me 50mins. full. i told him once is okay...every session is not okay. when i kept pushing him on this issue...he said " i feel attacked" . his response didnt make much sense to me and i left more unsettled. there was no closure to the issue for me.

i really wish things were different between us, i do like him alot.
i wish he would treat me better and be fair. i am not asking for much. just stop playing these childish games with me.

i will consider going back, if he can fully admit to his mistake and take responsibility.
which seems very unlikely !
the above was email exchange, imagine if it was all in-session conversation and he said you misunderstood. i would be doubting myself and trusting him. I might have heard it wrong or i am not remembering it correctly. i would have accepted the blame and moved on.

If it weren't for the online appointment-making thing, I'd wonder if you were seeing my MC...as he's done the same thing with giving extra time to someone before us (a half hour recently!). I tended to excuse it because he's given us extra time on various occasions, but it's still frustrating. Plus the whole defensiveness thing...

So, OK, because you've had these issues in the past with him, I can understand your not wanting to go back for another session.

Given his past, he sounds sort of flaky (running over time with clients before you, not knowing that you have a standing appointment - after two years of seeing you at the same time!)

The running over time thing would drive me nuts. Even if he gives you the full time that you paid for, what if you had other meetings/appointments scheduled afterwards? Plus, I'm not sure that giving people extra time is really *helping* them, but it's hard to say without knowing the specifics of what was happening.

Just wanted to chime in to say, given everything, I don't blame you for not wanting one last session with him. Normally, I'd agree that it might be good to try to talk it out, because email does change the tone of things, but it sounds like you've had enough experiences with him in similar situations to feel pretty certain of his reactions.

I'm sorry that it's ending like this though. What a disappointment... hopefully you got something useful out of the last two years, at least?

Well, this is pretty huge, as far as getting something out of the experience, imo. The OP DID give him a second chance, he responded in the email, and he STILL was a million miles away from seeing or admitting his part in it. She can get that for free from the man on the street.

Nah, hes got trouble holding boundaries. As much as we COMPLAIN about boundaries on this site, i guess this could be a lesson for us as to what happens when a t doesnt have them. Has this t ever been in t himself?? Cuz it doesnt sound like hes worked out how it feels to be the client in the waiting room, waiting on the previous client, or was ever the victim of a double booking. Sheesh, does he have supervision? I'll supervise him!

Anyway, super kudos to the OP. It was a subtle undermining he was trying to pull off, but really very hostile. "Oh, not that i dont like you..." Wtf??? Maybe not so subtle!