Was my therapist inappropriate?

I am feeling really upset about my old therapist.
I haven’t seen her since May, and I’ve been doing pretty well, but I was talking to a friend about her yesterday and it brought back a lot of feelings.
I’ve made a complaint about her to the health practitioners board. I’m worried they won’t take it seriously though or that she didn’t do anything wrong. I don’t care if she gets in trouble but I don’t want the same thing to happen to anyone else. I think she was trying her best but she’s not very good at her job.

It’s a long story but I’ll make it as brief as possible.

I started seeing her to help get over a break up. I have always had a ‘special person’ in my life at any particular time. I get obsessed with this person and my whole life revolves around them. At the time my ex boyfriend was that ‘special person’. I was having a lot of trouble moving on so I started seeing a psychologist. I wasn’t self harming or suicidal when I started seeing her.

As time passed I became overly attached to her, and my feelings for my ex (the obsession and attachment) began to transfer onto her. I made her aware of this (which was very difficult) and she said it was ok because ‘I am reliable, and I have boundaries’.

I became more depressed and started to get suicidal. I was desperate for her love and attention. It got to the point where I was seriously contemplating suicide. I was beginning to put the pieces in place. I told her this but she just let me go home alone as usual. I ended up in hospital a few days later. When I spoke to her next she admitted she should have called for backup and not let me go home, but she was too scared because she had done it in the past and it had been a traumatic experience for her and the client had never come back.

I stayed in hospital for a while, during which she ended our relationship via email- saying she didn’t have the skills to help me. I was very distraught after this and it led to several episodes of self harm.

The psychiatrist at the hospital contacted her to tell her how distraught I was. She agreed to see me again when I came out of hospital.

As time passed she began braiding my hair for me most sessions. I would sit at her feet and she would brush and braid my hair. She told me my mum neglected me. She said that she was ‘reparenting’ me. She said that the attachment I had to her was ok and safe. She promised she wouldn’t dump me again, and she repeatedly told me she wasn’t going anywhere, that she would be there for me, and that she might leave in the next few years to have a baby- but she’d stay in touch with me. It took a while for me to trust her again but I did.

As more time passed she began touching me more in the sessions. Putting her hands on my arms and back and ‘holding’ me.

One session I told her that I had made a suicide attempt. She didn’t ask many questions and just sent me home by myself. The next week she told me she couldn’t see me anymore. She said she didn’t have the skills to help me. I was extremely distressed and walked out of the session alone. I went and overdosed straight away. I had several incidents of self harm and overdose in the following weeks and ended up in ICU and back in the psych ward.

She agreed to see me for a few last sessions, to help transition to a new therapist. In these last sessions she admitted that she never should have kept seeing me after the first ‘break up’. She admitted she had no experience using touch in therapy and didn’t know what she was doing. She admitted she didn’t know how to do a suicide risk assessment for a patient.

When I finished with her, I was regularly self harming and highly suicidal. I’m much better now, but I feel like she really messed me up.

I don’t think any of her actions were malicious, but I don’t think she knows what she’s doing and she’s doing more harm than good. I feel like the touching and hair braiding was inappropriate and just made me more attached to her in an unhealthy way. I feel like she should have known better than to encourage the attachment I had to her.

I am really upset about the whole situation. It’s been really painful and it still is.

She definitely crossed a lot of boundaries there that she shouldn’t have in touching you and braiding your hair. That seems wildly inappropriate to me. Also it’s very concerning that she’s a therapist and doesn’t know how to do a suicide risk assessment. That’s a basic job requirement.

Unfortunately, your experience sounds eerily similar (minus the touching...I would’ve freaked) to my own over the last year and it really messed me up, too. I had never been hospitalized before and I ended up hospitalized 4 times, once after a suicide attempt. So I just want you to know that you’re not alone and it’s not your fault. It sounds like she had a very unhealthy attachment to you, as well.

I think she did many things wrong. However, I don't think she created the root problem. Like you said, you have a tendency to always have a "special person." She unquestionably worsened this problem, but don't forget that it was already there to begin with. I mean, it was apparently bad enough for you to seek professional help.

I applaud you for filing a complaint, though. What she did was highly unethical and showed extremely poor judgement. And the fact that she allowed you to walk away suicidal so many times is really unforgivable.

Thank you for your replies. It makes me feel better to know I’m not alone, though I’m sorry a similar thing happened to someone else. It also makes me feel better to know I’m not overreacting and that she did mess up.
I know she didn’t cause all my problems, I definitely had a lot before she came along, but she did make some of them worse.

For a young child often their mother is their "special person" around whom their whole world revolves. If your mum did neglect you as your T said, then I imagine you could have strong unmet needs for mothering, but that kind of thing needs to be handled really carefully, by a T who is kind and allows out of session contact and all that, yet also has a lot of consistency with boundaries. I know not everyone thinks this kind of transference can be worked through successfully, but I do think so-- it's just that it requires a very good therapist, not a run of the mill one. It sounds like you got someone too inexperienced to handle the boundaries correctly. This part of the story -- having some physical touch in therapy or the concept of re-parenting -- seems like she had good intentions but was really ineffectual in helping you. She could have sought training in using touch or in re-parenting concepts or attachment therapy, while you were her client. I really wish she had.

But her inability to deal with suicidal feelings appropriately seems completely unacceptable. It sounds like what happened with the previous client was traumatic to her and she never dealt with it appropriately (nothing more frustrating than a T who really needs to get therapy!). I'm glad you filed a complaint about this. Her clients are not safe, if she cannot deal effectively with such dangers. It sounds like when you revealed the suicide attempt she had a freeze response (not asking questions) and when you were hospitalized she had a flight response. Just really not okay when people's lives are on the line. And abandoning you twice when you had a mother who (from what she said herself) emotionally abandoned you, that's really harmful.

You are not alone. Of course you had problems. That's why you went to therapy in the first place. The damage your t has created for you intensified your problems, and left you with a set of new ones to deal with. It shouldn't have happened and it certainly isn't your fault. therapist incompetence can violate us at our core. I'm really sorry you are left to deal with this nightmare. I commend you highly for reporting this t.

I also started therapy in a fairly functional place and disintegrated to the point of hospitalization. I don't know for sure that it was the therapy that caused my breakdown. But I don't know that it didn't either.

I also have attachment issues and am very attached to T1. Fortunately for me, he has not bailed on me.