Therapist response in crisis appropriate?

I'm so sorry you had such a rough day. I don't think Wonderfalls was trying to be patronizing - I know that my T's say on their voicemail recordings that in an emergency, one should call 911. My T also told me if I needed to speak to someone immediately, I could call a crisis line. She wasn't trying to be patronizing, she was just trying to ensure I knew how to get help right away if I needed to. Even if your T was ok with texting outside of scheduling, that doesn't mean he would have seen and responded to your text right away. That's just reality - when he's working, he might be occupied with other clients for the day, and when he's not, it's good self-care for him to not be constantly checking his cell phone for client contact. I understand how hurt you feel, I just don't think his response or lack thereof mean that he doesn't care about you. I do think that if this is a big problem for you, it makes sense to either talk to him about it and see if he can make any accomodations, or seek out another T who chooses to be more flexible with text. However, even if you switch Ts, you will need to accept that nobody can be available all of the time. I know you said you aren't mad about how long it took him to contact you, but it seems like maybe you are, because you already knew he didn't do text contact apart from scheduling, and you don't seem to have been angry until he didn't get back to you right away.

I've had similar experiences in the past.
T explained she cannot keep me safe via email so trys to keep it simple until she can actually help contain what's going on f2f.

I hope you feel better and the search for a new therapist goes well.

The theory is that any feelings are valid--and valid because you have them. And by "feelings" most people mean emotions. And valid doesn't mean good or bad. It just is. But what you do with those emotions is different. So a person can feel sexually aroused. But that doesn't mean that they have the right to sexually assault someone. And they can feel outraged because someone didn't do what they wanted, but that isn't going to keep them out of jail.

And I guess that if people have feelings that if they act on them are likely to get them put into jail if they act on them they would be wise to try to figure out what else they can do with them. But before they can do that, they have to at least acknowledge them to themselves, which therapists often call "validate." Otherwise they are likely to act without thinking.

And people who are angry without "validating" or acknowledging that anger tend to have other problems...like depression. Or the anger comes out in some other way. But you always have the choice of what to *do* with the anger. It's just not always possible to do that if you try to stuff it by saying "I shouldn't be angry about this."

I didn't mean to sound patronizing. It seems like, though, you need to work out very specific actions he wants you to follow in case of emergencies. What, specifically did you need him to do?

@maybeblue I realize how therapists use the word validate. I'm arguing that the meaning of the word doesn't allow for it to equal both irrational and valid. Acknowledging someone is feeling an emotion isn't the same as validation, imo. For example, I would be offended if my therapist validated my feelings of shame and inadequacy. Besides, the meaning of valid is literally: having a sound basis in logic or fact; reasonable or cogent. Therefore, an irrational feeling cannot be validated, only acknowledged.

I don't know why this is so triggering to me. Perhaps it's because most, if not all, of my irrational beliefs are negative internalizations aimed towards myself and the last thing I desire is to have them validated.

I can understand that. I think it might be a matter of semantics. Acknowledge might be a better word than validate. I wouldn't want my negative self talk validated either. Anger is an interesting emotion. It's outward focused, but it's almost never just anger. There's almost always something else there like fear or hurt.

There's no way that I can speak for the OP, but I can imagine that if I were angry at my therapist for not calling me back, there would likely be some fear there that he didn't care about me. And so even if I logically could see that I might not be reasonable to expect him to call, that fear would still be there. And so I would hope that I could talk to my therapist about that anger and fear.

With validate, I think I mean if I say: all doctors are evil. And the T says: Past experiences have led you to that conclusion.
And then maybe she'd ask: are you worried for tomorrow's doctor's appointment?/Is there a thought that can help you schedule that appt anyway?/Have you ever met a doctor who wasn't evil?

I would feel validated.

Your T wants to use texts for scheduling only. Can you maybe talk to him and ask if it would allowed to add another 3 or 4 words about why you want to see him?

This is how I experience validation of my irrational thoughts as well. I might say, "I am worthless." T would say that although my thought is irrational in the sense that it is not borne out by reality, it makes sense in the context of my history of maltreatment.

For me (with my T), validation means "it's completely understandable that you would feel that way given x y x". Rather than "you feel this and you are in fact correct" or "you feel that but that is not in fact the case". So T can validate my feelings and understand why I would feel that way, whether or not the feelings are corresponding with the facts in a given instance.