Easy sessions

The thread on cancelling appointments has me thinking. I have no idea how to do a poll so I will leave that up to the smarter more sophisticated posters 🤣.

If you have big event coming up and are somewhat struggling to you cancel you appointment, go full steam ahead or ask to keep it light??

Next weekend my 2 children are graduating college...schools 3 hours apart ceremonies are exactly same time . Add mothers day, major stressed at work, hubby's job and insurance changes, and a couple other deeply personal issues.

This week I have appointments with oth EMDR T and regular T. My plan is to discuss less stressful topics but also touch base in at our last appointments. Part of me wonders if it is wasting ti.e and money. Should I tell them ahead of time in email or text.

why do you want to keep it light? if it were me, i'd probably be extremely anxious about these big events, and spend my time talking about them.

I am afraid of causing more emotional stress. So thinking of talking about say graduation and what is happening at work but avoiding going into detail or more painful topics we have been working on.

I've tended to keep therapy appointments when possible right before major events, and it's tended to be helpful. I think as long as your therapist is aware of the stressors your dealing with and is skilled at their job (granted, that is not a given!), it's a useful thing to have some help talking through what you have going on and containing those stressors.

So for example, I contemplated canceling a therapy session that happened to end up scheduled immediately prior to a close relative's funeral but decided to go, and I was glad it worked out that way--my therapist helped provide an outlet for that grief while also gently allowing me to process some ongoing issues in session alongside the immediate stress, but he knew not to push for anything deeply buried or contentious while I was dealing more immediately with that major loss.

I also kept my therapy appointment the day before my wedding! And obviously he knew not to dredge up anything heavy in that moment, and let me take the lead even more than usual in steering the topic wherever.

So yeah, I think it can be helpful to still go, but maybe explicitly mention to your therapist that you don't think you have bandwidth for the painful ongoing big topics in these upcoming sessions?

I use to say I was keeping it light before a break. Coz I was scared of being without T and carrying a heavy weight.
Now I'm confident I can manage feelings, I just go with whatever comes up.

I have never cancelled because of anything stressful in my life. I don't get easily stressed anyway and for me it would be more stress not to go to my therapy session. For instance,

I went directly from my session to my PhD defence (in my country, the custom is to have a public defence: presentation, discussion with the opponents and then a secret voting by the committee). By no means I would have wanted to cancel before that even if I could. (But I can't anyway - I'm in intensive several times per week therapy and I can only miss sessions because my T does not accept cancellations).

Also, I don't plan ahead what we'll talk about - I let things just occur. I've found that I can't force myself to work on difficult topics by will because if I try to do that it frustrates me more than helps. At the same time, I never use the session to give overview about my everyday life either.

So, I don't know. I wouldn't cancel. I would just go in and see how it goes. If it feels like diving in then I would do that and if it feels right to keep it light I would do that.

I tell her in advance I want to keep it light. It may be because of a coming holiday or break or in case I feel we're going to fast and I need to slow down.

I've gone and kept it light--had session day before PhD interviews and didn't want anything to make me stressed. So we talked a bit about the upcoming interviews and then some other stuff, but lighter. I think going and having a lighter session is a good plan--then you still see the T and have that connection and support.

I keep it light before vacations (his or mine) because I don't want to go the extended period of time without being able to see him and sort things out if we have a rupture.

I've had sessions with R the day before a few exams. We can't go into anything heavy just it helps to have him there for me.

I once had a session on my birthday and didn't want to feel down, so I talked about more light topics. I just didn't bring up anything too heavy, so we didn't touch on it, I didn't inform my T beforehand.

Sometimes T and I have sessions where we just talk about how much progress I have made since I started seeing her. It's usually a light session and helps me refocus and realize how much things have changed in my life. I love those sessions.