[SalingerEsme]

Do you think there ever comes a time in which skipping a session is not acting out, but is a valid communication? Maybe you feel your T is not listening to you, or doesn't trust his/her clients to know what their needs are, or isn't taking you seriously or any of many reasons. Is skipping a session ever a good way to kind of be congruent and show instead of tell how alienated you feel, or is it always acting out and kind of irresponsible?

No. I feel that it is always manipulative.

[CantExplain]

Ruptures do happen. But it is unlikely a T would be influenced by mere bad attendence. They see it far too often.

If you need a break, tell them so and then take that break.

PS: If you don't think your T is taking you seriously, tell them exactly that.

[stopdog]

I took breaks so I could regroup or rethink. I don't see that as acting out but good self care.

[toomanycats]

Acting out = taking an action to communicate rather than speaking about it, so any form of that would be "acting out."

But "acting out" isn't necessarily inherently bad... sometimes we act out when words don't seem to be working.

Though I don't think you'll get what you're looking for that way. If you want understanding and connection, you'll be hard-pressed to find that by pushing away.

I ghosted once. My therapist e-mailed me three times the week after before I finally responded. She just wanted to know I was okay. I did it as a passive aggressive way to let her to know how upset I was by her. She said she already knew, and ghosting didn't do much, it just made her concerned for my safety because she didn't know where I was. Ultimately, it was a dissatisfying experience that didn't achieve very much. It was far more satisfying and productive when I just came in and blabbed out my anger instead.

i think it's valid, but the problem with actions is we can't control how they're interpreted. do you mean "skipping" as in telling your therapist you don't want to come in or "skipping" as in not showing up for a scheduled appointment?

i imagine a therapist wouldn't think much about a client taking a planned week off. they take plenty of weeks off themselves. but i imagine the ghosting annoys them more than teaches them a lesson. if that's the goal, then have at it.
i don't think it's irresponsible, but i think if you have to pay for the missed appointment, the wasted money might not be worth the satisfaction of skipping.

[LonesomeTonight]

I think it's better to go in and talk about it, though I understand your reluctance to do that with this T. I just don't think ghosting would have the effect you wanted it to have. Plus then I imagine you'd have to pay for the session? Now if you just want to take, say, a week off to think about things and cancel the session in advance rather than just skipping it, that's a bit different. But I think it's better to go in and say "I thought about skipping this session because I'm feeling _________."

[doogie]

The times I have used my actions to try and 'communicate' with T, I'm the one who was always disappointed or burned. My T is not mind reader and will usually not know what I am trying to communicate by cancelling or not showing up to a session. When she doesn't 'get it', then I'm the one who is hurt - not her.

I have to communicate with words, and I expect her to do the same. "I'm not coming to session Fri because I just need a break from you for a bit." is something I might say. Then I know she has received my message. If I just cancel - she has no idea why I'm not there, and my message has fallen on deaf ears.

Good luck to you. It's hard.

I think it depends how. Taking a break and telling the T in advance this can be very healthy IMO. Much like taking vacations from a job. Not showing up or angry last min cancellations probably more passive aggressive. I do believe most Ts will wonder why these occur though but I think direct communication is more effective and respectful in all areas of life.

[Taylor27]

I ghosted my therapist once and it really back fired one me. She was very mad at me and there was no understanding from her. My husband just had a stroke a few weeks before and she just was upset at how i handeled things. It would of been better for me to go and talk it out instead of not showing up. We never work through the rupture luckly she terminated me last January i still see the pyschologist. She never allowed me to work through it there was always a distance there

[imnotbroken]

I am thinking of showing up 25 minutes past our regular scheduled appointment time next week, since she’s been taking me in about 20 mins past every damn week. (And blaming previous client for this tardiness). I think it’s valid. But I probably won’t do it, I’m always concerned about my own punctuality to do that.

[seeker33]

Once I tried hard to explain what I wanted to talk about and what I didn't want (I wanted to talk about feelings about food, not diet tips). I sent her a long message explaining this before the session. However entire session she kept ignoring me and only tried to push diet tips. I was incredibly angry.
Our next session I only spoke about irrelevant light stuff /small talk. Later I told her I was so hurt by her ignoring my wishes and needs that I didn't feel safe talking to her and that's why I made the session a waste of time. I felt she wasn't taking me seriously anymore and was considering canceling. This made an impact and next time she tried to do better.

[Lemoncake]

I think this is perfectly timed.

I was thinking of doing just this as R comes back from his break. I want to hurt him, the only way I can do that is financially, he says he charges for missed sessions but he's never actually followed through on it as he lets me reschedule. It feels like he's more gentle when I do come back.

[Anne2.0]

Originally Posted by SalingerEsme

Do you think there ever comes a time in which skipping a session is not acting out, but is a valid communication? Maybe you feel your T is not listening to you, or doesn't trust his/her clients to know what their needs are, or isn't taking you seriously or any of many reasons. Is skipping a session ever a good way to kind of be congruent and show instead of tell how alienated you feel, or is it always acting out and kind of irresponsible?

I think it makes a difference if you just don't show up as agreed and scheduled, or you cancel a session as simply as "can't make it next Thursday, see you a week from then"). I think it's fine to cancel without explanation or notice beyond the 24 hours or whatever that most T's seem to have as their policy. I know that I've been the beneficiary of a canceled session when I needed one, so I think not showing up is disrespectful to the T's time.

Canceling a session may or may not be communication to the T. Mine takes things at face value and wouldn't ask me about it unless I brought it up.

I think if you want effective communication, as canceling or not showing up probably does say something, it's just not clear what it is, why not just discuss these things directly in session?

[Argonautomobile]

I think it's absolutely fine to skip a session, and I do think it's a form of communication, but I don't personally think it's a very good or clear form of communication. I think that life is a lot easier when everyone says what they mean.

[SlumberKitty]

I've never found that skipping a session has been a good form of communication. I think it is a better form of communication to just talk about the emotions and feelings that are behind wanting to skip a session with T. Like, "I really didn't want to come here today because of x,y,z" and see where that goes.

[susannahsays]

It depends on what you mean by skipping, as others have said. If you cancel ahead of time, it may or may not be acting out, depending on your reasons for canceling. If you are trying to provoke a certain response from the therapist or trying to be punitive, I see it as acting out. If you just don't attend the appointment, in effect "ghosting" the therapist, I definitely think that's acting out. If the therapist is so unwilling to listen or take your concerns seriously that you actually have to resort to not attending therapy, instead of just talking about wanting not to attend, something isn't right and you need to start questioning if you need a new therapist. I have threatened the therapist before that I will not come back, and she has responded appropriately. Granted, I think threatening to not come to an appointment is also acting out, but at least there's a chance for dialogue with that option - and resolution without the wasted time of skipping or ghosting a session.

[ruh roh]

All behavior is communication, but I agree with others that it's best to be more explicit. If it's hard for you to do that in person, then he's just going to have to go wild with abandon and read an email from you.

His approach--prolonged exposure therapy for CSA--is enough to render most people incapable of functioning. So I think your need to skip a session is understandable, but he needs to know why, and then reconsider his approach. Maybe I am wrong, but I have never heard of that kind of approach being used for multiple interpersonal traumas in early childhood. If it's taking a toll on you, I would holler. Loudly.

[maybeblue]

I've never been confident that my therapist would "chase" me if I just didn't show up. I'm pretty obsessive about sessions, so I hope that he would at least call to see if I was dead or something, but I'm not at all sure he would. And that would make me feel terrible.

I also doubt that most of them would even connect a no call/no show to their behavior. They would just think that the client was tired of therapy or something.

I do think it could be effective if you said something like "Lately I have been feeling very invalidated and not listened to in therapy. I need to take a week off to calm down and collect my thoughts, but I'll be back the following week and I would like you to put discussing that on the agenda."

[Lrad123]

I think skipping is definitely a form of communication, but probably not the best one. I say this as someone who struggles with the idea of skipping frequently. I had no idea that when I started therapy one of my biggest struggles would be just showing up. Apparently any time I start to feel close or say something vulnerable to my T, I come up with all sorts of creative reasons why I should skip my next session. So far I’ve only missed once in the past year. Most recently, a few weeks ago when I was struggling to go I posted on PC, and you wonderful folks convinced me to go and it ended up being one of my best sessions ever. I told him how hard it was to come and how I didn’t think he understood and how I was tempted to show him by ghosting. It turns out that he completely understood and I felt so relieved. If I had skipped, I think I would have felt crummy all week and would have just delayed the conversation for a week.

[CantExplain]

From a purely engineering perspective, skipping a session communicates only a single "bit". That is the absolute minimum of any non-zero communication. At that rate, it would take three months to transmit a single word. It's a very, very slow communication channel.

[seeker33]

Originally Posted by CantExplain

From a purely engineering perspective, skipping a session communicates only a single "bit". That is the absolute minimum of any non-zero communication. At that rate, it would take three months to transmit a single word. It's a very, very slow communication channel.

Lol! This made me smile

[Favorite Jeans]

In your shoes I would feel so much better if I framed it differently. "Communicating by skipping a session" sounds very disempowered and passive-aggressive (to me). It sounds like the action of a person who has no good options.

If therapy is a forum for practicing relationship skills, why not use this opportunity to take all your power and take care of yourself? As in, by email or snail mail if T doesn't allow email: "Therapist, I have been feeling that therapy has been not helpful/very triggering/too intense/unproductive/whatever lately and I will be taking a (few) week(s) off to regroup. I will see you in September." Or alternatively just leave a VM saying you need to miss the next appointment.

When you go back, say that you were not happy with how X was going and needed some time to mull that over. Don't be made to feel that your choice is somehow not legitimate or that you are not allowed to make that call.

Take charge. Treat the therapist you employ with professional courtesy, remembering that though the relationship may be fraught, YOU are paying THEM for this job. If they are doing shoddy work, communicate your dissatisfaction. If their work is fine but you need to modulate the intensity or it, you can say that too.

[SalingerEsme]

Originally Posted by Favorite Jeans

I

It sounds like the action of a person who has no good options.
.

Thanks everyone so much for the responses, and it is a clear message not to do that. FJ- I do feel like I have no good options for communicating, but I need to be more flexible and creative instead of taking a bad option. It just seems like I'm too dependable/dependent, and he takes that for granted. The times he seems a bit concerned are the few times- maybe twice in two years- I've been a little late. Since he claims to "show" caring instead of expressing it, I kind of want to show a protest instead of talking about it, which gets me no where anyway. I absolutely agree he probably wouldn't get the message and he also definitely wouldn't do some out of character kind of caring gesture, so I would end up feeling even worse. Thanks for pointing that out. Most likely he would charge me for the session, and refresh my memory that he only works with people who want to be there. I have to work out for myself if I am powerless to change things beyond actually quitting or if it is some remnant of childhood that makes me feel powerless when my T is just sitting there listening and being perfectly nice, and the neutrality freaks me out . I do wish he was a titch more supportive- not a lot but a little.