Does anyone else live in fear that their T is going to fire them?

I just emailed my T and spilled my guts...

I told him that I live in constant, daily fear that he's going to fire me, and because of that, I've basically been sabotaging therapy and doing nothing he tells me to because he's going to fire me anyway.

I have no rational reason to feel this way. He's never indicated he would fire me, and even gave me a second chance after I tried to commit suicide (he doesn't see suicidal clients).

Then I begged him not to fire me because I told him I'm afraid he's going to fire me.

I'm so scared.

I used to be in fear that T would terminate me. For the most part, I'm secure with my T, but I still need reassurance sometimes. What has helped me is time and reassurance and just being honest with my T.

I use to fear T would reject me.
I don't now.

Being abandoned by people I feel any kind of connection to is one of the main issues for which I am in therapy. So yes, I fear my T will for one reason or another abandon me a whole lot. Often my worry is that he'll be fed up with me and kick me out or think I'm too complicated and not want to work with me. Over the two years I've been seeing him, he has always reassured me he wouldn't do such things and I slowly start to trust him on this. I'm still worried sometimes, but a lot less than a year or so ago.

YES this is so me. I ask him about this, in one way or another, at least once every few sessions, if not more. Sometimes I ask if he hates me (after disclosing difficult stuff); sometimes I ask if he’s going to quit his job; sometimes I ask if he’s going to give up on me. He always says no but I still ask lol.

So if being fired from therapy is fear of rejection, it's really interesting that you act like a "bad person" rather than what might be my response, which is to be all goody-two-shoes. Is this because you can then blame the "reason" for being fired on making no progress/following no suggestions of the therapist?

My therapist alway seems to be rather surprise when I follow a specific suggestion, which doesn't happen often. He suggested a supplement for insomnia (L-theamine) which, turned out. to be helpful to me and I told him. But I'm not sure he would fire me if I never took a suggestion, it is so little a part of my therapy it wouldn't make sense.

But even if I was in a situation where I was struggling with some things over and over again, which is often a function of severe depression and my thinking was stuck and inflexible, I still don't think he would fire me over this.

I do think the issue is less about being worried about termination and more about other dynamics in your world. Does this happen or did this happen before with somebody else? Cooperation (rather than subjugation) isn't required for human relationships, but it would be hard to be in an intimate relationship with someone who doesn't consider what the other person wants and does the opposite for the sake of it, or who otherwise pushes the other person away.

It's good you flagged the issue in email; however, raising it in session is probably important too, as in something as simple as "I'd like to talk about what I wrote in my email."

Constantly. And I’ve been with her for over seven years. I don’t like talking about it or bringing it up, but like summertime, I ask in roundabout ways (I’ve also asked directly a handful of times). She always reassures me and it’s never enough. And I’ve told her that.
It’s such a crappy feeling.

All the time. And every time i bing it up, he always reassures me that it won't happen. I still worry though.

On rare occasions I did with T. Almost everyday with Emdr T.

All the time since he tried to close my file last year, all my treatment people thought i was well enough to go on in life without there help. By no means am i ready to go on my own yet, far from it. So yes i fear he is going to fire me at any given time. It's something i have yet to talk to him about

With previous T, all the time for the 5.5 years i saw her-and despite reassurances otherwise. I was insecure the entire relationship; and i finally quit bc it wasn’t getting any better.

With current T, not anymore and we are on year 3. Ever since i went in-patient and she went above and beyond her duties, i felt secure. I don’t really get anxious before sessions anymore, which is a minor miracle. I don’t fear she will terminate me-we’ve been through the depths and she has hung in there. It is nice feeling relatively secure in that.

I'm not nervous in sessions anymore, which I guess is good.

He goes away every summer for three months and when he came back this September I was sure we were done, because we had a bit of a tiff over the summer. But we weren't done. He just talked to me about what happened and kept going. I wasn't nervous going into that session because I'd already accepted he was going to end it and I'd be on my own.

I'm struggling so much to trust him. I told him that. But now I'm afraid he'll fire me because I don't trust him and without trust we can't have a proper rapport. I feel like I can't win no matter what I do.

Mine used to threaten me with termination all the time. But, on some level, I always knew he wasn't going to do it. He never did.

But then he died. Not intentionally and not to get away from me.

That must have been gut-wrenching. I'm so sorry.

Yes, I am sure that it is more about my fear of abandonment than anything any of my Ts has ever done. But I think being afraid of being fired is quite common: none of my Ts have been surprised that I feel that way. I hope yours responds as all of mine have-calm and reassuring.

I was scared about it with T3 but we ended up sort of mutually deciding that it wasn't the best fit. She scared me anyway. Kit.

I feel like that today. I have long streaks of cozy confidence, but then if stress is heavy in my life, I test him and it never works. I know I am not allowed to email, but I did today. Of course he won't answer. Then, I will want to skip Thursday. All that conflict in my mind immediately leads me down the road of he will fire me as a client or he will fail my test as a T and I will have to quit out of pride. These dynamics crop out of no where, after long spells of connection. I am so so frustrated and sad.

Yep. Especially because he's done it once before.

I've told him about my impulses to sabotage it
I asked for his word that he wouldn't let me ruin everything in one week. I explained that it was like

He gave me his word that he wouldn't let a single incident like that be a reason for termination, and that if he did end up eventually feeling like he needed to terminate again that he'd talk about it with me first instead of it being an unexpected and unilateral decision again.

I've also told him things like when I wanted to try to make him angry at me so that he would hate me or that I've wanted to SH because he'd been happy that I was doing better and I wanted to prove that I'd always let him down and ruin things or w/e. Basically communicating my urges to sabotage myself. It's been really helpful bc once I get them out there it's a lot less tempting to act on them and he actually knows what's going on and can better help me.

I hope your T is understanding and you get the response and support that you need. I'm glad you spoke up and I know it's scary and not easy. Hang in there.

I occasionally have these thoughts and have mentioned it to my T via email but we haven’t discussed in person. I think I’m afraid that if I show any distrust, skepticism or negativity that he won’t be able to tolerate it. In reality, I’m probably a fairly easy client, but I sometimes still worry that I’m too much for him.

I see mine in a few hours. Part of me really wants hm to fire me for so many reasons. It would also get rid of this constant anxiety that he’s going to. I convince myself every week before I go that this is the week - the week he fires me. But it hasn’t happened yet. Last week in passing he said if he was going to he would have done it by now I hope we will talk about my email I sent a couple days ago.

I struggled with that fear for the better part of 2 years. I am at the point where I am fairly confident that he won't fire me or force me out but I am not sure of that fear will ever completely go away. We discuss it often though and that helps with reassurance. It is incredibly rare that it doesn't come up at least once in a session.

I lived with that fear with one therapist. It was completely insane. I was a powerless subordinate to a semi-stranger who was collecting my secrets. Living in fear of the other person in a relationship does not seem very therapeutic, seems more suggestive of abusive or otherwise pathological relationships. It's unreal that therapists conduct such relationships knowing the client has these fears, and one has to wonder what the therapist gains from this massive power differential and whether realistically they can avoid abusing it. Power corrupts, etc.

I used to .....

Not any more...

I talked to my T about it today. He told me that he sometimes wonders why we're continuing but he would never fire me out of the blue and we would talk for several weeks before anything happened. I also told him I was having trouble trusting him and he said he has trouble trusting me too, so we're going to work on mutual trust.

I certainly had difficulty trusting T1. With good reason, as it turned out.