Therapist's temporary move is permanent

Yes, disappointments in people are a part of life. Even the best of therapy relationships involve disappointments, where the T isn't there for you in exactly the way you need it exactly when you need it. Even the best of marriages or relationships are disappointments from time to time, because people can't always live up to their commitments and circumstances change. People aren't robots and life isn't static. The ground under my feet always feels like it's shifting. But as I get stronger and go after what I want more, the disappointments feel lighter and easier. Maybe I focus more on what I do have, not what I don't. But I'm kind of a hopeless optimist and positive thinker anyway.

Point is, how are you going to change given this change in circumstances? Maybe you don't need this therapist, you just need to do something different so you can afford to have a wider variety of therapists you can choose.

But then, isn't it great that you got attached despite not being supposed to get attached as a schizoid? So this therapy gave you a new experience after all, didn't it?

My knowledge is that Freud tried that but came to the conclusion that free therapy does not work. Money is not a simple thing and it has several functions but one of them is to balance the relationship - the patient depends on the therapist for support/expertise/whatever, the therapist depends on the patient for money. Also, people typically don't value things they get for free as much as they value things that they have to sacrifice something for.

Moreover, there are no free things in the world - if the therapist sees the patient for free then who pays for it? Because someone has to pay. Otherwise the therapist cannot see you at all because they have to earn a living doing something else.

@Anne2.0: I don't know. I'm schizoid. I can go weeks without talking to anyone; my record is four weeks. I didn't even hear my own voice during that time when I'm alone. It took so much time to open up to another human being. I let my authentic, real self out with her. I thought the work was real and important. I know her world doesn't revolve around me; I try to remind myself of that. You know what, though? The therapist hypothesize that for whatever reason, I came to know deep pain and suffering from early life. So that's how I structure my life and view the world. Some of you may remember that I have trouble understanding ideas about family and love. In my eyes, I see everyone as having the same, equal value and self-worth. Just because I have blood ties or emotional connection with someone or know them for a longer period of time doesn't mean that I "love" or "care" about them more significantly than I do a random stranger. Whether I "love" someone or not depends on whether they need it and are in great need of help. Say if a family member or a close acquaintance and a stranger is in need of help. Who I decide to help would be based on whoever is in the most pain or suffering and great need of help and that not helping that person would result in very sad, tragic consequences. Pain and suffering is all I see. And I see view minimizing pain and suffering as the greatest virtue of life. I feel that it's the wisest and virtuous thing to do. That's why I wonder, too, that given this line of reasoning, the therapist should move back here because her physical presence for patients would result in a greater decrease in pain and suffering. If there is more objective pain and suffering in Boston, then I understand her staying there. But by the sounds of it, her grandson may be fine. Even if her grandson is not fine, that is one life compared to 15 to 20 lives in another state where her patients are at.

@feileacan: That's the point. It was a mistake, a huge mistake to let her in the way I did. It was a horrible mistake that won't happen again with anyone.

That's your choice of course.

I'm really sorry this has happened to you. If I were in your situation, I would feel very hurt and betrayed, no matter how good the T's reasons were, and I would have a lot of trouble trusting her in the future. People's lives can change suddenly and all that, but I honestly don't think I'd continue working with this woman. Especially considering that IIRC you have had trouble coordinating with her and getting any sessions at all since she moved. Maybe it's time to start looking around?

((mm)) I'm sorry. That is disappointing and disheartening, and I can see that the mismatch between her decisions and how she's communicating them and what you want and need and expect from her is incredibly disorienting.

I wonder if it might be helpful to step back from considering her intentions or trying to figure out whether or not she's been deceitful? She's a therapist paid to provide a particular service, therapy. At this point is therapy with this therapist more beneficial or more harmful to you?

I'm sorry she's not moving back. That really does stink.

I never found a therapist who understood me and who could help me resolve my stuff. That's what I was going to therapy for. Maybe you were going for something else?

If you view minimizing pain and suffering as the greatest virtue of life, what are you doing to relieve it? Your values, your choices. Other people get to have free will even if they are judged by you to be inferior human beings. Whatever line of reasoning you follow, it is for your life, not anyone else's. You don't get to choose for other people how they decide to live, or what they decide to do, or what their values are.

It seems that this therapist’s needs have taken precidence in your therapy relationship for at least a year now. It also looks like there was a bit of ‘stringing you along’ on her part.

I wouldn’t trust her either, and I actually do view this as a betrayal (though not one rooted in maliciousness).

She may have meant well, but it seems the grand baby, her academics, and everything else going on in her life has been taking center stage in your therapy and caused you uncertainty and distress. That wasn’t and isn’t fair to you. It sounds like you needed someone who was present and really there.

Many of us have experienced therapy disappointment, and though you can’t control this situation, you can control how you respond to it. You can find another therapist. You can try something else for a while. I’ve experienced absolute therapy devastation and have come out the other side - so I know first hand that it can be done.

I’m really sorry you’re struggling and hope you can find better help!

She shouldn’t have made empty promises to her clients who struggle with abandonment traumas and all that.
That’s messed up and has nothing to do with her right to move and make decisions for her life. She’s failing you and I understand your feelings completely

This jumped out at me, and is certainly the hardest part to accept. Due to the fact that your therapist has spent so long focusing only on your needs (at least till late), it must feel like she exists just for you and for her other clients. However, she has every right to live where she is most happiest. As a client, it is your right and responsibility to be accountable for your own welfare and wellbeing. Same goes for the other 15-20 clients. Therapy is not meant to be a life commitment and she isn’t tethered to all of you forever and ever. At some point, she needs to focus on what makes her happiest and that might be her grand baby even if it’s just one life compared to many.

It’s so, so hard reconciling our own place in our therapist’s lives. I so badly wanted to be a priority in my ex-therapist’s life, but it just wasn’t meant to be. Her needs will always come first, with family as a close second.

This is a good point. My T seems very careful in not making specific promises to me. He'll say "I have no intention of leaving you." But when I've mentioned certain things I'm concerned could happen, like if he chose to move, decided to focus solely on one of his current specialties, etc., he said those could happen, but he has no plans to move. Part of me wants him to just reassure me that none of theme will happen (well, he can't know about the thing in trigger warnings), but I also appreciate his not making promises he's not sure he could keep.

Yes your T sounds smart and careful and very ethical

Imagine if he said “LT I would give you a full year advance if I moved,” then a month later said he was leaving forever... you would also be “disoriented,” a mild way to put it

For people with cptsd and other attachment problems, this is a total nightmare that could deter them from seeking help in the future

Yeah. Otherwise we're talking about Mother Theresa. Personally, i would not want to be responsible for or beholden to another person planning their life around taking care of me? I already got enough resentment from my parents and brother for that to last me a lifetime.

I mean, really? As a chronic patient myself, i cant see your t saying, hmm, i have two choices - have a normal life with my grandchild, or spend my life trying to solve these puzzles over HERE, when there is a perfectly good set of puzzles to solve right next to my grandchild. Honestly, i cant even imagine what a normal life would be like.

I need to clarify one point that I remembered incorrectly.

When all this started, the therapist said that she might have to move to care for her grandson. She said that if that does happen, she would give all her patients one year's notice before moving. But circumstances changed and her one year's notice became one month's notice. She broke this news in May 2018 and left in June 2018. She said that she had every intention of returning.

From the gecko, I said to her, "The longer you stay in xxxxxx city, the more reasons you would have to not return." She said, "I'm not like that."

Can I say I told her so?

Even though her grandson still needs her care, that is why she is choosing to stay there, she also made a final decision to live there permanently for the rest of her life. My worst fear that I predicted all along in May 2018, came true.

The therapist said that after failing to meet her promise to give her patients one year's notice before moving, she didn't make the same promise again. This was my memory failing me on my part, so sorry folks.

That said, however, it still does feel like a betrayal. After all, she said that she's "not like that." I specifically told her that she would eventually find more reasons to stay there. She said no; that won't happen. But it did. I understand that her grandson needs her care. However, if he doesn't need her care, would she at least try to honor the earlier promise of giving her patients one year's notice? I know she failed the first time. But what was her intention of saying that in the first place? It sounded very principled. If circumstances allow, would she honor it even though she will be moving permanently at the end of the day?

A year's notice became a month's notice. A temporary move with her intention of coming back became a permanent move. She said that she's not like that in the sense that she wouldn't find more reasons to stay there aside from her grandson, but as it turns out, she did. How can I not feel betrayed even though "things change, and things happen?" If she didn't say these things so firmly, confidently, and reassuringly, I wouldn't feel as betrayed.

ETA: Here's the deal. When I said to her, "The longer you stay in xxxxxx, the more reasons you have to stay there and not return," she said, "I'm not like that." She said it so confidently. If she had said, "I don't know the future. Maybe I'll find more reasons to stay there. Maybe I won't. I don't know the future. But I remain committed to our work wherever I end up," I wouldn't feel as betrayed. She portrayed herself so confidently in certain way, but didn't live up to it. Of course I feel betrayed. If she didn't say "I'm not like that," I wouldn't feel as betrayed. I would feel sad, but I wouldn't feel this hurt and betrayed. Because as it turns out, she was, indeed, "like that."

The therapist is right now trying to pathologize my feeling betrayed as stemming from my childhood. This only makes my feelings feel more invalidated. I'm not unreasonable, woman.

If she said, "I have the intention of giving my patients one year's notice, but circumstances may not allow for me to do that," I wouldn't feel betrayed if she ended up moving without giving us a year's notice. I would feel sad by her moving, but I wouldn't feel betrayed.

If she had said, "Maybe I'll come to find reasons to stay in xxxxxx. I don't know the future. But I am committed to our work wherever I end up," I wouldn't feel betrayed if she ended up staying in xxxxxx. I would feel sad by her not returning, but I wouldn't feel betrayed.

If she cannot acknowledge how her delivery and words contribute to my feeling betrayed, and instead pathologizes it as stemming from my childhood, then it would be very easy for me to fire her as my therapist. Generally, I feel that if therapists genuinely made a lapse or mistake - because hey, they're human after all - it's important for them to acknowledge it. If they cannot acknowledge it maybe because they're prideful, blind, or for whatever reason, yeah, that makes me uncomfortable. It's so easy to put a patient's negative feelings as originating from the patient's past and childhood. But before pathologizing, it's important to acknowledge if part of the negative feelings come from something present in the interaction independent of the patient's past or childhood. Just because the patient feels betrayed doesn't mean that all their feelings of betrayal that they experience come from the past. That's a messed up way to look at things.

To me it sounds like you have every right to feel betrayed. You might have past experiences that make this more powerful for you than it would for another. But from what you say, she promised something and didn’t follow through.

How frustrating! You intuited, or knew, what she was like more than she knew herself!!

I suspect that most schizoids would find that somewhat incomprehensible? I sort of do, too. My late husband was schizoid. I don't think I am but I think I probably would have qualified for OCPD before I fell apart, and there are some similarities. My late husband and I understood the world pretty much the same way, and pretty much different from the way most other people seemed to understand it.

Sounds like your T presented herself to you as someone she wanted or thought herself to be, rather than who she actually was? Guess she may not have really known herself, either? But I disagree with the others -- I think she did have an obligation to follow through on her word and commitment to her clients. You can't make her do it, and if she's the kind of person who would do what she's done -- and apparently she is -- there's nothing you can do about it. Except change your view of her to be more in line with who she now has revealed herself to be. Some good, and some very not-so-good. Frustrating, and disappointing, for sure.

If you didnt have a messed up background, you would never have met her. So if a tree falls in a freakin forest? Yes, she still makes a sound by what she is doing.

Yeah; exactly. If she didn't make such confident, promising statements, I wouldn't feel betrayed. You may be right that I have past experiences that make this more powerful. I can't seem to link it to any past experiences at the moment, though, but it could be there. Before psychoanalyzing the relation to the past, though, it would be healing if the therapist could acknowledge her contribution. This is the first step. Second step would be talking about how I can trust her words in the future. The third step would be exploring if the powerful feelings have anything to do with the past.

I'm slow. What's the message here? LoL.

I don't know why she made those statements so confidently. I don't know if she was trying to be comforting in the moment and lost sight of reality. If so, I appreciate her kindness, but I'd rather her speak truthfully and realistically. I prefer the truth even if the truth hurts. Because empty promises that comfort in the moment only ends up hurting more when I find out that it's not true.

I don't expect her to keep her promise if circumstances don't allow her to. But when she said that she'd give her patients one year's notice, it sounded like it came from a very sincere and principled place within her. Even if she decides to stay in xxxxxx permanently, if her grandson no longer needs her care, I wonder if it's reasonable to "expect" - may be too strong of a word - her to honor the one year's notice. Because she couldn't keep her promise the first time due to circumstances. If circumstances now allow it, would she find way to honor it now?

Sorry. Her actions are hurtful, regardless? I mean, she is still going back on her word.

Well; yeah. But at the same time, what's the point of holding her to her words if they were never well-thought out or sincere?

I'm speaking with her this evening. I hope she can acknowledge that it wasn't a good move to make confident statements and promises and how it contributed to my feeling betrayed and let down. If she cannot do that and instead pathologizes it as stemming from my childhood, it's easy for me to fire her. LoL. @Salmon77 may be right that I experience this more powerfully due to the past. But before thinking about its relation to the past and childhood, the first step is to clear up what transpired between the therapist and me. Heck; if we can't even clear up what transpired between us, how can we understand it in terms of my past? If she cannot acknowledge her contribution, how can I feel safe with her and explore its relation to the past or childhood?