Therapist apologizing

When your therapist makes a mistake, such as forgetting an appointment or not being fully present for your session, do you call them out on it? What if it keeps happening?

What if, whenever you get up the courage to say "that hurt me" or "this feels different than it was before" they apologize, dismiss it, or say they have a lot going on in their life, then move on without making sure you're ready to move on too?

Does that make you feel better? It doesn't make me feel better. Should it?

I'm always left feeling a little ashamed that I admitted to being hurt in the first place and reluctant to show my T that I care at all for a while after. Even though I do care about her.

I'm at a loss for how to resolve this kind of thing other than to suck it up and try to forget about it. I did that the first few times, but now I'm at a point where I'm starting to feel like she's just going to keep doing this and either she doesn't care that it hurts me, does care and it's hard for her to talk about, or has no clue that it bothers me.

What would resolve that situation for you?

Sorry you're feeling like this. If it keeps happening and isn't resolved so you can move on I would point it out to find out what's at the root of it. Sucking it up and trying to forget about it won't make you feel better , nor should it. A T may have things going on in their life but they have a responsibility to their clients.

My T I think is playing a damn game with me.

Back story here.

Monday was our appointment.

Tuesday my father died

I emailed him that I am having problems and my resource tean (imaginary people in my head that are suppose to soothe the wounded scared child) sucks balls.

He never answers back. I am desperate. Call ex-T in a different sate. Ex-T calls me and tries to help. I chat with NEDA (national eating disorder association) because I am binging and purging.

All week I am struggling thinking I am suppose to learn that I am really alone here and not to rely on him anymore. So I TRY! I realize he is the reason I get out of bed in the morning. I went back to wishing I died in my sleep and do not have to live life. I hate life. I am really ok with just dropping dead. That is exactly how I felt prior to therapy with him. So nothing has really changed.

Normally I have an appointment with him Fridays at 2pm but we discussed I was in a workshop that day so no appointment.

At 2:01 on Friday I get this email.

[I]Well, I biffed here, I read this and thought OK, discuss on Friday. And then, on Friday, I remembered you were doing cupping. DOPE! Im sorry :-(

Damn resource team... come on guys! Get it in gear.

Feeling any better today?/I]

I feel like I am being played here. I do not believe him. I am not answering his email. I will have to answer to this at the next session

So to the OP post. I am hurt and am ashamed to admit it and to tell him how I really feel for fear of him really tightening his reigns like he as done already.

Honestly, I’m not one to feel rejection or abandonment or anything like that this isn’t what this is. But I’m starting to think my therapist is not quite the same as when I first met her. And I don’t know if she knows it’s because I won’t ever call her out on her actions or what. Because I don’t because I hate confronting people. But dude don’t say “call me if anything comes up” and don’t say “I’ll try to call you back on my days off if I can get away from my kids” and then just flat out stop returning my calls all of a sudden but still acknowledge your getting them yet won’t apologize for not calling me back. I just feel like my mental health options are just ****ed up where I live.

I don't usually tell people when they hurt me, however, the one time I did with EMDR T she did apologize. She also apologizes when she doesnt see my text for a period of time. I suspect other clients do call her out or she reads these boards. On occasion she will say something and then clarify what she means as she knows some clients might interpret what she said differently.

I’m really sorry several of you in this thread have experienced this. If the T did not improve after repeatedly bringing up the hurtful transgressions, I would personally be looking for a new one. I have absolutely called T out on things like not returning a message when she said she would or a crappy apology in which she didn’t actually take responsibility for her actions. And things got better. She changed her behavior, and I thanked her for doing so. The communication aspect seems really important here. Because 1) I’m willing to tell her what bothers me, 2) she’s willing to apologize and adapt, and 3) I’m willing to forgive her and be at least partially flexible, we can keep moving forward.

It has helped to objectively describe the facts of the situation that upset me, how it subjectively made me feel, tell her what I need to happen differently, and explain how that change will positively affect me in the future all while remaining open to potential alternative solutions.

If they can’t own their own part in whatever happened, it would seriously impair my trust in them and even my respect. I would not be able to work with such a therapist.

Being dismissive and not ensuring how it is affecting the client and worse, repeating the same pattern in the future? That does not speak of a very skilled or competent therapist.

I would move on. I don’t go to therapy to be further hurt by the therapist, I can get enough of that from ‘real’ life.

I tend to resolve these things by bringing them up again. I say: ‘I need to talk about X a bit more’ a t wants said to me that I could bring up the same subject as many times as I like. I have said to my T directly: ‘I wish you would apologise’. When I said that my T did, and she also explained that she had not realised how significant x had been to me, as a way of explaining why she hadn’t said more.

It depends on the mistake of course (he forgets some stuff about me sometimes, usually I let that slide, he's shown enough times that he also remembers stuff).
Forgetting an appointment or not paying attention, this has never happened, but both I'd mention when we see next. If it kept on happening, I'd bring it up two or three times before saying that it keeps happening, I'll see somebody else.

My T wouldn't just dismiss it like your T seems to do. He might explain why it happened, but then he'd explore more with me what we both can do to make it better. For example one time I mentioned he talks a bit much sometimes. He explained that this is one of his issues, he feels uncomfortable with silence. Then asked me why I'd like to talk him less, in which situations it's okay for him to just talk and when he should maybe be a bit more quiet. And since then he's never talked enough to bother me again.

If you'd like to not switch Ts and give her a chance, I'd maybe bring it up again and say something like 'look, I know you have a lot going on, but if I can repeatedly feel that and don't get what I need from you, we have to somehow resolve this'.

The 'keeps happening' part would be a significant problem for me. It would make me feel that my feelings didn't matter and T didn't really care about me. I'm really sorry this is happening with your T. Have you tried writing a letter and saying you really can't move past these feelings because the issue keeps happening?

I have had Ts make various mistakes a few times. Most did apologise and it never happened again. A genuine, heartful apology where the T was deeply attuned with my feelings, would be enough for me to let it go. But I couldn't if it kept happening.

I did have a T who became defensive about an issue. I let it go, but I never processed my feelings about it because her defensiveness was a major barrier for me. I need to feel my feelings are accepted and empathised with, in order to move on from an issue.

I have had a lot of T’s who would do these things and then if I called them out on it would put the blame back on me. I didn’t get anything positive out of my work with them.
Current T is different. Sometimes he will catch it before I say something and he will bring it up. If I bring it up he is wide open to talking about it and working it through without blame. Given his responses I cannot imagine my T being willing to move on until he was 100% convinced I was OK. Current T is also very proactive in letting me know if he has outside stressors or is distracted. I brought up with him early on that he was human and we all have off days. I let him know that for me it helps if he lets me know he is having an off day because I don’t want to be bringing up something that I need him at his best for when he can’t bring that A game. We still do things on the days when he is not at his best and I still expect him to give 100% of what he has while he is with me but those are the days we do lighter work.

Thank you for all of the replies! I have considered this over the last week and tried to see her perspective as well.

Firstly it bothers me that an issue within our relationship has become such a big part of my life. I have enough problems without her adding more.

Secondly I think she deserves the chance to know it bothers me. If she blows that off then so be it. It sounds like there are therapists out there who wouldn't do that so maybe the problem is her. If she wants to apologize and fix the problem then great, I can forgive.

I see her tomorrow and plan to bring it up first thing just to get it over with.

oh yes....definilty relate to this. welcome to the story of 'my therapy with my ex-T'...which often centred around the 'issues', or better yet, the drama, with him and the relationship and just added to my already full plate and took away from the things i truly wanted and needed to address in therapy

how did your session go? i hope you you feel satisfied with the results.

I don't think I'd appreciate it if apologies were always paired with excuses. Explanations can sometimes be offered after apologies, but this must be done in a way that doesn't diminish the apology. Explanations should only be offered if they might be of benefit to the person receiving the apology. That is the difference between excuses and explanations. As for checking to see if you're ready to move on, I personally would solve that part of it by just not moving on. She can't move on unless you do, too. Yes, it would be easier if she checked in with you. People in real life usually don't, though, so I'd try to look at it as an opportunity to practice being assertive. If she's too domineering for this to feel like an option, maybe a different therapist would be your best bet. But I would really try to be persistent once and see what happens.

I agree with what everyone has said! She dismissed it again and said maybe the problem is my perception of what "should be" and nobody has ever had this problem with her before. I doubt that because I think my expectations are fair. Show up to appointments or call ahead of time and be at work mentally at least most of the time. I told her I don't plan to come back and she said I should know that her wait list is very long and implied it's because so many people like her.

😡 I'm done!

Her response does not reflect positively on her. Whether anyone else has ever brought up an issue like this to her before is neither here nor there - and it sounds like you have reason to suspect she might be being dishonest about that anyway. Saying your perceptions of what "should be" are wrong sounds like ********. And it sounds like she wanted to reframe the concrete - that is, expectations about professional conduct in the provision of services - into something nebulous for her own benefit. If she could make you think your feelings were wrong or unjustified because your perception was wrong or unjustified, she could do whatever she wanted.

Good for you for walking away.

*sigh*

i reckon you made a wise choice....nothing therapeutic about a relationship with a dismissive and passive aggressive T.

I think it's good that you are looking at the possibilities: she doesn't care, she cares but doesn't know how to talk about it, or doesn't know it hurts you. You aren't assuming that she doesn't care, which to be honest is what I'd probably do.

There is no way I would let something that bothered me keep happening, mostly because that will make me crazier than anything. Therapists are supposed to be able to validate. They teach that in therapy 101. For me it will usually be something much smaller than that, like failing to praise me for doing a homework assignment or something that seems really trivial when I'm calm. With something as serious as missing appointments or zoning out repeatedly I would expect that there is something serious going on in her life. That's getting into the impaired therapist range.

If you can do it I would try to describe exactly what it was that she was doing: "you missed two appointments in the last month, or I think this is the 4th time I've noticed that you weren't paying attention, what's going on?" Then her response would dictate my response. Like if she said her kid died or something I'd probably say something like "I'm really sorry about that. Do you need to take some time off?" But if she ***** footed around and said that she "had some stuff in her life" or whatever, I'd be more direct and say "it really hurt me when you didn't show up." And if she tried to move on before I was ready I'd bring it up again, and again until I felt validated enough. I think sucking it up would make you more vulnerable to being hurt the next time because each successive hurt that's not dealt with builds on the last one.