I had a session with T on Tuesday. I am able to email him once a week, although he usually won't write back. I pour my heart and soul into these emails. I do realize that he reads them on his own time and feel bad about that. He did say that he would do this.

At the beginning of the session, he said that he hadn't read my email. I tried to not feel anything, just to blow it off. I was hurt, though. I had written some things that I though might give him a little insight, I put some of the wonderful responses from here to his email so he would know how valued he is. I fully understand that this is his time, etc., for I know all of this. However, I felt hurt that he did not care enough to read my email.

Later in the conversation, he said something. I told him that I had written a lot about that in my email. His response?
"Okay. Whatever." and then he went on to talk about something, I have no idea what. He asked me a question. I just sat there, all I could think about was the WHATEVER. Finally, I told him I thought he was angry with me. He said, "What a great place to have this happen." I told him that I thought my comment about the information was in the email had made him angry, made him think that I'm an ingrate. I feel guilty for feeling this way.
I then reluctantly told him that I was hurt because he hadn't read it. He said he was sorry, that he took a break from his email for 3 days.

But, I do feel hurt. I had planned to discuss information in my email during our session. I wanted him to see what I wrote. I felt like I painted a picture and he ripped it up and threw it away! He said he wanted me to tell the truth, and he got it. I feel like a monster, though. I just called him to ask him if he could refer my daughter to a psychiatrist. No return call yet. I doubt there will be one.

WHATEVER!

[Perna]

Oh, what a poor choice of words for a therapist!

[ErinBear]

Hi Soliaree,

I'm so sorry this happened. It's really upsetting when you've gone to a lot of effort to write a letter, and put a lot of careful thoughts into it, and your T doesn't read it before the session. My thoughts are sure with you!

I used to see a T with whom I had a good working relationship. I was thankful because he allowed me to send email, and he was generally quite good about reading it....and often remembered what I wrote, as well. But there were times when he didn't get to read it for one reason or another. Maybe he'd been ill during the week, or something else came up, and he couldn't get a chance to read it even though he wanted to do so. I started bringing in a copy of my emails, especially if I knew it was something I really wanted to discuss in the session and it was an essential part of what I wanted to do that day. Even if he had read it already, sometimes it helped to have a copy of it with us in the room. If he didn't get a chance to read it, then he could read it during our meeting. I know that's not the perfect solution in some ways - we wish they could always get our emails right away and read them before we meet - but for me, that came in handy on a number of occasions. I thought I'd mention it in case it might be helpful.

Thinking of you. I hope you can talk with your T about your feelings about this, and things will get better as you two work things through. It sounds like his choice of words was very unfortunate....I'm really sorry about that :-( Maybe somehow he was having a bad day/week, but even if he was, I wish he could have handled it better.

Take care,
ErinBear

Thanks Perna, Erinbear,

We're working on my emotional upheaval right now. Do you think that he could have said that trying to bring up some emotions in me? He knows that I hate to make others angry. I was just wondering because he has never spoken to me like that before.
Just a thought.

[MissCharlotte]

((Soliaree))

Whatever? Whatever? WTF is that?

OHHHHH he should have lunch with Mr. Psychological Health!

I think the next time this happens and you feel you need to refer to the email, you should ask him to open it right then and there.

[sunrise]

</font><blockquote><div id="quote"><font class="small">Quote:</font>
Soliaree said:
Later in the conversation, he said something. I told him that I had written a lot about that in my email. His response?
"Okay. Whatever." and then he went on to talk about something, I have no idea what.

</div></font></blockquote><font class="post">Wow, that would make me angry too. That just sounds so rude. Why didn't he say, "Okay, what did you write again?" or "I didn't get a chance to read your email--what did you write on that issue?" Why is that so hard? Do you think he's trying to tell you not to email him anymore?

You know how the sessions after a break can be hard for clients? Maybe they are hard for therapists too, and it is a drain for them to get back into the permanent empathetic mode they have to be in all day when they have a full roster of clients. Maybe you were at the end of his day, Soliaree, and he was simply exhausted with having to be empathetic, supportive, nice. I'm not sure, but it sounds like unusual behavior. I hope next time is better.

[krazibean]

Whatever? I'm pretty sure if it were me, after that comment i'd be totally shut down and T would have no choice but to ask what was bothering me. WHATEVER? wtf?

[Perna]

It sounds to me like he was just trying to make a transition from the e-mail topic and was agreeing with you (the "Okay" first) and was just moving on, not wanting to argue or get picky or. . . whatever :-) But his abrupt shift was not a good choice since you were still mired/interested in what you were talking about and not ready to shift. I would try not to take it personally. I think it was about the topic, not about you or what was being said. He just had something else on his mind and wasn't paying attention. He definately goofed!

T's don't generally play "games" trying to elicit responses from you unless they stay with it and make sure whatever they're trying to do gets done. So if you're confused and lost, it's probably not deliberate on his part, just some little thing that happened that he didn't pick up on it's ramifications with you. In a "normal" conversation, if a friend had said that to another friend, the other would have said, "What do you mean, 'Whatever'?" with a bit of humor or annoyance/anger in their voice and gotten it cleared up. I don't think it was meant to hurt your feelings.

yeah soli, i don't think it was intended to be mean... and i don't think most T's would play games either. Perna has said it all better than i have. Maybe you are trying to find ways to frame what he did, put it in another context, which is more appealing to you? If he was mean then he fits old patterns and you can channel your anger at him... if he was testing you somehow then it was acceptable subterfuge? i don't know.. but it would seem that it's only two possibilities in there.

They do have a lot of power to hurt us or make us elated... and they need to be careful, this was a bad example of careful.. he was careless. Think about it in terms of what you have said about extremes.

and i know this will sound like ********, especially coming from me and how my relationship is... but.. they have that power because we hand it over to them. i think a lot of that is necessary, but sometimes we let them have all of our power... and eventually they slip up.

if you have a picture of him maybe you can throw darts at it for today or something?

[ECHOES]

I hope you'll tell him abou this and how it made you feel.

Next time, can you say, "Whoa, wait. What do you mean Whatever?! That was something I want to talk about at this time"?

Yeah, the Whatever hit me hard. We did discuss it. He said that he wasn't angry and that he meant nothing by it. But he didn't read my email that I put everything into. He made me feel like I wasn't worth him taking five minutes out of his time to read it. This too shal pass. Thanks!