[SarahSweden]

I´ve seen a new counselor at a counseling center run by the Salvation Army and I didn´t have high hopes about it as the people there isn´t psychotherapists but counsellors with less education than a therapist. (This is Sweden and it´s partly different from educations in Britain and the US for example).

I´ve already asked for a new counselor but I´m feeling bad over what happened in contact with this first counselor I met with.

I saw this therapist three times and two out of three times she had me waiting in the stairwell outside their door. I clearly heard her inside and I got there about 5 or 10 minutes prior to our meeting. I rang the doorbell first once and then waited like two or three minutes and rang the doorbell again and she then opened. This happened twice so I assume she didn´t like I rang the doorbell some minutes before the meeting started. Inside was a waiting room with tea, coffee and so on so there was no reason for her to not let me in, I could easily sit there a few minutes and wait for her to get our from their staff room and into our counselling room.

At our third meeting I got there and then this counsellor thought our room we used the two other times was too hot as the sun shone right into it. Although she had had her lunch before our session and she had been in the locality several times before she started to look for another room just before our meeting should start. I sat in the waiting area and she went through a list of which rooms were booked and not. She could have prepared all this before our meeting instead of running around and see if she could find another room.

Instead of greeting me and start our session with focus on me, the focus went to her searching for another room.

When we sat down in that other room I saw she couldn´t sit properly in the chair that belonged to that room and she also said at the end of our session that "those chairs weren´t for me". That is, she hadn´t prepared that either, that the room had a chair that she found comfortable to sit in.

I see this kind of behaviour rather often, counsellors acting unstructured and unprepared and like they´re seeing you for coffee or a quick chat or something. I see there are a lot of unprofessional counselors and in Sweden many of them work just parttime with counselling and they don´t need to be licensed to do that.

It works in a similar way within our public healthcare where they often hire counsellors who aren´t licensed and by that they don´t know or care about the importance of being well-prepared, to start the session on time, to remember what was said the last time and so on.

Even if I´m not a counselor my common sense would tell me to look for a suitable room to use with my client well in advance before my client would show up. I would also count on that my client will possibly come to session some minutes before the sessions starts and I would be prepared to open the door when he/she rang the doorbell. That is, I wouldn´t start a phone call, make coffee, use the bathroom like five minutes before the session starts when I know there´s a great chance/"risk" that my client will arrive.

For those who like to critizise instead of showing understanding towards what happened to people in therapy I recommend to read a few posts by therapists like Nathalia Perevalova or David McPhee at the Quora forum. They are both highly professional and don´t look for ways of blaming the clients for what happened together with their therapists.

[Nammu]

You are doing it again, focusing all your attention and energy on whats wrong with the counsel instead of focusing on you and WHY you seek out therapy. Forget about finding your fantasy perfect therapist and work on YOU.

[SarahSweden]

And you keep writing those invalidating answers to my posts as if you think I will agree with you. I´m sure many of the members here at PC and other forums would have reacted to how this counselor acted.

You use your standard answer to most of those opinions although things like being on time, being prepared, creating a safe environment for the client is nothing more than basic skills that every decent therapist should be able to use. But no - to you most things depend on the client and that the client is overreacting, not accepting the therapist and so on.

Originally Posted by Nammu

You are doing it again, focusing all your attention and energy on whats wrong with the counsel instead of focusing on you and WHY you seek out therapy. Forget about finding your fantasy perfect therapist and work on YOU.

[stopdog]

I would not find any of that to be annoying or unprofessional. I also think David McPhee is an asshole.
But if it is all that is there is for you to choose from, are you going to find a way to use them even in a less than perfect setting for you? If not, okay but why keep going?

[Rive.]

It's always somebody else's fault that you can't be helped. ALL the counsellors you have seen are incompetent & unprofessional. ALL posters who try to help you focus on you (i.e. those who are not enabling you in adopting a 'victim' mentality), are criticising.

The pattern is the same: it is always others who are at fault and you take no accountability.

[SarahSweden]

Thanks. I´m not planning to continue with this counselor and I´ve asked to see another. I don´t know if that will be possible, if not, I don´t have any options really.


I´ve thought of letting things be many times but as I at the same time still are depressed and feel stuck in life I wanted to give this counseling center a chance even if I knew they don´t give proper psychotherapy.

It´s like that more or less everywhere here unless you can pay out of your own pocket, then you can get access to therapy that fits your personal needs and problems.

Originally Posted by stopdog

I would not find any of that to be annoying or unprofessional. I also think David McPhee is an asshole.
But if it is all that is there is for you to choose from, are you going to find a way to use them even in a less than perfect setting for you? If not, okay but why keep going?

[Salmon77]

At our third meeting I got there and then this counsellor thought our room we used the two other times was too hot as the sun shone right into it. Although she had had her lunch before our session and she had been in the locality several times before she started to look for another room just before our meeting should start. I sat in the waiting area and she went through a list of which rooms were booked and not. She could have prepared all this before our meeting instead of running around and see if she could find another room.

This does sound a bit annoying, but not a huge deal. I can see how she would have to look at the last second. The sun moves, maybe it wasn't shining in like that earlier, or maybe she was overdressed, or having a hot flash, who knows. It doesn't really matter.

I do think it would be better to focus more on yourself and what you're trying to get out of the meeting and less on these minor annoyances. Nobody is perfect but if you try I imagine you could still have a useful conversation.

[AliceKate]

I'm gonna have to say I would also find these things very annoying. I'd go with it for some time, see if it gets better though. But yeah, she should've been prepared and started your session on time. The phone call though I think is okay. She should of course take care to not harm client confidentiality, but as long as she did that, I think that it's fair for a consellor to use the time between sessions for such things, as I get not wanting to "waste" an hour in your day to set aside for such mundane tasks.

[Etcetera1]

Originally Posted by SarahSweden

II´ve already asked for a new counselor but I´m feeling bad over what happened in contact with this first counselor I met with. (...) This happened twice so I assume she didn´t like I rang the doorbell some minutes before the meeting started.

Sounds like your depressive negative feelings make you take this personally when it's most likely not personal. Hopefully the therapy will help you learn how not to see little things so negatively.

Inside was a waiting room with tea, coffee and so on so there was no reason for her to not let me in, I could easily sit there a few minutes and wait for her to get our from their staff room and into our counselling room.

"There was no reason for her to"

Is a sweeping generalisation without enough information for you to jump to conclusions.

At our third meeting I got there and then this counsellor thought our room we used the two other times was too hot as the sun shone right into it. Although she had had her lunch before our session and she had been in the locality several times before she started to look for another room just before our meeting should start. I sat in the waiting area and she went through a list of which rooms were booked and not. She could have prepared all this before our meeting instead of running around and see if she could find another room.

Again a sweeping generalisation without enough information for you to.....

Instead of greeting me and start our session with focus on me, the focus went to her searching for another room.

Again your depressive negative feelings talking and making you take everything personally. This isn't about "focus".

When we sat down in that other room I saw she couldn´t sit properly in the chair that belonged to that room and she also said at the end of our session that "those chairs weren´t for me". That is, she hadn´t prepared that either, that the room had a chair that she found comfortable to sit in.

Why does that even need to bother you in the least? Why does everyone need to be so crazy well prepared all the time? Some people do not need to prepare for everything in detail and yet they can pull off things quite well. We are all different. Just learn to accept people with their little imperfections. Sometimes they are not even imperfections, simply differences in lifestyle, personality, ....

I see this kind of behaviour rather often, counsellors acting unstructured and unprepared and like they´re seeing you for coffee or a quick chat or something. I see there are a lot of unprofessional counselors and in Sweden many of them work just parttime with counselling and they don´t need to be licensed to do that.

I wouldn't call this unprofessional. It's also up to personal preference. I would actually feel more relaxed if the counsellor was relaxed like that herself. Makes the atmosphere more natural or something.

It works in a similar way within our public healthcare where they often hire counsellors who aren´t licensed and by that they don´t know or care about the importance of being well-prepared, to start the session on time, to remember what was said the last time and so on.

You're not their only client, so it's totally forgivable and actually realistic if they don't remember every small detail.

Even if I´m not a counselor my common sense would tell me to look for a suitable room to use with my client well in advance before my client would show up. I would also count on that my client will possibly come to session some minutes before the sessions starts and I would be prepared to open the door when he/she rang the doorbell. That is, I wouldn´t start a phone call, make coffee, use the bathroom like five minutes before the session starts when I know there´s a great chance/"risk" that my client will arrive.

And my common sense would tell me to take care of these things whenever I can. Last minute or not. The client isn't required to arrive early! If I were a counsellor, I would not give my break time away like that. If I have to go to the toilet, then I have to go. Etc. The client who's early can wait outside, it won't hurt them.

For those who like to critizise instead of showing understanding towards

Yes, you certainly like to criticise.... Learn to relax more, and show understanding towards your counsellors.

[stopdog]

It is not the client's job to be understanding to a therapist or whatever these people are

[Etcetera1]

Originally Posted by stopdog

It is not the client's job to be understanding to a therapist or whatever these people are

Actually that only exists in theory that the client doesn't have to be understanding at all. In reality this doesn't exist and doesn't work

[stopdog]

I think they need to be held to it. They say it so I believe they mean it and I go with it

[mote.of.soul]

I agree with your post @SarahSweden. If these counselors and therapists are going to do the job, then do it right. It's a basic value. And in their job, compassion and consideration towards the client should always be paramount. All the things you mentioned are red flags to me, undermining 'trust in the process' before it's even started.

But in saying that - good luck to you. 🙏

[Favorite Jeans]

It’s annoying. It is. But people are annoying. The world is annoying. The only thing you control is you. So: do you really want to spend so much of your time being so intensely put out by the fact that someone else is an imperfect human? Is your approach really serving you so well?

Could you find it in yourself to have compassion for this counsellor who can’t find a comfortable room or chair and probably doesn’t get much time between clients? It’s not that they’re entitled to your compassion, it’s that it would likely be helpful, maybe even therapeutic, for you to develop the reflex of being more generous in attributing motives and explanations for other people’s relatively benign behaviours. Like every time you feel slighted, you could see if there’s another way to look at the situation, one that is kind to everyone involved.

[atisketatasket]

Originally Posted by Etcetera1

Actually that only exists in theory that the client doesn't have to be understanding at all. In reality this doesn't exist and doesn't work

I am pretty sure it existed and worked for stopdog.

And others on here.

So, Sarah, the counselor is annoying, sorry to hear that. I guess the real question is, how are you going to handle it with her?

[Favorite Jeans]

Originally Posted by atisketatasket

I am pretty sure it existed and worked for stopdog.

And others on here.

So, Sarah, the counselor is annoying, sorry to hear that. I guess the real question is, how are you going to handle it with her?

Agree. It’s a choice. Therapy can be both a unique context and one in which our ways of interacting with the world come into focus. It’s the idea that how you do anything is how you do everything. (The idea is simplistic and reductionist but can still be useful: when an issue develops with a therapist, it’s likely not the only place that issue is coming up.)

If the way we interact with our world and everyone in it brings us so much misery (a thing Sarah has said often) it’s worth examining in the safety of therapy.

You don’t owe the counsellor anything and it sure would be nice to have access to a competent professional who was ready to see you on time in the right room. But oh my goodness if you have that much contempt for everyone’s imperfections (including your own) of course it gets in the way of having the kind of connections that make life feel fuller and happier.

[WastingAsparagus]

Originally Posted by stopdog

It is not the client's job to be understanding to a therapist or whatever these people are

I agree with this. I wish my past therapist understood that otherwise I wouldn't have wasted two years with her.

She kept basically alluding to the fact that her feelings would be hurt if I ended therapy. Totally unprofessional.

Anyway, I know therapy can be a process in terms of finding the right person at the right time.

It also can totally suck when you don't feel validated or even respected by your therapist.

I don't know why some therapists just can't keep it a little more professional, to be honest.

[divine1966]

It’s annoying. But annoying things do happen. If it was the first annoying counselor you met I’d not worry and just look for another. But there’s a pattern. I’d try to address the pattern. It’s not about therapists and counselors. It’s your general approach to life

If you do get a new counselor I’d start right away by addressing extreme rigid thinking (extreme recurring generalizations are also part of that rigid thinking) . Id probably even share the reason why you didn’t like previous counselor (she didn’t ran to the door immediately, didn’t find a good chair, spent too long on looking for a room), it would be a great start. Something to work on

I personally think you are misdiagnosed and there is more to your rigid thinking than depression. But if they aren’t diagnosing you then you can work on it without diagnosis. Or work on it besides therapy. On your own.

Every time you assume something happened because of XYZ ask yourself if you have enough facts to assume that. Ask yourself if there might be some reasons for things people do or don’t things when you get annoyed. Focus on why you react this way and why you assume and generalize.

I am not even talking about therapists but your view on people in general. Your view on therapists or counselors is likely not that different than your views on people in general.

Of course you have an option to continue these patterns but how does it help you to lead a better life?

[SarahSweden]

Thanks. I don´t find it too much to ask for that a therapist is able to go to the door and open it when she knows her client will probably be there like five or ten minutes before the meeting starts. It´s comparable to, at least for me, that if I know someone will visit me and we have decided a time when this person will come to my home and visit me, I don´t start or answer a call just a few minutes before his/her arrival. Of course I hadn´t let the person stand in the stairwell for several minutes before I go to the door and open it.

This counselor might have gotten an important call she couldn´t ignore but then she can still go quickly to the door and let me in and that hadn´t interfered with the call.

Originally Posted by AliceKate

I'm gonna have to say I would also find these things very annoying. I'd go with it for some time, see if it gets better though. But yeah, she should've been prepared and started your session on time. The phone call though I think is okay. She should of course take care to not harm client confidentiality, but as long as she did that, I think that it's fair for a consellor to use the time between sessions for such things, as I get not wanting to "waste" an hour in your day to set aside for such mundane tasks.

[SarahSweden]

Thanks for your understanding. Yes, I think it´s just basic skills when it comes to meeting with people in a role as a therapist. I can of course excuse some minor things but not when I see there´s a pattern in being unprepared or if the focus goes to other things than starting the meeting with me when I´ve come to the facility.

It also depends on if the counselor shows understanding and if she recognizes the fact that it perhaps didn´t feel ok for me to sit there waiting for here to find another room or that she couldn´t sit properly in the chair in the room she choosed.

But she didn´t pay attention to such things but focused on her and her need to switch rooms which I per se can understand.

Originally Posted by mote.of.soul

I agree with your post @SarahSweden. If these counselors and therapists are going to do the job, then do it right. It's a basic value. And in their job, compassion and consideration towards the client should always be paramount. All the things you mentioned are red flags to me, undermining 'trust in the process' before it's even started.

But in saying that - good luck to you. 🙏

[SarahSweden]

Thanks. I partly agree on how you suggest I could handle this but thing it´s more applicable to situations with friends or family, and not to the same extent with a therapist. I shouldn´t have to be understanding of her, to excuse her and so on. Of course I excuse minor things that happen along the road but not if there´s a pattern in being less prepared or not having time to go open the door when I ring the door bell or if she hasn´t booked a room where she can find a comfortable chair.

Also, it wasn´t those things only which I mentioned in my first post that made me decide to not continue with her but it was also her therapeutic orientation. She was more CBT orientated and I need more of understanding and validation in what have happened to me, what has lead up to the situation I´m in and so on. As I can´t pay out of my own pocket I can´t choose therapists and it was a coordinator at the counseling center who sent me to this counselor.

Originally Posted by Favorite Jeans

It’s annoying. It is. But people are annoying. The world is annoying. The only thing you control is you. So: do you really want to spend so much of your time being so intensely put out by the fact that someone else is an imperfect human? Is your approach really serving you so well?

Could you find it in yourself to have compassion for this counsellor who can’t find a comfortable room or chair and probably doesn’t get much time between clients? It’s not that they’re entitled to your compassion, it’s that it would likely be helpful, maybe even therapeutic, for you to develop the reflex of being more generous in attributing motives and explanations for other people’s relatively benign behaviours. Like every time you feel slighted, you could see if there’s another way to look at the situation, one that is kind to everyone involved.

[SarahSweden]

I´m not going to see her anymore as her orientation and skills didn´t match what I need besides those issues I mentioned in my first post.

Originally Posted by atisketatasket

I am pretty sure it existed and worked for stopdog.

And others on here.

So, Sarah, the counselor is annoying, sorry to hear that. I guess the real question is, how are you going to handle it with her?

[AliceKate]

Originally Posted by SarahSweden

Thanks. I don´t find it too much to ask for that a therapist is able to go to the door and open it when she knows her client will probably be there like five or ten minutes before the meeting starts. It´s comparable to, at least for me, that if I know someone will visit me and we have decided a time when this person will come to my home and visit me, I don´t start or answer a call just a few minutes before his/her arrival. Of course I hadn´t let the person stand in the stairwell for several minutes before I go to the door and open it.

This counselor might have gotten an important call she couldn´t ignore but then she can still go quickly to the door and let me in and that hadn´t interfered with the call.

I agree with the part of someone visiting your home, but therapists do have calls to make to insurers and so on, so them using the 10 min of off-time in between sessions makes perfect sense to me. It's like when I want to reach my doctor, I sometimes have to try calling him many times over the course of a day to reach him, so even if the counsellor set asside 60min to do administrative stuff every day, she might need to make calls in between sessions.

Rgearding opening the door, of course it should be opened, but if they're on the phone, them taking a short time before opening it is fair. Imagine she has a distressed client on the other line and tells them that she has to open the door and leaves them crying their heart out.

[SarahSweden]

Thanks. Yes, I completely agree on what you write about my way of interacting with a therapist is similar to how I interact with anyone else. One of the first things I told this counselor was that I react strongly to things like the therapist being like ten minutes late and I also told her that this pattern is similar to how I react outside the therapy room.

I didn´t get an understanding about that, she didn´t seem to get what I meant and she surely didn´t go along and wanted to examine such a thing. This depends on, once again, that this counselor and several others I´ve seen, has just a basic knowledge about therapy. They aren´t educated in how to examine "the why" behind a client´s actions, at least not beyond the client´s own explanation. That is, I told her I feel ignored and unimportant but she didn´t proceed any discussion about those thoughts.

So it´s not simply a question of contempt on my side but a feeling of unsafety, of not being important enough to meet a therapist who is fully prepared to see me and so on.

Originally Posted by Favorite Jeans

Agree. It’s a choice. Therapy can be both a unique context and one in which our ways of interacting with the world come into focus. It’s the idea that how you do anything is how you do everything. (The idea is simplistic and reductionist but can still be useful: when an issue develops with a therapist, it’s likely not the only place that issue is coming up.)

If the way we interact with our world and everyone in it brings us so much misery (a thing Sarah has said often) it’s worth examining in the safety of therapy.

You don’t owe the counsellor anything and it sure would be nice to have access to a competent professional who was ready to see you on time in the right room. But oh my goodness if you have that much contempt for everyone’s imperfections (including your own) of course it gets in the way of having the kind of connections that make life feel fuller and happier.

[SarahSweden]

Thanks. Firstly, I´ve already answered you about my diagnoses and the diagnosing I´ve gone through at the mental health care facility I visited up until last autumn. But as you point to that again I can tell you that I went through a full neuropsychiatric evaluation and they didn´t find any sign of autism, ADHD, ADD or any other neuropsychiatric condition.

I was also screened for personality disorders and there wasn´t any signs of such an disorder. I don´t know what diagnosis you keep referring to or think I have but I don´t have any other diagnoses than depression and anxiety.

I´ve told all those people I´ve seen that I have difficulties with relationships that most probably comes from me being rather lonely and left out in school as a child. But that´s not a diagnosis per se and within our public health care they don´t "treat" such conditions unless they can see severe trauma, then they offer you a trauma treatment.

I totally agree that a therapist should address things like why I didn´t like my previous counsellor, what happened in that relationship, what went wrong and so on.

One of the first things I mentioned to this counselor was an example of me being upset if the counselor/therapist is like ten minutes late and how my reactions are similar to those "outside the therapy room". That we need to look into patterns and so on.

She more or less didn´t seem to understand what I meant and surely she didn´t acknowledge what I said to include that as an important part of therapy. I´ve seen this many times before, that our less qualified counselors don´t have the skills to work on this level.

They can meet the clients in simplier talks about things that have happened and to vent, but not in how to change patterns, to see where those patterns come from and so on.

I can say that as I´ve seen several counselors now and every time something came up, like the therapist being late, the therapist saying something hurtful and similar some of them perhaps said they were sorry but they never worked on the relationship and tried to interpret or help me understand my reactions. I asked for exactly this with the counselor I saw for more than two years and nothing came out of that.

Yes, I agree I can ask myself if there might be other reasons for this counselor to not open the door when I rang her doorbell once or why she hadn´t prepared our room until I was already at the facility.

But on an emotional level I still feel let down, not important and I also feel insecure about how the counselor feel about me. It had been another thing if I understood this counselor has the knowledge to explore such issues with me but she didn´t at all acknowledge those things happening and didn´t seem to reflect on how them had affected me.

Again, I´ve seen this many times and I also told this counselor in an earlier meeting that it´s not just simply an excuse I´m after but to work on what happened. Nothing came out of that as she isn´t licensed and I´m rather sure she can´t work on that deeper level.

Originally Posted by divine1966

It’s annoying. But annoying things do happen. If it was the first annoying counselor you met I’d not worry and just look for another. But there’s a pattern. I’d try to address the pattern. It’s not about therapists and counselors. It’s your general approach to life

If you do get a new counselor I’d start right away by addressing extreme rigid thinking (extreme recurring generalizations are also part of that rigid thinking) . Id probably even share the reason why you didn’t like previous counselor (she didn’t ran to the door immediately, didn’t find a good chair, spent too long on looking for a room), it would be a great start. Something to work on

I personally think you are misdiagnosed and there is more to your rigid thinking than depression. But if they aren’t diagnosing you then you can work on it without diagnosis. Or work on it besides therapy. On your own.

Every time you assume something happened because of XYZ ask yourself if you have enough facts to assume that. Ask yourself if there might be some reasons for things people do or don’t things when you get annoyed. Focus on why you react this way and why you assume and generalize.

I am not even talking about therapists but your view on people in general. Your view on therapists or counselors is likely not that different than your views on people in general.

Of course you have an option to continue these patterns but how does it help you to lead a better life?