Therapist talks too much

I initially thought this new T was the best I’d ever had. However had a terrible session last week. I felt awful afterwards, it triggered my ancient feelings of shame. I don’t know what percentage of time the T talked for, it could be as much as 75 or 80%. It was all psychowaffle. But included reflections on the damage of my childhood emotional neglect. She didn’t put it in those words. I tried to stop her a couple of times, and introduced the subject that I wanted to talk about, but she somehow carried on. The immediate impact on me is that I feel suddenly less confident (it goes with the shame). Also it feels harder to contemplate talking to her about difficult stuff. It’s hard to now wait a week to see her again, not knowing how she will respond when I try to say something to her about it. She seems adaptable and responsive. I’m trying to find the best way to talk to her about this that will get the best out of her. One of my immediate thoughts after the session was that I’d wasted my money. I find therapists always think they need to be doing some greater task than ‘simply’ listening to and responding to the things a client brings. I think that that seemingly simple task seems virtually impossible for a T.

Hopefully your T would have reflected and wondered what was happening between you both in the room that caused her to talk more than it's usual for her..

Thanks, yes, she may well have reflected on it. I don’t know, but perhaps it was as much the content of what she said rather than the amount of time she spoke for that made it a horrible session for me. I did try to intervene. With hindsight I wish I’d been more assertive and direct. It felt rude to be more direct.

Therapy is a good place to be rude.

I really love that statement. However, I had a bad experience with my last long term therapist who I saw for two years. I have doubts that a therapist can take it. Perhaps this one is different. I hope she is.

You are paying for her time, in which you get a chance to talk about what you need to discuss.

If she is talking, she is wasting the time you are paying for.

Is there any way you could say something in writing rather than saying it out loud?

Thanks for the suggestion, but I feel able to talk to her out loud about all this, and I prefer to do that.

I discussed it with her at the next session. She was really surprised at what I said to her, it was a difficult session. Since then we’ve talked about it a bit more, but somehow not quite resolved the rupture. I can’t sleep properly. I like her a lot and I want to carry on seeing her, but on the other hand if I don’t start sleeping better I’m not going to be able to function at work. I’ve decided to quit. I find therapy so incredibly hard. I wish she had something like this when I’ve talked to her about the ‘rupture’: ‘ I don’t get everything right and I see now that I didn’t give you what you needed last week’. Instead she was a bit silent, and she came back the next week with some reflections about me, and I had the feeling that the source of our rupture was being placed firmly with me. I don’t know if my feeling was accurate. I wish she had been gentle and humble. I don’t know if I’ll ever try therapy again. I’ve 95% decided I’m going to quit.

Eeeek.. I remember a session whrn I said something to T and she reacted to it. The next session I brought it up and she apologised and said this was something from her past and she could have handled it better.. It still stung the memory, but she didn't put it on me..

That was great that she did that. I