Couch 249: The Self Care Couch

Posts 667 & 668 are more evidence SD is transmogrifying into a T.

Also, week 2, day 1 exercise done. Boy is it hot, even with the AC on. The humidity just infiltrates everything.

Just a thought - yeah, sometimes reality intrudes on the session. But the work you do at the "practice", therapeutic level should eventually help you cope at the real world level. If it doesnt, it just means more therapy is needed, not that reality is wrong.

The second one kept telling me I was psychologically minded – I thought she was insulting me. Honestly I had no idea what she was talking about

It's good you waited. I don't think a client could have really come back and knocked on the door, the way the office is set up. But had someone actually shown up to retrieve them, I might have felt differently? I don't know Ex-T and ex-MC had a receptionist, so maybe he could have just taken them up there and had them deal with it?

I do feel like there's a difference between him scribbling on a notepad or typing in his phone (or even voice to text) "buy milk!" compared to contacting a client about something.

Idk, ngl, the voice to text thing is kinda blowing my mind! That is crossing some boundary. It seems so self-involved?! I dont want to know what hes thinking if its not about me. Another client i can pretend is a surrogate me.

Ultimately isn’t that an argument for eternal therapy?

Yeah, I'd rather he just type something so I don't have to know what it is. And the last time he did it, it wasn't translating correctly, so he had to take time to fix it.

The worst was definitely the time he took a call from his wife in the middle of a tornado warning as we were trying to work through a rupture. That was a couple years ago, not long after he'd returned to the office. In that case, I'd have preferred if he'd left the room.

I just did 40 years! I could've unalived someone and gotten out sooner!

Yeah i saw stars the time my penultimate t took a call to explain to the new gf where the cat litter was stored in the garage. I followed Sd's advice to yell now.

Ugh, yeah yelling seems the best option there.

The therapist just picking up the phone to text someone about their glasses being left behind would bug me because he didn’t ask first. I would not have cared if they just asked. When I was in therapy-the therapist was anticipating a call from her young daughter.
Her: Jersey, my daughter might be calling me soon to update me on if she needs to be picked up from school early because they are debating on canceling practice today.
Me: No problem. Thanks for the heads up.
All Dr. T had to do was put the glasses aside for 20 minutes. Or apologize for the interruption and ask if he could take a second to text the person who left them behind.

But this is not about the therapist really - it is more about how a client interacts with the therapist.
I find the focus on the therapist here to be off. Whether he was rude or not or wrong or whatever is not really the problem - the problem is how the client reacts. If it bothers the client - then tell the therapist. If the therapist doesn't like it - so what? that is why it is good to be the job - they don't really count in your life. They are the perfect place to practice things like this. If the therapist treats you in a way you think is wrong - tell them, quit, or go on being silently annoyed. I cannot imagine a therapist caring if an entire forum does not agree with them. I am reminded of when students come in and say things like "We all think X about the assigment or the reading or whatever" and my response is "I doubt it, but you are free to do so or to drop" = that is the choice

Thanks, Jersey. And there was a session when Dr. T said he had his phone on and out because his wife was sick, in case something happened with his son (this was a few years ago). I understood that and was fine with it, though admittedly felt a bit anxious that he'd get a text.

Though I disliked how ex-MC handled it a couple times, when he said, "I have to keep my phone out because there are a few crises brewing" (he worked with high-risk teens). I was bracing myself for a text and his needing to leave. That bothered me more compared to when I assumed he had his phone out because of his wife's illness--I think because it was about other clients. Hm, maybe that's the difference? Same with your therapist waiting on a call from her daughter.

I get this point as well. It is all part of the work in therapy to tell the therapist when you are bothered by something they say or do.

LT-

Do you think he may be less protective of your session time because he sees you so often? I wonder if he is more focused in session when working with clients that he only sees once a week because he knows that the hour is very precious in terms of hearing their story, helping them, working through things, etc. in just that one hour.

Maybe he's gotten a little lax with his intensity and focus on you since he knows you'll be back in 72 hours or whatever. I mean this is just a guess and it could be subconscious on his part. Just a thought since he doesn't appear to take your session time super seriously based on what you've said here. Not just with the glasses, but other interruptions, etc.

Thanks, Inky. I've wondered something similar, which could be another reason to reduce frequency. I also wonder if his knowing that I care about/love him, he's not so concerned about my leaving if he does something that bothers me. Like, "LT will understand." Or maybe just because I've been seeing him so long.

He told me early on that with long-term clients, he can sometimes sort of forget he's talking to a client, like treat them more like a friend, and that he needs to be cautious of that. So maybe there's also an element of that. I mean, if I were having lunch with a friend and they had to reply to a text from their partner, I wouldn't be particularly bothered (if they were on their phone the whole time, yes, but not for a brief exchange).

Hm, and maybe an element of my not saying something to him about this is that I also think, "Well, I'll be seeing him in a few days" or "most sessions, he's focused, so I can let this one go." Where if I only saw him once a week or every other week, I might be more likely to speak up. (Though in this particular case, I saw him Sunday and won''t be seeing him until Thursday.)

T's chemotherapy has been working really well, he has almost no more spread now. However, he now managed to fracture a bone since it wasn't protected by the tumor anymore, so now he has to not walk for 4 weeks, so he won't go into work. We'll have phone calls. Very glad for flipper though, excited to see him today!

On the phone topic (haven't read all the things, just gonna put my thoughts down):
First off my own experience, none of the Ts I have seen have ever actively used their phone, T tends to get a text or call at some point during session and then he'll go "I'll turn that off" and hits the mute button.

Flipper has offered something where on a specific day he'd be able to pick up the phone almost all the time, I sure hope and assume that he'd give other clients a headsup about that before the call. I can understand that, I think ex-MC did something like that once, I think that's fine as long as it's not constant.
Other than that, I think it's rude to use your phone, especially for reminders. If I imagine this with any other profession where you talk to people for a while, I think that becomes quite obvious: my lawyer better not text other clients during my paid time, and I'm sure I'd leave the office if they popped out their phone for a private reminder. Same with my regular doctor. And there's many, many customer facing jobs where while they of course have to spend less time with the customer, I've never seen anyone use their phone for personal use. If it's a store, they might pick up the store phone and go "hold for a moment", i.e. wait there is a customer I am already serving. Not to the customer in the shop go "hold on I'll serve this customer first".

Maybe I'm just old school, I strongly dislike how much people depend on their phones by now and I think it's ridiculous if you have to immediately respond to texts or can't remind yourself of stuff otherwise...