Out of Session Support

McKell, I think it is better not to put stuff in writing. I do my writing in my electronic journal and hope no one will subpoena my hard disk. That is also one reason it is kind of good that my insurance does not reimburse for my T's services. Without my submitting claims, there is no "paper trail" of my mental health, no record of a diagnosis, etc. As far as my insurance knows, I am not seeing a therapist. I don't think my T keeps notes, really. The only thing I have ever given him in writing is a poem I wrote and shared with him. He liked it so much, he asked if he could keep it. I wonder what he did with it. A couple of sessions ago, I was sharing an email with him that someone had written to me. After we were done with session, he made sure to give this back to me. The less paper trail the better, especially when you are involved in legal proceedings.

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sunrise said:
If confidentiality is waived due to the pdoc and therapist sharing the same office, OliviaC, perhaps you could put special instructions in your chart that information is not to be shared among the other clinic staff as per your express request. And have the pdoc and T both sign it, so no further breaches are made. The breach already caused this rupture between you and your T (and was just plain rude in my opinion). Maybe you can prevent further problems by taking a measure such as I suggest.

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Thanks Sunrise. I am still considering dropping therapy altogether, as I am less depressed although still very anxiety ridden which this whole situation with T does not help. Strangely I do not feel so betrayed by my pdoc as I probably should. I think it is due to the fact that she does seem to care quite alot about her patients but is swamped with work and takes on too much.

I will limit my emails to her for sure and the content! I need her for my medication scripts so will continue with her. I saved my emails to her where I wrote about my T (her employee), and in most of them I asked her explicitly not to forward mail to my T. I guess she felt it was in my (and maybe my T's) best interest to do it anyway, I don't know. I just can't get angry at her because I instinctively trust she is not trying to sabotage my therapy.

The T relationship is another issue. She was visibly angry and even though I was crying (sobbing) during the visit where she told me I was hindering her and that she felt defensive and attacked, she continued to berate me for the whole session. I think the rift is too great to my relationship with her to repair. I don't know. She has excellent credentials and has had material on Medscape when she was still at Emory University a couple years ago. She showed a lot of care for me for the first half-year I saw her. I definitely will not start over with a new therapist. If I do stay, I will ask if I can have a written, signed agreement, as you mention above. Thanks again.

OliviaC what a difficult situation with your T. I don't know what I would do if my T actually expressed anger or disappointment to me. At this point I've projected my personal feelings of anger and disappointment with myself onto her and had great difficultly handling it. Luckily, I SHARED this on PC and my friends here kindly pointed out that I was projecting. My T at this point has never outwardly expressed anger or disappointment with me. If she did, I'm not sure I could handle it. I'd likely respond defensively like a child with a colorful, "F*&^% You" and quit. I admire you for trying working through this in a an adult manner, even if in the end you decide to discontinue.