[Calilady]

Falling out w/my former T has left me fluctuating between knowing it was the right thing to do and placing the blame squarely on my shoulders.

For the past month, I had argued w/my family and friends and remained firmly entrenched on ex-therapist's side about some comments she had made. Now, I alternate my stance on those comments as well.

I had developed an attachment to her, only after considering leaving therapy and I couldn't just run this time. I was emotionally tied to her. This all stemmed around the fact that I had become attracted to a woman who resembled her.

Here are some comments she had made within the past month or so:

I told my former T, "I can't tell my mom that I'm emotionally attached to you as my therapist in any way. She'd get jealous."
Her reply was, "Oh, you can't tell her about us?"

The use of the term "us" had me stuttering. In the context of admitting to being attracted to a woman who looks like her and having much guilt and shame over the possibility that I might be attracted to my former T (because I was very sexually attracted to a woman who reminded me of her), I took the "us" comment the wrong way. It actually made me feel uneasy.

After a grueling session of discussing my strong sexual attraction to this woman who resembles her, she ended the session by telling me how she enjoys to go to strip clubs (for kicks, she said) and that she would have to visit the one I was talking about and asked if I had been to another local strip club that is all nude rather than topless. She told me I should read the Yelp reviews, as they were hilarious- including one where a guy wondered if he was gonna get "murder-raped" in that sketchy location. She asked me if it was alright if she took the her therapist business partner, someone I know as well. By this time, I was attached and in full care taking mode. I implored her to take some guys with them, because the crowd at the strip club could be rowdy. In the next session, she relayed to me that she had told her business partner/fellow colleague about going to the strip club and that this girl replied, "So I take it that there is someone there who looks like us?"

In the next session, after she and I spent the majority of the time dispelling any attraction I thought I had to her, she ended it by telling me that while she was in school and working as a bartender, she had been approached by a strip club owner who saw her and immediately offered her a tryout to work the pole on "open dance night." "I could have had a much different career, (my name)."

At the end of the session after that, when I tried to separate the two women, she brought it back together. To her I said, "Well, maybe you and this woman don't look too much alike apart from your hairstyle." She laughed. "(My name), you know that we have much more in common besides our hairstyle!"

I stuttered and stammered. I kept having visions of this other woman who is a stripper and I've seen nearly nude and has performed lap dances for me in a very intimate setting. I then saw my former therapist this way when she said that. All I could think of to say was, "Anyways...onto a different subject." I was uncomfortable. And there were other examples, but those were within the past month or so.

Then again, we were always friendly. Maybe my friends and family are wrong. We'd joke around a lot. She jokingly said, "***** please" to me and I called her an asshole, back. I viewed her as more of a friend and she admitted that she thought we'd be friends, had it not been for me as her client, half-way through my time there.

Just, with her comments above, I couldn't disassociate the sexual connotations through her joking and it just kept my mind there. Having difficulty and much shame/guilt over being gay, the only place I allowed myself to look at women was the strip club. And every time I went, I struggled with getting my former T outta my head when I saw the dancer who resembled her.

Maybe it's my fault and I took her innocuous comments and ran with them because it was so difficult to accept my sexuality. That could certainly be the case...

[southernsky]

I think it is definitely possible she intended it as a harmless joke because those are jokes I can picture myself making to a friend, but I do think that it is very reasonable to question if she should have been so casual in joking around about a topic that you were struggling with. Was the joking around really helpful to you in reaching the goals you came to therapy to achieve? I'm guessing no. That should be the point of how a therapist interacts with you - not to fulfill their own needs, not to amuse themselves, and not merely to be your friend, but to help you make progress on the problems you came there for. It sounds like your therapist probably should have kept more firm and clear boundaries with you to avoid this sort of confusion and distress.

[ramonajones]

Originally Posted by Calilady

Falling out w/my former T has left me fluctuating between knowing it was the right thing to do and placing the blame squarely on my shoulders.

For the past month, I had argued w/my family and friends and remained firmly entrenched on ex-therapist's side about some comments she had made. Now, I alternate my stance on those comments as well.

I had developed an attachment to her, only after considering leaving therapy and I couldn't just run this time. I was emotionally tied to her. This all stemmed around the fact that I had become attracted to a woman who resembled her.

Here are some comments she had made within the past month or so:

I told my former T, "I can't tell my mom that I'm emotionally attached to you as my therapist in any way. She'd get jealous."
Her reply was, "Oh, you can't tell her about us?"

The use of the term "us" had me stuttering. In the context of admitting to being attracted to a woman who looks like her and having much guilt and shame over the possibility that I might be attracted to my former T (because I was very sexually attracted to a woman who reminded me of her), I took the "us" comment the wrong way. It actually made me feel uneasy.

After a grueling session of discussing my strong sexual attraction to this woman who resembles her, she ended the session by telling me how she enjoys to go to strip clubs (for kicks, she said) and that she would have to visit the one I was talking about and asked if I had been to another local strip club that is all nude rather than topless. She told me I should read the Yelp reviews, as they were hilarious- including one where a guy wondered if he was gonna get "murder-raped" in that sketchy location. She asked me if it was alright if she took the her therapist business partner, someone I know as well. By this time, I was attached and in full care taking mode. I implored her to take some guys with them, because the crowd at the strip club could be rowdy. In the next session, she relayed to me that she had told her business partner/fellow colleague about going to the strip club and that this girl replied, "So I take it that there is someone there who looks like us?"

In the next session, after she and I spent the majority of the time dispelling any attraction I thought I had to her, she ended it by telling me that while she was in school and working as a bartender, she had been approached by a strip club owner who saw her and immediately offered her a tryout to work the pole on "open dance night." "I could have had a much different career, (my name)."

At the end of the session after that, when I tried to separate the two women, she brought it back together. To her I said, "Well, maybe you and this woman don't look too much alike apart from your hairstyle." She laughed. "(My name), you know that we have much more in common besides our hairstyle!"

I stuttered and stammered. I kept having visions of this other woman who is a stripper and I've seen nearly nude and has performed lap dances for me in a very intimate setting. I then saw my former therapist this way when she said that. All I could think of to say was, "Anyways...onto a different subject." I was uncomfortable. And there were other examples, but those were within the past month or so.

Then again, we were always friendly. Maybe my friends and family are wrong. We'd joke around a lot. She jokingly said, "***** please" to me and I called her an asshole, back. I viewed her as more of a friend and she admitted that she thought we'd be friends, had it not been for me as her client, half-way through my time there.

Just, with her comments above, I couldn't disassociate the sexual connotations through her joking and it just kept my mind there. Having difficulty and much shame/guilt over being gay, the only place I allowed myself to look at women was the strip club. And every time I went, I struggled with getting my former T outta my head when I saw the dancer who resembled her.

Maybe it's my fault and I took her innocuous comments and ran with them because it was so difficult to accept my sexuality. That could certainly be the case...

NOT cool. Don't tell your patient that you were almost a stripper. Just DON'T.