Hello Daisy, I'm sorry you ended up losing half of your session through no fault of your own. Yeah it really sucks when a T still finishes bang on time even though you couldn't do anything about being late. I've had that happen to me twice with two different therapists and neither of them even mentioned the loss of session time, they just finished at the usual time as if it was like a normal session (I'd have liked at least an aplogy for having to finish on time or some acknowledgement of how it made me feel, just so I could feel that it mattered to them that I missed out on precious time )

I also get how unsettling it was for you and how the actual session you had ended up making you feel worse. There's not a lot can be done about it because it seems your T has been very clear about finishing on time regardless of the reasons for lateness (what about when HE is late, does he make up your session time then?) The thing is though that it has affected you negatively, and it sounds like this is something you could bring in next session to talk about, how you felt uncared for and unimportant. Even if the point of talking about how you feel isn't to get him to change his boundaries, it's still important that you feel able to express how it all makes you feel.

From your other posts about this T, I get the impression that he comes across as a bit cold and uninvolved during your sessions. (I remember you saying that he seemed to be applying a lot of pressure on you to do more work since you switched to self funding.) Have you been able to talk to him about how the way he relates to you makes you feel? What sort of T is he, do you know? Would he welcome your opening up to him about how he makes you feel?

I'm sorry again that you've been left feeling worse for having had a session than no session at all, and I hope you are coping ok and not giving in to the pressure to SI.

LL

I'm sorry Daisy. He should have been more sensitive in ending the session. Perhaps even followed up with a phone call.

LadyGrey, Thank you for acknowledging how I feel.

LL, in fairness to him he did acknowledge that this would be a short session when I arrived; I just don’t think I realised at that point how short 25 minutes really is. In the 2 years that I have been seeing him he has never once been late.

Thank you for remembering my previous posts. I think when I’ve posted it’s when things haven’t been going well so it comes across that he is cold when most of the time he gets it spot on which is why when he misses something it feels so bad. For the past few weeks I have been going through a rough patch and he has made me feel understood and cared for – until this week! I remember posting about the self-funding and that resolved itself as he started to work for himself on a Saturday so I now pay a third of what the hospital charged and I think because he is less concerned about how much I’m paying there is a lot less pressure.

He works primarily from a gestalt perspective so he would most definitely welcome me opening up to him about how he makes me feel – I just have a huge amount of trouble doing so. A lot of my therapy is him trying to get me to express what I’m feeling, what I need and to not push people away. What I should do is email him to tell him how the session made me feel (that is what he has told me to do in the past if things are hanging around from the session) but somehow I just can’t seem to manage it as I feel it was all my fault for being late so why do I have any right to express how upset I am.

Daisy