Overall it went really really well. He listened, said he was sorry, said he didn’t handle last week well at all, understood where I was coming from, and at the end said he wanted to continue processing/working on all this with me.
Right when I sat down I said that I wanted to go over everything starting with our Tuesday session 2 weeks ago. I told him that seeing a consult therapist was in no way because I wanted to end therapy with him, I really just wanted another perspective, and another option/ or opinion. I told him what the other therapist had said in terms of creating a “support group” of people that can all bring different aspects of health, for example seeing an acupuncturist, a massage therapist, and a spiritual mentor, at the same time staying with my therapist for talk therapy. I also told him about the other place he told he told me about that offers DBT groups and workshops all focused on trauma. After I told him all that he said a couple things, basically thanking me for explaining all of this, and that he did misunderstand and/or assume some things.
Then I also talked some about how I feel about the way he handled the “termination” and that I feel it was unethical and honestly just cruel. I also went into some of my feelings around him being cold and detached. He listened to all of that, and seemed to really hear and understand what I was saying.
**I wanted to add in my little breakthrough moment so I don’t forget! (I lost my little mic thing 2 weeks ago and haven’t recorded sessions, great timing huh?!?) I was talking about reading what “proper” terminations are, and that it’s supposed to be a process done over a period of time and there should be 3 termination sessions for every year in therapy, and everything that should be talked about during pre-termination. So after explaining all that I said, “And I know that I didn’t do anything so awful that would make it so that I don’t deserve all that. I deserve to be treated with respect, and it’s not okay for anyone, including you, to treat me with anything less than that.” He looked really happy and also a little surprised and said, “Wait, what did you say?” and I said again, “I said I deserve to be treated with respect!” And I don’t remember exactly what he said after that but something about how I sound completely different than I did in our session two weeks ago and he’s really amazed and something about how he thinks it great.
I don’t know exactly how I went from believing that I deserve absolutely nothing, and I am on put on this earth for people to take advantage of, to now 2 weeks later, honestly believing in my core that I deserve respect… but that’s pretty cool I guess!
I think this was the point when he said he's amazed how well I’m doing, and I explained how I still feel everything that I felt last week, even though I’m trying to take this session to explain and talk and discuss things clearly, and he said that he understands and I’m doing an amazing job doing that!
Then he asked me what I want to do now….. wow that’s a loaded question… I was kinda confused and didn’t really know how to respond, so I said that he knows what MY plan was for us and our professional relationship, but obviously our plans didn’t match up. I said that I know that I am only one side of this relationship and there are other reasons that don’t have anything to do with me that would cause you to need to end our working relationship, such as any counter-transference that you would feel prevents us from working together any longer. Even if I say “yes I want to keep working with you!” I don’t want him to feel pressured whatsoever if there is any counter-transference or any reason at all that he can’t continue working with me. He seemed sort of surprised by all that and said that he hadn’t heard me take a listening approach in here before and that it was nice to watch.
So then I told him about my crazy week of dreams, and that was pretty much the end. He asked if I felt heard during this session again (he also asked in the middle), and I said yes and that I’m very proud of him and that he did a good job today. He laughed looked a little awkward when I said that which was funny. So we have a session next week… I don’t know exactly what's going to happen like if I'm going to stay with him or whatever, but for now we are in agreement that we have a lot to talk about and work on and we are going to work though it together.
Yayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!!!
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Thanks for sharing from your session. I was wondering if you T gave any answers at all when you brought up him maybe dealing with countertransference? (i bet he didnt, but maybe he gave some reasons for why he acted like he did??)