Hi lostandsad

I'm so sorry you have so little support from your T. I think it would be extremely difficult to get any therapeutic value from such little contact. That's not your fault at all. It's too difficult to learn to feel safe when there is no predictable and regular rythme to the appointments. It seems cruel to open up topics that are painful and then leave you for weeks to cope Shows total lack of understanding of trauma and client feelings.

Whether you send the letter or admend parts of it, I would say that your reactions are understandable and that you need some better help. Hope it's ok to say that.

SB

Lostandsad, your name says so much.

I thought your letter showed impressive insight, and I feel like it would be a service to the T to receive it. Sending it might result in a willingness for him to make more time for you, or the offer for a more available therapist referral.

Whether or not you send it, I sincerely, sincerely hope you get what you need!

SB and Exploring,

Thank you for your responses. It is cruel to open up such topics, especially because I have zero support from anyone other my T in real life. I'm quite fed up of being passed around like that. I really am done with therapy. All I needed from them was some compassion and for someone to believe in me. Oh well.

I've yet to send the letter, but I think I'll just send him the first three paragraphs and leave it at that. There's very little point in telling him the rest.

Again, I really appreciate both your responses, Exploring and SB.

Lostandsad,

I'm really sorry things have been so tough for you. I think you have been really clear in identifying what will and will not work for you and, although it may not feel like it, choosing not to be sold short seems to me to be a positive step in a negative situation, if that makes any sense.

Personally I think your whole letter does a very good job of explaining why you want to terminate and I think your T might find the detail useful - but I understand why you might want to keep it brief if you are not wanting to enter into dialogue. I once wrote to a T to explain my termination. I think you were way more eloquent than I was! ;-)

It is very hard not to interpret poor therapy experiences as rejections. I know that I found it extremely difficult to try a different therapist after a bad experience. I took the failure of the relationship as a sign that I wasn't good enough, important enough to care about.

I think that with the right T it can be possible to work in the way you've written about and to have a healing experience by building a mutually trusting therapeutic relationship. Many Ts are sensitive to their clients' need for regular appointments and I agree with the other comments that working at any depth is really not possible with irregular and infrequent appointments. Sometimes it takes going in with a clear list of expectations and discussing them with the T in question before agreeing to try working with them, although I appreciate how difficult it can be when you are struggling to go in with that sort of 'customer' mindset.

Hope that was useful.

Pengs and Mallard:

I feel so blessed to have found this site. I re-read my letter and finally decided that it is probably a good idea to send the therapist the whole letter, with a few corrections of course.

Hopefully something good will come out of it, and even if it doesn't, I'm still glad I gave therapy a shot. Perhaps someday I'll find someone who'll be able to give me what I want. Till then, I just have to find a way to continue.

Both your replies were very helpful and instrumental in helping me making the decision of sending the whole letter, which I now know is the right decision.



I'm going to have to delete my original post because I don't want my therapist to find me here. Once again, thank you!!