I am sure I am oversimplifying because I haven't been around this forum long enough. But that would so not work for me. I wouldn't even want to expend the energy to try to figure out what she wrote. Therapy is about the relationship and unless your whole therapy is email-based, I think that kind of email discussion is inappropriate. She sounds like she is making it more complicated than it is; too much manipulation for me, even bordering on re-traumatizing. I would be inclined to cut my losses and split. On my terms. But that's me. I am so sorry you are having to go through this.

-drifty

Wow Sheychen...

I'm likely speaking out of my own stuff here, so take my input very lightly.

Something feel weird about what she wrote. It's so clinical and completely not attunted to your needs. It's like she's quoting form a textbook - and not just quoting but trying to have you fit her box of what she's can deal with.

If can't meet what you need, she can't meet them and it's like she's... in denial so much about it... it's like she is saying: you will now have less needs in this next period of time... and it seems like she is moving on, in a dutiful way, to "finishing"... what I don't think she can finish...

I dunno how you should respond.

I can see a real purpose and role for having an old T still meet with you as you transition to another T.

From reading along with your other posts, I don't think she can meet what you need, and I really think that's her stuff - her limitations. That seems really clear.

If you are terminating because she can't meet what you need, you need more than she can do, then now having her move on to "remaining issues"... well it's like she is moving onto the next step of therapy, regardless if you are ready or not, simply because she can't continue in this phase.

She doesn't seem very "with" you at all, not attuned at all. She seems very... I'd almost stay unsteady.

I would find it hard to trust and navigate this. I would also find it very hard to end and very tempting to continue.

I dunno how you should respond, but I would want to ask, "what of my needs could you meet in the next three months if we meet while I find another t?" and make it clear to her, you can't just move on to another phase of therapy because she can't be in the "middle" anymore, you still may need to be there.

As painful as it is, no matter what she does, I would try to remember, to not expect her to provide what you will need in full. Maybe she can still be helpful. It is hard because it does appear she is going to expect your needs will just be less. If she says *she* needs to move to less contact - ok. You still may need more, and you gotta find a T who can provide that. You can't just automatically need less.

And she seems really out of sync with that reality. Like in denial...

I dunno. I have my own issues around T terminations...

I'm sorry you are having to deal with this. Keep posting and writing.

Gosh, thanks Drifty and also JaneDoe. I am as confused as I come across. Jane, I have posted your reply on my blog, under JD, (I do hope that is okay, tell me if not) cos I think you have hit the nail on the head, SHE is saying I am in the middle, SHE is saying I need less time now, etc, and it denies where I am at completely. she is so in denial.

It would be fascinating except that my heart and mind is deeply enmeshed in this, it is SO REAL LIFE for me, not a case study. Sigh.

Thanks for posting guys, I am working on it and I am going to ask Nick to work on it too. No one else names their T, I have not named her but interestingly I name him.

??

some people have said she is so not listening to me that I should exit now. but I am not very good at leaving. Some people say she is hugely in denial about the level of her own anger and enmeshment and that she prefers to see me as a manipulative unpleasant client, it lets her off the hook.
It is like she is hiding behind 'I am creating strict boundaries, I have done nothing wrong and you might walk out at this stage because of the emails and letters I am sending you, but that is ALL your stuff and nothing to do with the way I am handling this." Of course that is SO much easier for her to believe.

I also think she has been over empathising and getting very entangled in my anger
see
http://home.webuniverse.net/babette/Empathy.html
on Understanding the Dangers of Empathy.

Also I personally think there is huge transference and counter transference going on but I am the only one who is admitting that.
see
http://home.webuniverse.net/babette/Tansference.html

My review is tomorrow, please think of me.

Hmm… that whole paragraph that you quoted just screams “textbook” to me. Interesting that she decided to email you that whole paragraph. It seems a little overwhelming and scary to me?

I can’t give you any advice on what you should be doing in this review because I have no experience with this, nor have I ever heard of what gets talk about in a review. Don’t feel like you have to go into this knowing the answer to what's next… Seriously no one can know what's next! I think all of your brainstorming and ideas about your father and inner child are all really good answers though. And if she puts you on the spot don’t be afraid to simply say “I don’t have an answer for that!”
Good luck, I hope it goes well.

-Mac

I am sitting here with about one hour to go, and feeling really really scared.
I hope it don't come home howling with crying.
S

Thinking of you, Sheychen. Take it easy.

Jones

Sheychen,
The hour right before is the worst part. Try to remember that you've survived much worse things than your T. And though there may be emotional pain, you're not in the danger that you body is telling you. Just remember to breathe.

AG

Am thinking of you Sheychen.

Butterfly

This is what I wrote on my blog:

Wednesday, 13 October 2010
The Final Chapter of Newfinder
So NewFinder panicked on Crisis Friday and decided that Sheychen was way beyond primary care and needed mental health services, (which means in actuality that Sheychen gets LESS time and NO in between support but can be seen indefinately).
NewFinder decided that the part of LostChild that said liked the attention on that Friday was too much and that kind of complex 'mental issue' needed mental health teams and not primary care. Of course I felt judged.
I feel that NewFinder panicked and has misjudged me seriously. NewFinder has decided that I am far worse than I actually am. My other therapist, First Finder, is horrified. And also feels really upset about what NewFinder has done. FirstFinder saw me once in deep pain, and just supported me and knew that it was just a pressure cooker of pain blowing. NewFinder just panics. She SAID she felt steady, but you know, I am more aware of what was happening than she was.


So we come to the end of chapters on NewFinder.


Also when I arrived, I waited 13 agonising minutes over time, in the waiting room and when I got in to the counselling room, I asked if I could just have a moment to say a prayer. NewFinder said "We only have five minutes left now."



God! I wept. I blurted out " But you said "How would it be if we had an hour and a quarter, from 2.00 p.m. until 3.15 p.m.?" in your email, and in your letter you said 2pm to 3pm"
I got up feeling all upset and nearly left the room.
It just threw me.
She had the grace to apologise. That she had misremembered and thought it was 1pm-2.15pm
and said "well we only have til 3pm"
So I said, " My review session that was booked from 2pm to 3.15pm which was one hour and one quarter is now down to three quarters of an hour, because YOU have made a mistake."
So she went and asked for the next client to be phoned to ask to come a little bit later.
god. I cannot work with someone who is so blase about my current fragility and does not even make sure they have the RIGHT session time. She assumed ASSUMED, that I was being provocative and manipulative and was deliberately being late. THAT is how she sees me. She did not assume she had got the time wrong. She sat for over an hour assuming I was playing some game or other because she now sees me as some complex mental problem.


And the fact that she did not even remember the right time for such an important meeting and that it so upset me was seen as evidence to show how seriously complex my issues are and that she is not able to meet that level of deep mental illness.


I think it speaks volumes that she did not even remember the correct time of the session.


I asked her: Do you still want to continue? She said she is there for me as she has always been. (Not exactly an answer to the question.)


I then asked her: Did you actually engineer the ending of my counselling time with you?
She made it very clear that the consequences of Crisis Friday made HER decide that she could not give me the help she needed and if that was a regular occurrence, she could not handle that. (Previously she had said that my doctor had forced her hand.) I argued that it is NOT a regular occurrence, that to me it felt like the pressure blew because she was not actually acknowledging the build up of pressure going on for me. I have blown once with each therapist I have had, when I have got to the core issue that felt the deepest I have gone. Once. It never ever became a 'regular occurrence' and the fact that she could think that shows that she has wrongly assessed me and actually knows so little about me. She was out of her depth (what we have been saying all the way along) and felt it was a good time to pass me on to someone else. She has NOT passed me on to someone else though, there is only the psychologist who can give me less time than she has been doing and is even less aware of trauma issues.


She also made me go through what was happening with the part of me that was pleased to have got her time and attention whilst completely disrupting her day on that Friday. I wish I was not so aware of my mind. I told her when I wrote the blog I was being provocative. She was not actually reading my blog at the time anyway. I said that I thought that incensed her and that is when she decided she had enough. She asked me why I was being provocative. I don't actually know. I think it was because she was not reading my blog and I wanted to see if she was by annoying her. But you know, I did not feel I could trust her and tell her that, because in the last six weeks she just stores such information and uses it against me later. Trust for me has totally broken down. She was not honest last week about how the ending had occurred.


She kept saying " your issues are far too complex and entangled for me to deal with here and I am being professional in passing you on to more long term psychotherapy care." I asked her to look at HOW she had done it, via email and cutting down all support in between at a vital time for me. This seemed irrelevant to her.


I told her that I thought her ' I can't give you interim support" meant " I won't' and only now do I realise it means, to her, I can't. And so then 10 minutes later she says she thought I was hearing " I won't care or help" when she was actually saying " i cannot care or help you the way you need.' which is what I had just said to her about ten minutes before.


so we finished with me saying:
"The biggest mistake you made was to panic on that weekend and judge me as far worse than I am. That is where you let me down" and I walked out the door, just as she was telling me that she had no session planned for me for next week as the surgery was shut on a Wedsnesday afternoon and she could offer Weds am (when I teach) or a phone appointment perhaps.


In some ways right now I feel calm and relieved. It was awful and yet in a way, I think her behaviour and attitude to me was upping the pressure in me and that her misunderstanding of me and the way I work and go deep, very deep, was beyond her usual way of working. She was does not have the depth to hold the depths I go to. And she would not even acknowledge how badly she has handled this whole ending process.
I now feel that I don't HAVE to keep trying to get her to understand me and I can go back to feeling much more okay in that I don't have that added trauma going on all the time.
She was just the wrong person in the end. And I did feel truly patronized by her.
Maybe in time I will come to feel grateful for the work we DID do, but right now I feel relief to be able to walk away. And yes, I did give her her cardigan back.


I rang FirstFinder and talked also with Serai, the two friends who have most stuck by me through this and who know me so well.
FirstFinder actually cried when she heard how NewFinder was to me. FirstFinder said "Oh Sheychen, it makes me so upset to hear how she is treating you and behaving to you. I truly think this is damaging to you, you need to walk away. She is obviously getting her needs met by 8 week clients who are so grateful and she has very little understanding of the depth and complexity of you mind and has over reacted. But those are HER failings. Let go of her."
I told FirstFinder that I am actually relieved that I can start working with the psychologist. (I have not got a name for him yet, maybe he won't get one, maybe i have got dissillusioned with all this blog writing, as it was because NewFinder read my blog that she found out so many things about me that she felt were not okay and not in her remit.)
I am actually looking forward to saying to the psychologist that I have a very wounded and fractured base to my psyche that comes from the six month old baby trauma and that I then have a toddler who has the most demanding need for attention and just will do anything suddenly for attention. I will just tell him straight. So that he knows and ask him if he will help me create strategies for that part of me that I can implement on my own so that I don't have this awful situation where I am beyond desperate.
And I like the idea that I can work with him indefinitely. I think I can get my life back on track.



On Friday I get to talk to him and see when we can start.


NewFinder is still offering three months of 50 minute sessions. With absolutely no contact in between.
Can i truly work with someone who sees me like this? I have to work out what is best FOR ME. I feel she has exhausted me. Truly exhausted me. She is so well defending and so determined in her assessment of me, that there is very little point continuing with her. It is not that I disagree that there are complex levels here, it is the way she is treating in this ending phase and how she mishears me that is truly causing the friction. I also feel she does not respect me but expects me to behave in strange ways, like be an hour late for this review session, or keep her cardigan even though she thought she asked for it back, or have complete wobbley's frequently or not be utterly grateful to her all the time. I did not meet her needs. And she could not see her own failings.
I have left it that I will email her. But if FirstFinder is strongly hoping I will not go back and even saying that NewFinder is actually doing damage to me, I think we know I have reached an end.


I still can't get over the way she did not even say "you are late!" but sat there and waited for me to say my little prayer and then said, 'Well, we only have 5 minutes." What kind of weirdo does she think I am?
I have lost trust and respect in her and she has lost trust and respect in me, so the therapeutic relationship is shattered.
And she cannot see that she has done ANYthing which might have caused that to happen.

Dear Sheychen,

I believe her error about the time ('we only have 5 minutes') is extremely telling. I think she had to have been very, very out of touch with what was going on in the moment to have made a mistake like that. My guess is she was panicked and/or dissociating. I think she is way, way out of her depth. That is not about you at all. You have my sympathy. You will get through this. Take care,

Jones

quote:

Originally posted by Sheychen:
She kept saying " your issues are far too complex and entangled for me to deal with here and I am being professional in passing you on to more long term psychotherapy care."

I don’t know if I’m off here, but I feel like that sentence should have been, “I am far too entangled in your issues to give you the help that you need and I am sorry for that.”

I would guess that she became too empathetic towards you, maybe not holding a healthy distance between her feelings and yours, and then panicked because of that. None of that should be blamed on you in anyway; saying that you are just too much for her is unprofessional, and also extremely cruel.

Despite whatever the reason may be, it’s a truly unfortunate/sad/disappointing/frustrating situation, and I’m very sorry for that.

(((((((Sheychen)))))))

I just edited my post a bit and added some feedback from my previous therapist whom I rung and who CRIED at how I am being treated. She actually CRIED.

so it feels like the end of an era.

Part of me says " well I didn't like her that much anyway' but I know my young parts did.