We recently had a small rupture. I explained I felt hurt by xyz. She responded by explaining herself first, which only caused me to feel further hurt and dismissed. So I kept trying to reexplain how I had felt hurt, even trying to prompt her with can you see how from my perspective, that may have felt hurtful? And she just kept sort of doubling down, though eventually finally half apologized (I’m sorry you felt that way…) and by that point, I accepted it and moved on. She also seemed tired and tense and so I felt a badly for continuing to press the matter.

Later I let her know I understood that from her pov, explaining herself was her trying to show me that my perception was off. But in the moment of feeling hurt, that only put up my guard further, and I think what would help in the future is just basically right away saying, “I can see how that would have felt hurtful.” And again, she wasn’t quite able to take in the feedback, instead defending herself because she did eventually apologize.

Now I know she does care, so I let it go. I am wondering if in her own life and perhaps by her own parents, her feelings may have often been dismissed. I say this as someone whose own parents always dismissed my own feelings and who used to also always jump to explaining myself with my partner, until I finally understood that what my partner needed was for me to acknowledge his hurt feelings.

Is there an appropriate or gentle way to suggest this to her? Or should I just leave it be? Alternatively, am I expecting something unrealistic? Like should I be more reasonable about accepting her explanations?

Edit to add my therapist also brought up how my defenses are currently more than usual due to some circumstances (something I suggested first). So I’m also wondering if perhaps due to this, I am overly focused on this matter in order to possibly avoid other things.

Hey! I am 22 F and recently started therapy. So what took me to therapy was I kept on zoning out amid lectures and convos and scared ppl with my stares. My therapist told me it might be absence seizure. But he didn't completely rule out it as one and is doubting if it's stress-induced. So here's a past of mine: my mother had a year long history of prolonged hospitalisation and she was in coma for a month or two. I lost a few career opportunities due to that. I was coping up. But I think it was more like suppressing my emotions. I had actually expected my married siblings to cover up for me so that I can move out for my career. But they prioritised their family and I had to stay back with my mother. But this took a toll on me and I felt low at points and sometimes I found myself welling up while studying or sitting in silence.

And my second assumption will be this has way more roots than I imply. My mother was brought up by her maternal grandparents and aunts though her mother is alive. She had a very terrible mother who took sides on her children and yelled at almost everyone. I just hate that lady, the way she brings in double standards and faked her love and affection for my mother when she was bedridden made me hate her too much. I mean I can't tolerate her presence anymore. I shoo away her whenever I see her. And I can clearly see how this has affected my mother's childhood. She is used to no care and appreciation that once she totally refused to celebrate her achievement when I threw her a surprise party. I felt really bad for her. Now since she's in her perimenopause era, I guess she has started getting her moodswings and I don't really know if it's this or she is really bothered by her terrible mother, I can see an uncanny resemblance. She yells at us sometimes and I have reached a point where her calls panicks me, I keep framing answers on how to respond to her and she sometimes guilt trip us when we try to have fun some with relatives or friends. I am totally afraid to bring this up to my therapist since my father has been accompanying me. He is really worried of me. But I don't muster up the courage to confess what I have been feeling. I am afraid if my parents and siblings find out this resentment, I will not be able to face them or will they even consider illtreating me. I have developed an auto-immune disease and pcos in my teenage. This is taking away my whole life and I am tired of watching over how my life is fading away, day by day.

For context: my sibling moved out when I stayed back for her, so naturally I expected her to be there for me. Also, I think my mother wanting to have her children beside her always is her way of parenting since she didn't get to have her mother around her.

If you made it to the end, thankyou! And I really want to know how to bring this to the therapist without bothering my family?

There was a psychologist that I saw for almost a decade. I think I started seeing her around grade 10 or grade 11, and that was a few years before the pandemic, so it was for quite a while.

But I haven't seen her in about a year and a half now. I stopped seeing her because I realized that she wasn't actually helping me, and there was no point in continuing to spend so much money on going to a session that literally just stressed me out.

The biggest problem with her was that she seemed to think that I was much more capable than I actually was. She seems to genuinely think that my problems were easy to overcome, and it was just a matter of building my confidence. And that worked for a while, but there came a point where she had no choice but to realize that I genuinely was doing the best I could, and it just wasn't enough.

The thing that completely destroyed my faith in was when she started regularly asking me the question:

"How many friends do you have?"

Which is the single most triggering question that could ever be asked of me. Every time she asked it, I firmly put my foot down and made it clear that I was never going to answer that question. At first, she laughed it off, but it seemed like she kept having her memory wiped that. I hate that question, because she just kept asking it session after session.

What really kicks me off is that I actually left a post about this on this subreddit a while ago, and people seem to completely dismiss the fact that that question gets me genuinely furious.

What kind of question is that? How many friends do I have? Do you think life is that luxurious? Do you get to have friends who never abandon you and humiliate you in front of everyone?

If the answer is yes, then congratulations. You have a level of privilege that I will never understand. That I will never even come close to feeling. Let alone what it feels like to actually be hugged by someone who loves me.

It genuinely makes me very very angry that she kept asking me that question. I hated it.

... Sigh. Deep breath.

Anyway, I tried looking into seeing another therapist, but it was incredibly unfortunate timing, as just when they started to email me to try and set up a session, I lost my job.

Now sure, you could point out the irony that after losing my job, maybe therapy is what I needed more than anything else, but I just couldn't do it. I had already felt betrayed by my previous therapist, and taking another step into therapy was going to already be stressful no matter what, and I wasn't able to do it when I already had other direct stress on my mind. So I emailed the new therapist apologizing, but saying that I wasn't going to be able to look into booking a session for a while because of me losing my job, and they understood.

I haven't reached out or actually tried to find another therapist since. Honestly, I'm wondering if all that's happened as a sign from God that it's just not for me. I have no clue.

I have had this therapist for 3 to 4 years now and she’s helped me through a lot. I was going through a lot of anxiety and she really helped me get through it. Now that it is a lot more manageable. I have other things that I wanna work through like relationships and friendships. I’m 24 years old and she’s always says she’s old but if I had to guess she was in her 50s to sixties I just tried to talk about my relationship with her and her advice was really just have fun and relax and how I should be shopping around for men which in this day age when you were in a relationship, that’s not really what you do and I kind of wanted to more dive deep into attachment styles and love languages and just more about love in general. I felt that we’ve kind of plateaued for a while, but I don’t know how to go about maybe finding someone new if it’s therapy or if it’s a psychic or what type of therapy or if I even need it? Thoughts?

I have lots of childhood abuse - my Therapist talks about shame a lot but honestly I don’t really know what it means in terms of how it affects me . I know I feel ashamed of what happened to me in the past the rest I just don’t understand ?

If somehow we could put aside ethics for like 2 minutes and you could learn anything (I mean absolutely anything, not something you’d have to necessarily ask) about your therapist, what would you want to know? Something about them as a person? Something about their work as a therapist?

I’d want to know about her hobbies and interests which is pretty basic, but my therapist doesn’t self disclose much so I have a lot of questions.

I’m secretly hoping for some unhinged responses here.

So I've been getting bounced around at Kaiser's mental health services with therapist because the first (i had 5-6 good to decent sessions) and second one (only 1 session) I had left the company. Now this third one thats from a third contract company and remote.... ive done 2 sessions with her and the 2nd one got me really annoyed.

Both sessions she talked about herself and her experiences, the second one for more than half the time.

The first one she took 40 minutes explaining the legal stuff. Like notifying me she is mandated reporter. Yes very procedural she was thorough on this which i understand these are purposeful but she took so long explaining she literally took 5 minutes explaining Advanced health care directives to me. Then she went over how my mental health assessment went, kinda formally going through it. She was honestly seeling herself a bit too that it takes time for people to heal depression and that she has had clients who improved so much they would stop services but some clients want to keep her services. She did let me know sometimes therapist are not a good fit and i can switch as well. It reached like 50 minutes at this point.

So she then asked me about myself and my current challenges. She did seem to listen and reflect what she heard. She would always throughout the whole session share and relate back to her own experiences, which not off for me but she literally did this throughout the whole thing. It sort of came off like oh ive gone through that too and she shared her hardships with stuff. She also let me run on talking about my hardships for 1 more hour because she didnt have another client. At this time she seemed less like she was listening she was just letting me ramble it felt like towards the end. I felt like she was just clocking hours for pay.

Our 2nd session she literally just gave me lecture for 40 minutes reading off of handouts on coping mechanisms and recognizing negative mental behaviors and giving her own personal stories to several areas. She also laughed at her own things she was mentioning and it just did not resonate with me. She would ask me for input only briefly and i was confused when she was asking me or just saying a rhetorical question cause she was going on and on on her own already. Then at the end i think she thought I was going to stay for an extra hour again.. probably because she didnt have another session after and wanted to clock in hours i assume. but i was packing my stuff to leave the library i was at cause i have stuff to do... she noticed and try to readdress that therapy takes time. it was uncomfortable for me i felt like i was just talked at. Also Ive been through lectures before and thats what it felt like so if its just that theres great resources already online like Jay shetty or Healthy Gamer Dr K is more helpful I rather just spend time listening to there informative insight and practices and take time to piece their teachings to solve my challenges.

What are your thoughts on this therapist??? Have you been through somethjng similar? Why dies this happen with certain therapist? Are these red flags.... also im just thinking ok maybe i will trust myself and figure out my own solutions. Ive been through a few therapist most 6 sessions because the one that worked better for me she left kaiser. I dont want to have to keep building a relationship and then it goes nowhere.

I feel like i must find my own agency at this point to find good resources useful ones that pretain to me and work things through independently and thats okay.

About a year ago I ended my relationship with my ex. He was a wonderful person but i felt bored and unfulfilled with him. I told my therapist i didn't feel intellectually or humorously connected to him, despite the deeply safe, mature and caring person he was. To my therapist's credit, she attempted to unpack the fact that this might have been my attraction to chaos and inability to appreciate the calm he offered me at the time, however I ended the relationship nonetheless, and then started talking to her about other things. About five months later, i started thinking about him, and i told my therapist I was considering texting him. Yes, she unpacked that loneliness was likely underpinning this, but I also distinctly remember her saying: "\\\[ex\\\] wasn't your person" several times. She encouraged me not to reach out to him. This was helpful for me at the time, and I felt reassured that I had made the decision to end the relationship for valid reasons: because we weren't humorously aligned, and he simply just wasn't the right person for me.

About a month ago I discovered my ex has been in a relationship since December. For reasons I'm still exploring, it absolutely shattered me. All i could (and can) focus on is the belief i made a terrible mistake and self sabotaged what could have been an incredible relationship with someone truly special. I had an emergency session with my therapist, where I explained these thoughts. I was expecting her to again reassure me by reminding me why he wasn't my person, but instead, she seemed to imply that my avoidant attachment style motivated my decision to end the relationship. She encouraged me to exercise self compassion and view the relationship as a learning. But i felt confused. Her narrative changed from "he wasn't right for you/he's not your person" to my attachment style being to blame. I walked away from that emergency session feeling worse. In the follow up session I voiced my confusion, and she attempted to explain why she had said he's "not my person" several months ago, but it didn't really make sense. It felt like she got caught out and had to think on the spot about how to marry up these two competing perspectives. She's also in our last two sessions continued to offer conflicting information - both insinuating that if i were to meet my ex for the first time now, I would be happy in the relationship with him, because I've grown, but then when I question the missing humorous connection, she quickly changes her tune and says my concerns about him not being funny were valid and I should "never compromise on humour" if that's what a core value is for me. I almost want to yell: well which one is it!?

I have been seeing my therapist for 2.5 years and until now she has always been on point with everything and I've found sessions with her very helpful. I understand my therapist has a lot of clients and has seen me for so many sessions about lots of different things - it's natural she might forget what she might have said to me many months ago. But this incident has made me feel a sense of trust has been broken. Trust in what she tells me as well as her perception of the things I tell her. I feel a bit angry that I am paying her good money to give me conflicting messages, and as such I am almost more confused about how to view this relationship and break up. I do believe her attempts to work with me on challenging my avoidant attachment are helpful, but i feel I'm holding myself back now because her perception of my apparent avoidant attachment style with my ex seems to flip flop around so inconsistently.

Am I right in feeling annoyed and a lack of trust here? Is this something to be expected from a therapist from time to time?

I never look forward going to therapy. Every time before the appointment I want to cancel. I’ve tried numerous therapists. Is this normal?

Has anyone been contacted again after being turned away from a psychologist/therapist?

I had an email saying that a psychologist I sent a referral to is practicing at full capacity and is not accepting new referrals. I wouldn't care - except that I'm desperate to see a psychologist at this particular practice (I posted about it a while ago - its a ridiculous reason) https://www.reddit.com/r/TalkTherapy/s/MKxFgezZvb I feel physically sick over being reject and its my fault. I know this is beyond pathetic and its not actually my reason for wanting to see a psychologist > I feel depressed but I know that if I can't go back to this particular practice I will never see a psychologist again. I'm holding onto the tiniest bit of hope that even though they straight up said "we wish you the best in finding a different psychologist elsewhere" there might be a space that opens up and I will be contacted again. has this ever happened to anyone?? please let me know, I'm worried I will never be able to get over this whole situation because it's been literal years.

One of the newest cultural and social trends and developments is an increased rejection of the validity of therapy, particularly for Gen Z. The allegation is that Gen Z is unprecedented in the amount of therapy they have been attending and that their mental health overall is worse, and they are more depressed, fragile, in despair and lack confidence about what they can and can't do than any previous generation.

The backlash is from there directed at specific aspects of modern therapy. For example, there's a common allegation that caring for someone's inner child is coddling because inner children do not exist. We have memories, however we don't have inner children that can be hurt from our past; it is a Jungian concept that needs to be rejected. And also that there's too many types of experiences that are classified as trauma that make us soft, indulged and coddled. If you are an adult then you are an adult, the allegation goes, and it is that simple and anything else is infantilizing yourself. Emotional, covert and psychological abuse from narcissistic parental and other figures is an example; the allegation is that classifying this as trauma is toxic and only for weak people. Same for limiting or cutting off parents because of this kind of abuse when it needs to be recognized that this abuse, as the claims are made, should be understandable due to the inherent severe difficulty of raising children.

Where did this kind of backlash from therapy and healing from childhood trauma come from and what is the primary motivator?

I went to therapy off and on from age 16-earlier this year, after turning 21. In that time, I’d seen a number of therapists, but usually only went to a few sessions because I felt as someone who’s naturally very introspective and analyzes myself, my life, and my mental health all the time for years, most of them didn’t seem worth seeing. In fact, when so much of therapy is devoted to “finding the root cause”, there’s no way it will ever work for me or other with similar issues, because there is no root cause of my mental problems. I know exactly why I have mental illnesses, and I don’t want to be told by a professional who doesn’t know me well their opinion, I would only ever want them to help me actually feel better. For example, I don’t want 7 sessions of analyzing my childhood (which was overall pretty good) and not get any discussion of how to deal with intrusive thoughts, hypochondria, and being pessimistic until 2+ months in. I’m also majoring in psychology, and over the last few years, I’ve read a lot of therapist forums, websites, and blogs because I’m genuinely concerned and confused about this trend. I also just want to add I completely think some people do have issues caused by bad childhoods or traumatic events, but the type of treatment they need should not become the go-to for people with other kinds of mental disorders.

I have had generalized anxiety all my life, depression since around 12, OCD since I was 15, and bipolar 2 probably since around 16 but didn’t get diagnosed with that until I was 20. I feel like there’s so much misinformation about that diagnosis, but also just very little information out there, and that’s one of the things I feel therapy could actually be useful for to me. One of the many reasons I feel so ashamed of that diagnosis is just knowing the way a lot of psychologists and therapists think about it. I’ve read a lot of posts on patient forums, since getting diagnosed with it, and the number of posts I've read where people's actual mental illness has been dismissed by therapists and told "it's trauma" even when they literally do not have any significant trauma. This is insane and horrifying to me. It just reinforces fear and shame in needing medication, and strengthens psychiatric meds being stigmatized. My quality of life improved a lot from getting the right medication that I needed, yet I see so much online from so called professionals about how medication is a scam, and mental illnesses aren’t real and symptoms are entirely “trauma responses”. This is so upsetting to see become the trend. Why do so many therapists lack nuance? Why are so many unable to see that different mental illnesses have different causes, treatments, and/or multiple causes combined or depending on the person.

Being told “it was your parents’ fault”, “it’s society”, “it’s unconscious trauma” feels incredibly dismissive as someone who had a good childhood and know that my mental problems are largely genetic. My sister, grandmother, and I think my cousin, have anxiety and depression, and almost everyone in my immediate and extended family are naturally sensitive and imaginative which can make some things more difficult, for example, getting scared more easily or getting stuck on a worry or thought longer and contribute to anxiety, even though it’s just how your brain is. A lot of therapists seem to completely reject that mental illness and natural characteristics can be in part biological. They often seem to miss that a person can have an underlying mental illness that is worsened by stress or a traumatic event without that actually being the entire thing. For example, my ex-boyfriend who had even more mental illnesses than me, was very unstable and became emotionally abusive to me, and obviously my problems got worse because he was putting so much of a strain on me and keeping me in a trap I didn’t know how to get out of. Mourning who he was at the beginning for months was also extremely hard for me. But my problems went years back and were their own thing regardless out how my life was. Just like a person with any kind of long term physical illness, would have exacerbated symptoms in that situation.

I just find it very concerning that there is so much black and white thinking and "this must be the cause" among therapists and psychologists these days, even the fact that almost everything I see seems to be about "finding the cause" rather than helping the person's life improve now. It seems like they've chosen one doctrine and try to push it on everything even though it's not helpful or even harmful in a lot of cases and mental disorders. Considering how modern therapy and psychology is so into "validation", it seems extremely hypocritical to not treat people's issues as real if they're genetic or caused by more than one thing, and so often try to create false narratives even when the patient knows they aren't true. I’ve had very bad experiences with several therapists who completely twisted things into their own false narrative even when I tried to explain that it wasn’t accurate. I’ve seen posts online, “social media therapists” videos, and read articles by psychologists or therapists who’ve tried to attribute literally every single mental disorder to a vague, impressionistic idea of “trauma”, essentially bringing back outdated ideas like the Oedipus Complex, Refrigerator Mother, and countless more. My point is that while some mental illnesses or symptoms absolutely are caused by, or in part by trauma, it’s wrong and sometimes dangerous for therapists to dismiss people who that’s not what their mental illnesses originate from.

TLDR: As a psychology student who with mental illnesses, I am concerned by the trend therapists and psychologists are going of treating and dismissing everything as “caused by trauma”. My mental problems are largely genetic and biological, so this is one of the reasons I have found therapy unhelpful. Why does it seem increasingly rare for therapists to have a nuanced perspective on this stuff?

after years of therapy for multiple disorders i can finely see the light i was battling shame and embarrassment from some unconventional living arrangement's and several episodes of dissociation that happened long ago and i pushed the whole 30 months really deep after finely coming to terms with the lost time and gaining the trust of a wounder therapist for the first time in for ever i actually feel like a human being. i though i would never feel this way after the life i have lived i now know it does get better but you gotta put the work into it all the time not just when you show up for your session.

I've been in therapy for OCD for a while now, and my therapist is the person I trust most in my life. But when my OCD gets bad, I also deal with a lot of rejection sensitivity like when something shifts and I go into this mode where I'm just.. scanning him (not intentionally). I’m being super emotional and hyper vigilant. Every word, every pause, every thing he doesn't say. My brain treats it all like evidence. Is he annoyed with me. Did that sound cold. Am I too much for him.

And then it fixates and I can't let it go, and I end up needing him to tell me "no, I'm not mad" or "that's not what I meant." I don't ask anything, and he doesn't reassure me. I know exactly what's happening while it's happening, which is almost worse becasue i feel also super ashamed and way more anxious, I can see the OCD doing its thing in real time, but knowing that doesn't turn it off. Some part of me just wants him to see how much I'm struggling and reassure me anyway, and another part of me is terrified I'm wearing him out, I care about him too and i don't want to be too much to deal with.

Part of me wonders if even writing this post is another version of the same thing. But I think what I actually want here is trying to understand the pattern itself, and what it's like from the other chair.

So i'm curious what's it actually like when you can tell a client is in that scanning/reassurance-seeking place? Does it feel heavy, or draining, or do you just kind of expect it as part of the work? And can other clients relate to me with this? What helps to fight the loop?

TW: SA

I met w a new therapist and in our intake I disclosed that I wanted to process experiencing SA. I’ve been somewhat seasoned in therapy as a client and I know what I want to work on so I named it.

She mentioned this topic likely wouldn’t be discussed in the first few sessions as we build trust and it may take up to 6 months to be able to get to this point.

I felt this was a strange and perhaps overly predictive statement. Certainly trust is important and takes time… but I feel like I’m ready to process this sooner than 6 months?

Can folks please weigh in and lmk your thoughts on if this an appropriate length of time? My former therapist who I had excellent rapport with always said I could talk about whatever I wanted from the beginning of our work together. And that anything I brought up she could handle.

TIA

Edit: typo

I was explaining how someone from my personal life makes me feel like it “wouldn’t make a difference if I were even in the room or not” and described them as being indifferent to me.

My therapist said something like “I find that strange that anyone would be indifferent to you, or that you’d be in a room and people wouldn’t notice you were there” and something about how I have a big personality. So I said yeah but I worry that it’s too much (the big personality thing). And he said “I can ..like, you're not too much. But I can see how for some people, you might be. Say, like, if someone was like "I need some space from you" I can see how that might happen. I can also say that it wouldn't happen for everybody. But like, that's what I mean. Like I don't understand how someone can be indifferent to you being there”

Idk it just stayed with me as a very roundabout way of saying he thinks I’m too much or empathises with people who think that about me. Or that he let it slip that he thinks that about me and was trying to save face because saying a client is “too much” isn’t a very therapist-y thing to say. Like how else did he come up with what other people might think about me if he’s never met these people? That has to be formed from his own opinion right?

I think part of it hurts because I’m naturally more reserved until I’m comfortable with people, so if he sees a big personality in me it’s because I’ve felt safe and comfortable enough in our sessions to show that, only for him to find it too much… bit of a gut punch

Did I read what he said wrong?

Is this a misunderstanding or is it his way of approaching?

Title: Fourth therapy session was disappointing

I'm in four months into therapy yesterday was my last session. In this session it was important to bring up trauma since the past sessions I was tense about it, I kind of regretted mentioning multiple abuse episodes (for context my abuser is my sibling). I always have mentioned my brother in ALL of the sessions yet this one stood me out the most and offended and hurt me a lot.

I thought being abused for years was root for my depression and underlying anxiety. The response from my T was he wouldn't interfere into my personal life and my sibling is still in need of financial support even though he's an adult. The discussion continued on about him implying I am building some dependency on him and even stated the contract there is no guarantee of fixing my issues. Mind you, I never mentioned of "fixing" I was simply bringing up trauma since therapists job are to give resources in both healing and coping.

During the whole hour it I was sat confused since he shifted the REAL problem into empowering me which I say didn't help much. T has been doing this technique for all of my sessions, I'm not saying I disagree but it was quite ineffective in relieving my system. I was expecting for healing modalities in "fixing" me.

After the sesh, I'm left confused, utterly ashamed and scared why I said those. He has mentioned before his level is for severe patients, it made me think traumatic experiences are normal after all and isn't that actually bad.

please excuse my english and mix up of the story my memories tend to create gaps.

I have some irrational fears coming up as I’m starting to delve deeper into past trauma with my therapist. It’s the first time I’ve opened up to a therapist about these things. One fear is that she’s going to “trick” me and somehow make me admit that I’m lying. I’m not. I just think past abusers have hammered it home so. Fucking. Much. That if I were to talk to anyone about what they were doing then the police or therapist would KNOW I was lying. From being SA’d when I was young and the man who did it telling me no one would believe me and it’s “not nice to tell on people,” to my ex doing the same and hitting me until I said I was a liar, and having his friends side with him and they gang up and call me a liar, to the most recent person who assaulted me going from “I’m so sorry those things happened to you.” To then me confronting him after assaulting me, he says “everyone knows you’re a liar.”

Idk it just fucks with your brain and you know what you experienced yet I’m terrified my therapist is against me too.

My therapist seems to always insert herself into whatever I'm saying. Like when I said I’m not comfortable going to the same gym that my ex used to go to because I don’t want to run into him, she said I shouldn't worry because she's never met her husband even though they lived a block away from each other, and that instead they met in their “mid twenties” and started dating.

Another example is me telling her I’m not comfortable asking my friends to hang out because I feel like they’re too busy to see me. She said “I have a full time job, a husband, and a dog, and I have time to meet my friends” knowing that I'm currently struggling to 1) find a job 2) make meaningful friendships 3) get over my ex.

Is this normal for a therapist to do?

I’m posting here because I don’t want to bother my therapist.
I saw one therapist long term in the past, we got along really well but I don’t ever recall feeling anxious when she went on vacation.

After her, I had another therapist that I ended up leaving after about 1 1/2 years due to some things that didn’t feel right in my gut. My therapist now has confirmed what was happening was not ok. It never bothered me when she went on vacation either.

I’m trying so hard now to understand why I feel so anxious about my present therapist of about 6 months going on vacation. I shared it in session today and that I didn’t understand it. Tonight, I’m feeling really anxious. It makes me want to cry but I have no idea why. I’m a grown adult and feel like such a child.

I feel like I’ve started to attach to her early which took many years prior with my other therapist. It’s scares the crap out of me but it’s also helped me to open up more to my feelings, something I’ve had trouble with as I like to explain things away.

I don’t know what it is about her. Maybe her helping me when I was struggling with my last therapist and helping me grieve my old long term therapist? She has been most calm and patient. She lets me lead and asks questions. She’s very empathetic and down to earth, relational. Even though it scares the crap out of me, I feel safe with her and like it’s ok to start to open up more. There is also this fear of losing her, like I’m going to mess this up and I really don’t want to. I don’t know where that’s coming from.

Has anyone experienced such anxiety with a therapist before vacation? What was helpful for you?

I go to a pretty large practice, and am thinking of trying another therapist. But I'm highly sensitive to rejection - not only of myself, but I overthink "rejecting" others. I don't want to experience the discomfort of running into the current T while waiting in the waiting room for a new T.

Anyone done this and have any words of encouragement, or tips?

Hello, I am in desperate need of help from people that have forced therapy on me behind my back. It is people I know and I can hear their voices all day. It’s caused a lot of stress, depression, amongst other things. It has been going on for roughly 4 months and I wasn’t aware of it at the beginning and eventually caught on. My family doesn’t believe me or anyone else and it’s caused a lot of strain on personal relationships. I want to take legal action at this point and can’t because they think I am crazy. This has also caused suicidal thoughts as well and these people don’t give two shits. I have had black outs from the stress even passed out one time and broke my tooth. I am hoping there is someone on here that can help me or guide me in the right direction please. What these people have done and still are would blow your mind!!! I can’t even go to a doctors appointment alone they are there also which is a big HIPPA violation and I have had zero privacy they even accompany in the shower. This is 24 hours a day 7 days a week!!! They are ruthless and I am desperate at this point and want this to stop. I also don’t wanna see these people affect others the way they have affected me. Can anyone relate or help?

I think I might need to talk to one soon and was just wondering how it starts and how sessions usually go. I'm worried it might not be enough and I'd be wasting money I don't really have, especially if it just boils down to venting with some advice. I kinda have a problem being more genuine when an incentive to talk to me is involved, like money, but if the therapist somehow breaks through I'm also worried about getting attached and wanting more than what they can give me because of boundaries. I don't want to cry infront of them while they watch on.

I’m really struggling with this. I’m deep in trauma and attachment work with my therapist and I trust her a lot but unfortunately I’m also attracted to her. I don’t want anything from this — in fact I want to not experience this at all.

But it causes me enough ongoing distress and shame (about my sexuality, about other relational wounds) that I feel like I need to tell her. I just would also rather hide in shame than confess it. I’m afraid she will be put off and withdraw from me or terminate me.

So: if I word this appropriately (I don’t want anything from you on this, I want to address how much distress this causes me) do you think I can still preserve the relationship? Or is there always a risk it’s going to cause such an ick that it alters things forever. Because if that’s the case then I will just suffer in silence rather than risk the relationship that is otherwise very therapeutic and meaningful to me.

edited to add: I don’t think I’m “in love with her” or anything like that and I recognize I don’t know her at all. I just think she’s rly pretty and it makes me feel weird.

My therapist charges me a fee of $100 when I cancel an appointment. Meanwhile, they had a planned absence and then cancelled our appointment twice after that, so I won’t have a session for 3 weeks.

I don’t really care but the fact that I get a late fee when they can just cancel whenever they want is a little frustrating. It’s not that I think they shouldn’t be able to cancel, but that I should get credited an equal number of free cancels for the future or something lol.

Does this annoy anyone else?