Posted by fallsfall on May 29, 2004, at 13:14:59
In reply to Re: Maybe I can post this part, posted by Dinah on May 29, 2004, at 9:54:52
You don't need us. You articulated the answer perfectly yourself. (OK, you can need us all you want, but you don't need us to answer this question for you...)
>Anyway, I've decided to tell my therapist he needs to back off the looks thing for a while. That he's pushing something that is more important to him than it is to me, and making me feel even worse about myself in the process. I never even questioned my hair colour till now. And the thing I do want to change about myself (the weight) he pretty much ignores and doesn't give me much encouragement on.
Your "does he want to see me because I need it (i.e. he cares) or because he needs the income (i.e. he sees me only as a revenue generator)" is a common question for you. Does this theme generalize to others ("Everyone is ONLY looking out for themselves")? It is an important question, and one that you should talk to him about every (sigh) time it comes up. He has demonstrated that he will be honest with you (sometimes even when maybe he shouldn't be), so I think that you should be able to believe what he tells you (or at least know that he isn't going to tell you out and out lies). I'm sure that logistics (i.e. if he has a session available, and even if he isn't filling as many sessions as he would like) DO play *A PART* in decisions about offering/suggesting sessions. But my guess is that there are lots of things that play a part in these decisions. It is unethical for a therapist to encourage a patient to come more often than is therapeutically indicated. (But "therapeutically indicated" is a pretty loose term, and can two reasonable therapists could make good cases for opposite evaluations) Your therapist is not unethical (from everything I've heard). He might weight different factors (i.e. your shortterm needs, your long term needs, his schedule, his bank account, your dependency, his ego etc.) differently than you would - he is a different person with different perspectives. If the way that he weighs the factors is fundamentally abhorent to you, then he isn't a good match for you (but I really don't think that this will be true). Can you understand his weightings and be comfortable knowing that his algorithm is "reasonable" - even if it doesn't match what you, yourself, would choose? And see that, in order to have forever therapy with him, you will have to accept his weightings, just like you accept that he picks his nose?
I seriously doubt that he is a slimeball, or unethical. I also doubt if you will convince him to change the way he weights the various factors.
But you certainly can work to understand his reasoning better, and to accept "differences" more easily - so you can be more comfortable with the situation.
poster:fallsfall
thread:351655
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20040522/msgs/351863.html