Posted by turtle on January 1, 2009, at 14:58:30
In reply to therapist no showed, posted by deerock on December 30, 2008, at 8:56:58
Deerock,
Trust and safety is such an important thing in therapy, something that I often struggle with. It's the therapist's job to provide a secure and safe framework, and missing sessions *is* a big deal.
Once my couple's therapist told us in advance that she was taking a week off, but I forgot and showed up at our usual time anyway. I sat outside the office alone for 30 minutes agonizing about whether to knock on the door. Maybe my partner was already in there? Maybe I had the meeting time wrong? Maybe I was in trouble because they thought I was late? Maybe they were talking about me and wanted to exclude me? What if I knocked on the door and I interrupted someone else's appointment? I didn't know what to do and was spinning a bit out of control. Luckily another therapist found me pacing outside the door and very kindly told me that my therapist was on vacation. Facing that locked door with no one there can be very emotionally difficult especially if you have trust and abandonment issues. I was definitely triggered by that event. What kinds of things came up for you when you realized that you were alone? And when it happened the second time?
In your case it wasn't your mistake (as it was with me) but instead it was your therapist that let you down. You are asking yourself whether you should terminate, and feel that you don't know how to move past this. If you haven't had experiences in the past of someone caring enough to talk through these issues and to try to genuinely make repairs, it's hard to imagine how it can happen.
One response could be to decide "you hurt me, and I'm going to leave to make sure you never hurt me again." I'm not sure what the rest of your relationship with your therapist is like. Has she been generally stable and present with you? Is she actively working to build trust? Or have there been repeated hurts that never get healed? With my first therapist, an event like this would have unfortunately led to termination. We were such a mismatch that in our two years together we did have many repeated hurts pile up, and I didn't have enough safety with her to talk through the issues. The few times I did try to talk through the ways she had hurt me, she would react with defensiveness, rejection, blaming, and open annoyance. It felt like she barely tolerated me. I was so afraid of her. I would have internalized the hurt, terminated, and had some very negative lessons reinforced in the process.
With my current therapist I'm confident that if this happened to me now we would get through it. I almost wish she would mess up so that I could go through this exercise with her. In our year together she has been very reliable and caring, and amazingly enough hasn't hurt me even once yet even though I keep expecting it. When I first started therapy with her I felt her quiet strength as she built up trust. It all seemed a very mysterious process to me. When I would take risks and tell her sensitive things, she somehow knew where to engage to give me support and not allow me to run away, all while not touching the sensitive areas until I was ready. I've never felt impatience or rejection from her once. We have a solid base to stand on. If she let me down now by missing our appointment, I know I would still feel all the same things that you probably just experienced. The big difference is that with this therapist, all of my other experiences with her have led me to feel safe enough to go in and tell her about my fear, anger, rejection, and hurt. I would tell her that it made me feel like running away. I would tell her that I dont know how to get around this, that it felt like I had to choose between continuing to be hurt by her or to close myself off completely and leave. It wouldn't be easy, but I have enough experience with sharing other things with her that I could see it as an option. With this therapist, she would listen to all of that with compassion and maybe show me another option to fix it that I can't see on my own. Maybe I would even have compassion for her too.
Something like this can bring up a lot valuable issues to work on in therapy. Is your relationship with your therapist otherwise good? If so, are you a little curious about how she might try to make repairs? Are you able to explore all of the feelings that came up with her? If so, get the most mileage you can out of this and explore as deeply as you can go. You might end up knowing yourself better and having a better relationship with your therapist. If you are not comfortable talking this through with your therapist, then maybe you would be better served finding a therapist that you did feel safe saying these things too. Even opening the topic of not feeling safe would be valuable too. I guess the point I'm trying to get to is that although the event is important (missed appointments) how the two of you work through it together is just as important.
Turtle
poster:turtle
thread:871397
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20081219/msgs/871810.html