Posted by Suedehead on March 3, 2009, at 8:11:10
I've been seeing my therapist twice a week since April. My insurance provider covers 50 sessions per year, and I've just run out (the year starts in September, so the period from April-August was no problem). Actually, I ran out sometime in February. My therapist and I obviously knew that this would happen, and we talked about it sometime last summer. He told me that when the time came, he'd charge me a reduced rate and we agreed that I'd get a part-time job once the coverage was up in order to help pay for it (I'm in grad school and working full-time during the school year isn't really an option for me right now). The thing is, when I agreed to all this, it wasn't really *real* to me. It seemed such a long time in the future, you know? I had this irrational sense that the money problem would just work itself out. That I'd magically have more money by the time my coverage ran out, or that my insurance provider would just decide to keep paying. Which I know is crazy, but still. And in my less fanciful moods, when I really was able to acknowledge the reality of the situation, I kind of suspected that I wouldn't really be able to work even part-time while in school, and I knew that even if I *did* get a job, I'd have a hard time being able to afford his fee (I'd be paying him more than I pay in rent). In other words, I knew I was agreeing to something I wouldn't be able to stick to.
So we've been talking about all this the last couple of sessions. We really need to figure out what we're going to do. We decided that the summer won't be a problem--I'll be able to work full-time, and then I really *will* be able to afford to see him (though I'm pretty thankful that my insurance will kick in again after a couple of months!). So what we're really worried about is the period from now until May. I can't work, I can't afford to pay him on my grant alone, and I can't just stop seeing him, because I am incredibly attached to him and feel that I'd just fall apart without him right now. Besides, we've just started working on some really serious stuff that I've been trying to talk to him about for months and months (but have been too scared to bring up). Bad timing. He suggested that we go to one session/week until May, but then said that he didn't really want to do that. Neither do I, obviously. He told me that in lots of ways he's tempted to offer me an even lower fee, or to charge me for just one session/week while I continue seeing him for two, but that he's worried that this would do more harm than good, in the long-term (he's probably right). So this is an impossible situation, right? He did say that one option would be for me to pay what I can until the summer and then pay him back the rest when I have a job. That seems like it may be the best bet. But it makes me really uneasy to go into debt to someone--I've never been in this kind of financial mess before.
Sorry to ramble on about this for so long. I imagine that this sort of thing happens a lot! Does anyone have any thoughts/advice? Thanks for listening.
poster:Suedehead
thread:883474
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20090227/msgs/883474.html