{"id":26832,"date":"2015-01-30T08:00:31","date_gmt":"2015-01-30T16:00:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/?p=26832"},"modified":"2016-05-23T02:12:38","modified_gmt":"2016-05-23T09:12:38","slug":"another-abandonment-my-therapist-wont-see-me-anymore","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/dear-gt\/another-abandonment-my-therapist-wont-see-me-anymore","title":{"rendered":"Another Abandonment? My Therapist Won’t See Me Anymore!"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s easy to understand why you feel hurt; your experience with this therapist is a reminder of previous abandonments<\/a> in your life. Perhaps those abandonments are even the reason you are seeking a therapeutic relationship\u00e2\u20ac\u201dso you can work out your feelings. Good for you! Working through complicated feelings, and arriving at a better understanding of why you feel them, is one of the great benefits of psychotherapy<\/a>.<\/p>\n

You have an \u00e2\u20ac\u0153ache in your chest,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d need help, and have the courage<\/a> and wisdom<\/a> to seek it. Unfortunately, you did not find the help you were looking for this time, but I hope that this experience will not put you off of therapy, and that you will try, try again with someone new. Although I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know some of the specifics regarding your situation, it seems to me that your experience with this particular therapist is not typical.<\/p>\n

[fat_widget_left]<\/p>\n

I am not sure of the exact timing of your sessions, such as when your treatment started, when the first three meetings took place, and when the hiatus occurred. Knowing the sequence and the rhythm of the proceedings would make it a bit easier to understand what might have happened. In any event, although you describe your relationship with the therapist as \u00e2\u20ac\u0153on and off,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d you were committed to the treatment and you felt surprised when you called to schedule your fourth session and found that she was unavailable. Clearly, you were expecting her to wait for you to come back and you felt hurt when she wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t there. In short, you were \u00e2\u20ac\u0153on\u00e2\u20ac\u009d but she was \u00e2\u20ac\u0153off.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

Best I can tell, the therapist ended treatment over the phone. The usual practice is to meet together in person before terminating treatment. I agree with you that a face-to-face meeting would have been more appropriate. It is possible that the therapist\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time simply filled up while you were away and scheduling became more difficult, but I wish you had both tried to find a time that worked for the two of you to meet. That clearly would have helped you move forward, if only in the direction of another therapist you would feel more embraced by.<\/p>\n

You wanted to say goodbye and achieve some closure to understand what was going on and maybe even feel better, as you mention in your letter. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m curious as to what you feel a proper ending looks like\u00e2\u20ac\u201dwhat you want to say to her, and what you want her to say to you. What are the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153loose ends\u00e2\u20ac\u009d you want to tie up? These are important issues, and I hope you discuss them with your next therapist.<\/p>\n

You also asked for advice about what to do next. Again, I hope this experience won\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t stop you from starting anew with another therapist. Find a therapist <\/a>who can help you learn how to participate in a relationship that is, simply, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153on.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

Best wishes,
\nLynn<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lynn Somerstein, PhD, E-RYT, responds to our latest reader-submitted Dear GoodTherapy.org question.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":526,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[625],"tags":[403,522,25],"class_list":["post-26832","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dear-goodtherapy","tag-abandonment","tag-dear-gt","tag-psychotherapy-issues"],"acf":{"author_show":false,"author_name":"","author_role":"","author_avatar":null,"author_profile_url":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26832","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/526"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26832"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26832\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26832"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26832"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26832"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}