I just sent a termination email

I’m not usually needy at all which is what confuses me about this!!! My therapist said the email thing is about “young” feelings so maybe that’s it. Who knows if it’ll ever get figured out.

The bolded part (which I guess is most of your post!) really resonates with me. I know what you mean about feeling like the misbehaving kid in therapy. I think it taps into stuff from our childhood, and hits us harder than it would if it was, say, a boss or friend changing the rules on it. I think the unilateral nature just contributes to that. It would be different if your T had come to you and said, "OK, I'm not sure emails are helpful to you--how should we deal with this?" Rather than just unilaterally deciding something. Do you think he really understands how it made you feel like a kid?

I think about how with my T, he said texts are just for scheduling. Months ago, I texted him after a session and said something about how I was struggling and wondered if I could have an extra session. He said how that was "intrusive" because I included the extra information, rather than just saying "do you have any openings tomorrow?" I had the same "kid who has been bad" feeling there. I didn't even know what I'd done wrong, but I had this reaction of almost submissiveness. He said it wasn't a big deal, that it bothered him briefly, and he was over it, but to me, it was this HUGE THING. And at the time, he didn't seem to understand, because he said it was just a fleeting feeling, he wasn't mad at me, etc. But because of stuff like transference, things like that can cut us to the core.

Sorry, I went on a tangent there. Just trying to say that I get it. And I think T's often don't realize how strongly things they do can affect us. I mean, ex-MC saying I had to reduce contact? That crushed me. While he was like, "You can still contact me, I'm not abandoning you." But yes, in a way he was... Anyway...

Do you think him taking away emailing he in a way abandoned you? Then when he goes on vacation he is again abandoning you? You fear being dependent on him and missing him so much that you fear you are to attached and to protect yourself from the pain from it all you push him away?? Not assuming any of this is true for you but just curious

Yes to everything you’ve said. If he discussed in in the way you said, it would have felt more normal to me. And I would have had that “bad kid” feeling exactly like you did in the situations you described. It’s more mortifying when you are a polite, decent person and you realized that you’ve unintentionally had an off-putting effect on someone.

Rather than shaming me for email current t has told me that if I was emailing a lot she would want to ask why and what was going on. "Punishing" someone just creates a divide and it's not going to help you.

He doesnt sound like he is trying to help you and your feelings. Focusing on the behaviours more than dealing with the why.

I see no harm in ending it. You seem to have been extremely clear in what you want from him.

This would make sense if your therapist was the type who did email with clients, but he isn't. You are the only client he did responses with, and I'm under the impression that you're the only client he has an arrangement with to read emails from. To be a misbehaving kid in this situation, you would have to have a privilege taken away that other clients are given. As far as I can tell, this isn't the case.

I want to be clear, I did not label you with those words, nor do I actually think that. It seems like a really big question to me, what do I want? And you have been clear that you want an email response from your T. Then he refuses to do it anymore, but that doesn't stop the want. What do you do in a relationship when you don't get what you want? That seems like a really big question to me too.

I said "response" to your email. If he sends you the invoice via snail mail as instructed by your email, I think he's "responding" to the email. Maybe that doesn't ping for the "response" you've been dying to get to your email, but I think it is a response, as opposed to him doing nothing-- I don't know, I just saw it that way and tossed it out here. I really don't have any investment in being correct here. I do hope that by ending therapy, you do get what you want, whether that's different therapy or something else that works for you.

I am open to your interpretation but would say that I don’t think I’m consciously trying to manipulate him. I did feel a sense of urgency in ending things right away, and felt that it would be too difficult to do in person as I can usually think better when I’m alone and become all wishy-washy when I’m in session. I have been bringing up my ambivalence about therapy with my T a lot and I worry a bit that I’m sounding like a victim to him (“oh poor me, it’s so hard to come to therapy”) and I also wonder if my constantly bringing this up might offend him. So, rather than continue the ambivalence, it made sense to me to just make a choice to end things and put us both out of our misery. Regarding control, I suppose I do try to control my emotions and I’ve been very good at this my whole life which is why therapy might be difficult for me. So although I haven’t figured it out, maybe I do want to control him in some way so that I can indirectly control my own emotions. Maybe I don’t want to feel the stress of my separation from my T (and it feels shameful to me to admit that I even care about that) and if he’d just email me I could maintain that control a bit better rather than feeling those uncomfortable feelings which he apparently wants me to feel.

Do you think the timing of you terminating and him going on vacation is a coincidence or no? I only ask because I have entertained the notion of quitting when my T is on vacation more than once. I have even gone as far as seriously searching Psychology Today for a new therapist. For me, I know intellectually that it's a reaction of "How dare you leave me! I'm going to leave you instead. Permanently!" But even knowing that that's what I'm doing, it doesn't stop the intense feelings/reaction.

That said, I think not getting what you need in the relationship and feeling stuck on that issue is a perfectly good reason to leave therapy.

I don’t agree that it matters how he treats other clients. I never asked for special treatment and had no knowledge of whether or not he emailed with other clients until we had been emailing for quite some time. I felt bad about it when I found out and he emphasized that he believes each client has different needs. He allowed and encouraged emails from me for over a year, and regularly gave emapathetic replies, then abruptly stopped without discussion or warning. It has nothing to do with how he treats other clients. He has the right to stop replies, of course, for whatever reason he wants, but it does matter *how* he does it.

what has your T said when you bring up how you don't like how he just made that decision without discussing it with you at all.

Yes, exactly, and I felt like I was following the "rules" for texting, so it felt especially bad. I tend to be a people pleaser and never want to upset anyone, so when I do so despite my best intentions, it's really hard on me.

He has apologized and I feel ok with his response for a while, until I don’t.

The timing is probably not coincidence. I had been having doubts anyway and the break just felt like the kick in the pants that I needed to go ahead and terminate.

I kind of feel like you're missing my point, which had nothing to do with whether he was right or wrong. All I was saying is that it's a cognitive distortion to come to the conclusion that you are being punished.

His shutting you off email brings out all the transference feelings to work with, all the feelings you talked about above. People who are independent can be disconnected from these long buried feelings, but the person inside can be very dependent and vulnerable but defended by strong defenses. The shame feelings that come out of this would be what you work through and deal with. At the same time you lose those types of defenses, you build better ones.

I went through the same thing with email and my T stopping it to contain things in session. Manipulation isn't a derogatory term in this context. It's an object relations concept. When someone doesn't give you what you need, moreso in the therapy setting for this type of therapy, it draws out both feelings and behaviors. The feelings are often repressed, a person can become very out of touch with their inner self. "I have managed to be very independent in my real life so it sort of freaks me out that it keeps coming back to this. " That may be why it feels so 'crazy' to you.

The T not engaging in your patterns that are drawn out is how your transference is resolved and how a client would develop a strong sense of self. Other Ts may engage in your patterns or even enmesh with the client, then things turn to disaster. Some of the best Ts did this type of therapy themselves as after time it really allows you to see what comes from you and what comes from the other person, which is a healthy, realistic self. Seeing someone with your own projections and transference distorts who they are. The defenses are actually a distortion, too.

I'm not saying anyone should like doing therapy like this, and that you shouldn't quit or whatever. But this is way your T works and if you go with it rather than against it, it can be hugely beneficial.

I hope I make sense, I know sometimes I have trouble communicating in certain ways here at times, but to clarify-the shame feelings brought out is actually the content of the therapy rather than the email shutting out. If you wanted to shift to those feelings, the focus on the email goes away. I do wonder as others have, if it was a creative way to try to force him into responding, which would be a pretty natural reaction to your need being withheld/strong boundary.

If you want to work through your shame feelings this brought up, your therapist opened the path to do that and seems willing and able to help you understand yourself and be there for you.

Find one who does not shame you and who works the way you find useful. You do not have to put up with crap from a therapist.

This makes some sense but I wonder why the T couldn't explain this kind of process at the beginning, and then along the way as needed, respecting the client as a person as well as client (adult, paying his fee), if that's what he was doing. Treating the client AS A CHILD brought out the child feelings, but . . .

Maybe this wasn't a case of the T actually shaming Lrad but I had 2 or more who DID ACTUALLY shame me -- their stuff, their reactions, but still actual shaming. And I never got it worked through, despite working "very hard" -- not because they were bad fits but because they hadn't worked through their own shame issues, or something.

I think what stopdog said above makes very good sense. Being shamed by a T on top of unworked through shame that the client already has is NOT a good mix in my experience.

Yes!! I agree with this so much. Maybe he works for his other clients but not for you.

I don't see this T did shaming at all. Your T engaged in your patterns due to her own stuff and not having a solid sense of self. (my opinion) I know your T was really shaming here today. And her actions were for her own needs. This T is doing it for Lrad's needs. It would be so much easier if he wrote back to the emails

See that's where we are all different. My parents weren't even parents at all, so a T setting a boundary for my benefit, and going through all that trouble to deal with my anger and feelings that come out if it, feels very caring.

It's so much easier for a parent to let the TV babysit their kid rather than shut off the TV and have to deal with their child crying about it all the time and teach them skills such as impulse control, self discipline, coping, distracting by finding something creative to do. Spending all that time on growth rather than fulfiling short term needs and wishes that don't provide benefits in the long run. The child sitting in front of the TV all day won't have the coping skills, the ego strength, in the end.