New therapist today - "hidden" kleenex behind curtain!

I met with a new therapist today after I now waited for a total time of two years to see one.

It was a disappointment, I expected it to be after reading about her and talking to her shortly on the phone before our meeting.

But besides that; when I started to cry some minutes into the session I didn´t see any kleenex! Some tears fell and after a while she said "there are some kleenex behind the curtain". They weren´t noticeable at all. I grabbed one but felt it very odd to keep them hidden.

It just added to my impression of her as cold and distant.


What do you others feel and think about this?

Yup. Odd place for kleenex. Not sure it defines "cold and distant" as much as not proactive about predicting clients' needs.

As you seem (and seemed) to already know, this doesn't sound like the therapist for you. Hope you can find one that will work better.

My T will not hand you tissues unless you ask for them and he does not even keep them where clients sit. He keeps them where he sits. What is up with that bull crap?

Hugs that is a very odd place to keep for kleenex. Sorry to hear that one was cold and distant. Hope you can find a better therapist

I don't consider something hidden if someone tells you where they are. "Put away" might be a more accurate description, and some people might prefer that rather than right nearby, where it could feel like one was being pressured to cry. I guess i don't think there is just one "right" place to put the kleenex and anyone who does it differently than me is the problem.

In my determination of good therapy, it has nothing to do with where the kleenex are kept. Nor does it depend on whatever's written about a therapist or how they talk on the phone. I try to reserve my expectations for building a solid relationship that allows me to work on my issues. I think you'd be better off being open minded about the possibilities rather than so judgmental after just one session.

I always carried a handkerchief or kleenex in the off chance I would cry. I never did cry at an appointment, but I wanted to ensure I was not caught at the mercy of the therapist should it have ever happened.

SarahSweden,
You have had so many disappointments with therapists in the past, it makes sense (at least to me) that with only one session with a new therapist, you found her to be cold and distant. But maybe you are expecting too much? You and she can't get to know one another in only 1 session. That stuff about the tissues seems a bit weird, but what if she's cool, distant, and weird, and just so happens that she is the therapist that you need, not the one you necessarily want? I'd try a few more sessions with her, before you make up your mind. Kram.
Cool

Well, at least she had some kleenex and she offered them. I once had an initial consult with a therapist, started to cry, which is inevitable in my little world, didn't see any kleenex in her office, started to look in my bag, couldn't find any and so I finally asked her for some kleenex. She was totally flabbergasted, as if I was the first of her patients to start crying. She simply said that she didn't keep any in her office (for whatever reason, some weird psychodynamic preconception or maybe even stinginess). So I went for some toilet roll because I was really crying.

Why is the fact, that the kleenex box stands behind the curtain, an indicator for you that the therapist is uncaring? She offered the kleenex, you didn't even have to ask. There's plenty of therapists out there who won't offer kleenex. In their world, you will have to "take responsibility" for your tears and ask for tissues. Or they don't want to force kleenex on you in case you don't feel comfortable with your own tears etc. There's a thread out there somewher about therapists and their tissues/kleenex, maybe it might be interesting for you to read a bit there so you get an idea, that with therapists and kleenex, anything is possible?

There could be 1001 reasons why the box was behind the curtain. Maybe she doesn't even keep them there, but an overzealous cleaner puts them there to keep them away from the surfaces. Maybe the box behind the curtain is "extra", and the normal box was just emptied by the client before you? Maybe the client before you has a kleenex phobia and she as a therapist is considerate enough to keep the box out of sight?

Why don't you ask her why she keeps the box there? Instead you jump to conclusions that seem rather strange to me. I just don't get the correlation at all that you open up between the place of the tissue box and the coldness and distance of the therapist.

I find my therapist overall rather warm and caring. But whenever I cry I need to start looking for the box, since it might be anywhere: On the couch, under the couch, next to one of the armchairs, on the windowsill. So yes, 9 out of 10 I need to get up and get those tissues by myself. And yet it never occured to me to think of my therapist of any less caring. So why do you place so much importance on a rather neglegible detail?

Sarah, to be honest, to me it seems that anything else but a disappointment would have been disappointing to you.

You have every right to assess a poor personality fit after a phone call and an in-person session. I think you need to decide if it is something you want (or must) work through, or if you'd like to find someone you click better with from the start. Therapy is hard enough without having to overcome personality conflicts. I know that you also came out of an emotional therapy relationship a few months ago, which may be coloring your perception.

For what it's worth, I interviewed and consulted with quite a few therapists after termination with my long term ex-therapist, and after being dissatisfied with everyone I met, I chose to go with a really cold EMDR/CBT therapist to process therapy trauma only. I think it came down to what I needed at the time. Perhaps looking at what, specifically, would make a 'good enough' therapist for you and then trying to find it might help? If you're stuck with the one you have, it might help to assess her skills and personality, and identify some area she could help with. It doesn't have to be intimate depth-work.

I wouldn't have thought much about the tissue placement. Seems to be more of a red herring for the real issue.

I tend to hid my emotions. Not seeing tissues would “tell me” (correct or not) that emotions are not welcome here. I would be curious to see if they were in a more obvious place the second session, maybe she didn’t expect an emotional first session.
My T has them by each chair, each end of the couch, over by his prompts/comfort items and two boxes next to him... I counted one day while avoiding eye contact. They are close by no matter where you are and always within easy reach for him to hand you one if needed (I will not take or even ask if I am scared without being offered). Even with all the boxes of tissues in T’s office they all kinda blend into their spot unless one has been left someplace odd from group or a previous client. I can see a T keeping the box next to him as a way of encouraging a client to ask him to meet a simple need but be able to offer if it backfired.

It's only common sense to keep the kleenex box within client sight and reach, but as some others said, I would give the T a chance.

Ts that keep a box of kleenex in other places with the purpose of provoking actions in a client seem manipulative,

As someone with PTSD who is hypervigilant*, other signs of manipulation more impactful than a mere kleenex box would be on my radar. Avoiding manipulation and potential drama is not a bad thing. Not saying this T is like that but thinking of the themes in the thread where people stated therapists placed kleenex boxes purposefully to get clients to do things.

*hypyervigilance is not paranoia and has help kept me safe in avoiding problematic individuals. Learning how trauma survivors can become revictimized had led to more open mindedness about this.

I think at some point, especially when the same issues reappear with people in your life and your reactions to them, it can be helpful to examine the connections between what people say and do and how you interpret that. People operate with a "confirmation bias" where we take in selective information that confirms what we already think. For me, and especially when my PTSD symptoms were more active, my assumptions and interpretations boxed me in to the same old, same old. Being free of that, and relating to people from a place of openness and at least an attempt to attune to what they are communicating rather than my distortions of it, was helpful to me. I'm not really there entirely, it's still an issue for me. But IMO, concluding that where someone puts the tissue box is some huge thing about who they are is creating drama that just doesn't exist. It's just an object, and the number of places where it could conceivably be located are enormous. There is no one right place to put it. I think it's wacky to think that where you think it should go is the only reasonable way to do things.

Thanks Cool. Yes, my past experiences and disappointments together with a very long wait to see this new therapist affects how I feel about her.

The tissues were only one part in what I reacted about. She almost never smiled and she wasn´t caring, like asking me something like "did your trip here go well?" or similar. Also, she started and ended the session in the exact minute although I had said during the session that I feel rejected if a therapist needs to end the session exactly on set time.


She didn´t say anything nice at the end like "have a nice weekend" but just a lame handshake and a goodbye. I've cried about it all several times since yesterday.

I totally agree she and I can´t get to know each other during one session only but this was a matter of her attitude towards me and how she treated me.

I´ve learned from all different counselors and sessions I´ve been in that you can´t change a therapist or ask for things like "can you be more like this or that". It´s devestating to me to go through this after I now waited for so long to see her.

Hugs back to you.

Thanks. And thanks for sharing your story about your therapist and how she acted around the kleenex issue, just odd.

That she kept the kleenex behind the curtain, impossible to see, instead of upfront in the table is to me at least odd if not uncaring.

There was a rather large and completely empty table in the middle where she could have put the kleenex. Or else she should have told me right from the start that kleenex were behind the curtain.

I refrain from every kind of manners that aims at creating some kind of unnatural environment just because it´s therapy.


The kleenex thing was just one part in perceiving her as cold and distant. In the beginning she hardly said "hello" and just told me to sit in the chair to the right. She ended the session on the exact minute and didn´t say anything kind at the end either. Like "have a nice weekend" or anything.

I know not all therapists have a warm approach towards clients but I keep in mind that one as a client shouldn´t feel the need to adapt to a therapist. I´m in a situation where I´m not allowed (nor other patients are allowed) to switch therapists and that makes this situation devastating to me.

As a trauma survivor, it terrifies me to think that something as simple as tissue placement could be a ploy at client manipulation. Purposefully forcing a client to ‘ask’ for tissues or positioning them in a place where the therapist must be the one to ‘gift’ them to a client seems creepy. My therapist had a few easy-to-access boxes placed around her office, and that worked for me.

That said, it wouldn’t dawn on me to read so much into tissue placement. Perhaps that left me more vulnerable to my therapist’s own machinations?

Thanks. The problem is that I´m not allowed to switch therapists so this is a matter of sticking to this one or noone.

As you say I´m partly still in trauma after my former therapist just left me and I´m extra susceptible to cold and distant behavior. At this facility they don´t do trauma work, like "I want 10 sessions of EMDR" but they focus on long-term therapies where the therapy relationship is a core in treatment.

Yes, the kleenex is a kind of "red herring" as they´re only part of what I percieved as cold and non-welcoming.

Those people do think about kleenex

Kleenex in Psychotherapy | Psychology Today
(this guy tries to be a comedian and falls far short)

Good Grief: Why I Use Puffs and Kleenex In My Psychology Office – Dr. Dennis O'Grady | TALK2ME Communication System

My client is crying – The Relaxed Therapist

and this horror:
"Robert Langs, a psychoanalyst, has been the most vocal advocate of the very tight therapeutic frame. In a Langsian office, there are no decorations that might provide any hint about the therapist as a person. The environment is very neutral. Often not even kleenex is provided as that could be construed as gratifying the patient. It isn't being **** just to be **** but because every little thing is seen in the light of what it means in the therapy. So as many variables as possible are controlled in order to have a better idea of what is coming from the patient and what is aroused by the frame."
Therapeutic Frame | Jung At Heart

Thanks. Yes, as you I see it as common sense to have a visible box of kleenex in a therapy room where it´s more or less expected that some clients will cry during session.


I don´t know with this T if she had put the kleenex behind the curtain to make the clients to ask for a tissue but I´ll "solve that problem" next time as I then plan to bring my own kleenex!

She won´t succeed on that one so to speak.


I´ll see how she acts next time and I´m stuck with her or no one so I´ll give her one more session or so.

One of the scariest things I’ve read on the internet this week. Thanks stopdog 😳

What did you all talk about in the session? Did she ask any questions or give you any guidelines about what to expect with therapy with her?