fired by text

I am so sorry What a horrible way for her to do it!

No , nothing rude or wrong from you at all. " I want to save you a trip " so I'm sending you a text that will upset you instead of discussing it when you came in , because I care about you. Clueless. Please don't blame yourself !

Thanks for sharing the more complete story. This makes a little more sense and it sounds like she thought about it for a couple days and was not entirely impulsive. I still think the way she reacted was inappropriate. Part of her responses do sound quite defensive and she is mostly throwing things back at you instead of explaining and discussing. I just don't understand why that attempt to dump you was necessary at all.

No, I don't think so. If this is done by a team, are there potential other team member Ts that you could work with individually? I totally get not wanting to just waste the already invested money and time, potentially useful other resources, especially if the method is helpful for you... because of one jerk. I know I would feel the same way.

In post#20, which begins "so i said...", you are missing an open quote, which makes this paragraph unclear. Did you say all that to her? Or just want to?

Eta - because you kinda make a lot of demands in the latter part of the paragraph.

That was very unprofessional of her. I would frankly ask to speak to her supervisor if this is a team. She may be right that shes not the best for you but she also knows you are in distress and knows that kind of text would only cause you trauma. If there is no supervisor to report her to, I would report her to the licensure board and leave reviews for her online that she had behaved as such. And I certainly wouldnt continue on with her as a therapist. How can you trust her after this? How can she effectively treat you if you cant trust her? Continuing to see her will only cause more harm than good. But she needs to know that her behavior was unprofessional and, quite frankly, unethical considering she's a therapist and should know better than to communicate like that with a patient over text. If the texting was going on too long she should have point blank said this is too much to discuss in text so we either need to have a call or wait until our next session. She has a problem with boundaries. And she just took it out on you in an inappropriate way.

seesaw. Sounds like the dbt trainer needs more training, if she was so thrown by blue's questions?

Maybeblue,
I read all that you wrote, and I know you from here and read a lot that you write in posts. You are very articulate and you were able to succinctly tell the therapist what you needed. I don't know, she seems to be really anxious but I could be way off. I really think that she is intimidated by you, seriously. As someone else said, she seemed defensive. She said something like she only knows DBT, also. I honestly think she could be probably insecure or doesn't have a lot of practice.

Maybe she wants to help you but her issues are getting a hold of her.

If this is correct, then I think you might be able to see it as she is having issues,

Thank you. I'm going to talk to her on Tuesday. I am bringing my husband though. I don't want to drive home alone. He is pissed honestly. I had just calmed down from the session and we were on our first vacation in over a year. I had expressed major SUI to her on my last diary card. I think it was irresponsible for her to do it that way. I have no intention of doing anything, but if I had been in a worse spot and alone.

Holy moly. Your T is messed up. Physician heal thyself. You did an awesome job and should be proud. Your texts were clear, factual, concise, considerate, wise, and straightforward. Your T’s texts on the other hand were reactive, contradictory, unskilled, dysregulated, and unethical.
I’m impressed by the way you handled this situation.

That was an unprofessional reaponse from your DBT T. It was not wise mind at all to text you; she sounded like a sponsor more than a T.

You do not want her to take you back, nor do you want her back.

I would find a new T. She offered you a referral. I would request one on your own.

You can also ask for a CBT for dissociation and trauma instead of DBT, if the process of DBT feels too fast, term-laden, stoic, and robotic. DBT never worked for me. CBT for trauma had.

That was downright wrong what your DBT did.

It is never okay for someone to blame you for their own burnout; their burnout is from lack of their own boundaries!

Your T was unprofessional when she texted that response, and she was not using wise mind, nor was she in the right frame of mind. If she only knows "DBT coaching," then she should have CLEARLY stated what the boundaries are with regarding to your relationship, what is and is not acceptable, what the treatment goals entailed, and (based on ACTIVE LISTENING SKILLS) a reiteration of what you expressed to her so that she could clearly understand what you said to her. If she is overwhelmed, it is because she has issues, not you.

Furthermore, it is NOT HEALTHY for her to tell you that she is using "wise mind" to terminate you via text. If that is her interpretation of wise mind, then she's teaching you it all wrong. Your own wise mind would allow your emotions to be okay (you're upset with the T) while also stating that something is wrong with the way she approached you via text (your rational mind). It's okay for you to feel upset, and it is rational for you to be concerned about the way she handled that situation. To be proactive, request a new T, a new DBT group, and/or a new therapy such as CBT.

Thankfully, you'll have your husband there with you when you do speak. Do not let them gaslight you by telling you that it's your emotions and your instigations; you could have been flaming mad and completing out of your mind, and that would STILL not have been an appropriate response via text from a T.

That's not a healthy experience, that's the wrong example of what "wise mind" is, and that's a toxic relationship.

Why you still like her and want to work with her, I don't know, but like your husband, I'm pissed. That's just poor therapy.

Can only echo the other posts - it's completely unethical to terminate with you in a text. No t should ever do that and you're well rid of her since she shows you (and herself) so much disrespect.

The thing is that I like DBT. I like it a lot and I love the group. And it was helping. I like the philosophy. I liked the therapist. Also I know that I have problems with therapists. I know why. I experienced a bad trauma from a doctor a couple of years ago. It was a medical doctor, but the same kind of "I know better than you" thing exists in some therapists too. And it makes me reactive and afraid sometimes. My reactive and afraid can turn into excessive logic and frankly I picked up the DBT language quickly and discovered it can be used to argue quite effectively. I bet I can sound like a know it all snit sometimes. Setting the limit of only using text for coaching is OK. And the whole "I don't want to get burned out" is pretty much word for word from the treatment manual. And I really, really do not want to go through another intake somewhere else. I hate those.

But my wise mind also knows that terminating the therapeutic relationship through text message is ethically wrong and it also goes against the DBT philosophy of working through relationship problems rather than running away from them. So I don't know if I want to continue working with her or not. I know that I don't want to let her get out of looking me in the eye and explaining what she was thinking. I won't be gaslighted...or at least I won't be successfully gaslighted. She did agree to discuss it and see if working together could "be effective for both of us." Personally I believe in the DBT philosophy of working it out even if she doesn't. So either we will work that out and I will get some kind of assurance that this isn't going to happen again, or I will file a complaint with the ethics board.

@maybeblue

You sound very wise, and you may be right in staying with the DBT and seeing what happens with that T. I am a bit biased because I had bad experiences, but maybe you have good experiences. That is awesome that DBT works for you. You are really sounding healthy with all this! It gives me hope. Thank you. Please keep us posted on what happens.

I'm stuck in this cycle of trying to figure out what I did or didn't do that screwed up this relationship. I feel like a bad person. I don't know what to do to shut off the thoughts.

Can you apply to this problem some of what you have learned and liked in DBT? I've never done DBT but appreciate its principles and I think I use them kinda naturally in my everyday life. What is relevant here is trying to consciously reduce your vulnerability to your own emotions. It is not always good to dig into feelings. As was suggested earlier, you can create a new narrative to all this that's more focused on how you get good things out of this method in general and how you stood up to yourself, including not merely escaping now but going back to figure it out and continue to benefit for yourself. I think it is very possible to be selective in what we take as important in others' behavior and what to ignore because it is either not useful or is potentially harmful.

I've worked with many people (not necessarily in therapy but in my own profession) that are prone to power games, gaslighting, hypocrisy and defensiveness. I often don't just dump them for their negative traits when otherwise they are very competent in some area and we can be very productive together when we focus on the collective positives and benefits. Often they don't even try to bully me or stop after some initial trials, because they see I am not responding to it and just continue to focus on what works. Of course there are the more dysfunctional jerks (one of my ex-Ts was like that, I think) - those are better to be left alone, even if we lose some investments. But otherwise - you know, take what works and leave the rest. Not always easy to achieve internally, but we can grow even just by practicing it, I think doing so really enhances interpersonal effectiveness and the resulting sense of satisfaction/accomplishment can feed back on emotional state positively.

You said you like the DBT group - can you interact with some of your peers between formal therapy meetings? Maybe that would help and perhaps some others could share their own ambivalent feelings, no-so-great experiences and how they approach overcoming them.

I agree with most of the posters totally wrong to terminate you by text. She deserves to have her license revoked. How horrible, i'm so sorry she's done that to you. There is no excuse to terminate by text and it's so mean. Hugs

Oh. My God.

I don't even have words...what a rude, thoughtless, crazy, rotten, cruel thing to do to a client. Just...wow. If you see her again please let her know how horribly unprofessional and mean she has been.

Or print out this thread and mail it to her.

I hate to think that you ever have to see her again.

Her behavior certainly doesn't reflect well on her. I don't really know about this "wise mind" business, but describing her actions as precipitating from something "wise" seems contradictory.

I've never really understood when people say therapists fire clients. Surely you can't be fired by someone you are paying. When I resign from a job, I say I quit the job, I don't say I fired my boss.

Anyway, if your texts sent her over the edge, she must be pretty fragile and unable to withstand even the most civil of conflicts. That seems kind of pathetic considering she's supposed to be the one teaching you DBT skills.

I tend to think her reference to using "wise mind" was a cop out. It was like she tried to use a sneaky appeal to authority to justify her behavior so that you would feel like you had to accept it as right. But just because she said she was using "wise mind" does not mean she was in the right; that is a fallacy.

I wonder if the people she consulted also advised her to quit via text.

Think of it like this...

Your T quit her job on you, you being the paying consumer. She fired herself. She quit via text. She did not even give you two weeks' notice. She is at fault here, not you.

But, relationships end all the time. Poor matches are the most common reason.

Perhaps her expectations for boundaries were not made clear to you. Perhaps her own issues with her job stressed her out, not you. Maybe she received a lot of texts from multiple clients that day and quit on multiple people. Maybe she treated you like the scapegoat. Who knows.

If texting was the communication platform, then it is easy to send a bunch of texts when long texts get broken up into two or more texts per long text, and so the T's oversight for job requirements was off. Phone calls or email would have been a better business solution, which is not your fault. They are not even using wisdom for their own business, so how can they teach others that? Texting should only be used for short communications like directions. Why set clients up to fail via text communications in the first place? Now what I said is wise because I would forsee quality assurance for clients and smooth operations. She knows her clients are struggling. Email for coaching and phone for emergencies would be better solutions.

Do not take on the blame here. CBT works faster than DBT in terms of coping. I do not know much about DBT but it seems like a slow process to cope for those with rigid personalities. For things like this, CBT could help if your personality is flexible. That is one of the differences between the two, aprt from CBT being a faster solution to cope and easier to grasp than the long-winded terms affiliated with DBT.

At any rate, if DBT works for you, then try using it to deal with this. If it is not working, then they are teaching you incorrectly or you are not grasping it or you may benefit from the socialization in the DBT group but not the DBT itself. Basically, you are feeling sad and hurt from this experience, and rationally, your T was unethical. The institution that set up texts for coaching is unreasonable with expecting their therapist to answer texts and therefore setting clients up to fail.

Maybe you could have texted less. Maybe sui mentions via text re diary cards was a boundary violation not explained to you, that those things require hotlines or in-person help or a visit to the ER or some alternative not meant for texts. But was that explained to you at all? If not, or if they see sui like they see negative thoughts, where both can be coped with solely through their DBT plan, then that is setting you up to fail when you do not have all the tools.