fired by text

It's so ironic that people on here would make better therapists than people who actually ARE therapists. They really are Clowns R Us sometimes.

I do appreciate your care and your point of view. Just in general though I do disagree that the therapist should never share personal feelings about or toward a client. I think that they should do it in a respectful and effective way...but when a person says "when you do ____, I feel ___," they aren't making you responsible for their feelings. They are disclosing the effect that your behavior had on them.

I haven't read the whole DBT treatment manual, partly because it's long and boring, but I do own it and I have read enough of it to know that I agree with quite a bit of the philosophy behind it. One of the bits of wisdom it has is that therapists make mistakes, and that both client and therapist "therapy interfering behavior" should have equal weight in the session.

Am I responsible for the treatment manual? No. Absolutely not. But the thing is that I don't really trust these guys that much either. Nor do I trust doctors. Whenever I leave a doctor appointment I google my diagnosis to make sure that they aren't going to accidentally kill me. I have also been known to hire online consultant doctors, mostly from India or somewhere to get a second opinion. Doctors don't much like this, and seem to have a belief that I should "trust" them just because they are doctors. I think that's just silly. I do mostly trust that they won't kill me on purpose. I'm not that paranoid. But anyone can make a mistake.

Terminating a client-therapist relationship in text is a huge mistake. I'm not willing to call it abuse yet, but it is a mistake. Abuse seems more deliberate. A mistake could be careless. Both can be harmful.

@maybeblue

I'm sorry if I came across as pushy with advice. It's just I was hurt by an unethical research mentor (principal investigator) who was dealing with burnout in his job and then blamed it on me (probably others as well). He included his feeling retraumatized from his own memories of early childhood abuse, which indicated that he had unresolved issues of his own, which affected his work. Anyway, my three different therapist I had (all at different times, consecutively, two within the VA system) told me that he was unethical. All of them. I didn't want to believe them. It took me a while to finally leave that toxic environment. It took me a while to accept the warnings that my therapists were offering me.

Your situation may or may not be different. Only you know that. I just don't want you to get hurt. But it's brave of you to face the situation, so that's a good thing. It's wise of you to look in the manual to understand, so that's understandable. I don't know much about DBT or BPD to know what it is you need in therapy, so maybe you need this. If so, then more power to you!

Keep us posted on how things go. For your sake, I hope things go well.

Be safe. (((safe hugs)))

Just wanted to comment that my T is *not* DBT, and he believes in sharing his reactions and feelings with his clients. I said how I had been under the impression that clients should be able to say most anything (aside from like a personal threat) to a T, and they should just be fine with it. He said he disagreed with that, how he's not a robot. And he said, "You affect me, LT." He also said he does that, at least with me, in part to let me see how I might be affecting other people, how others might react to things I say or do (but might not actually tell me). It's upsetting at times, like when he said at one point a few months ago that he felt frustrated by me and "trapped" into responding to some emails on a Friday night. But when I shared how his saying those things worried me, like that he was sick of me, he said he also wanted to show me that he (or others) can be frustrated with me without it threatening the relationship as a whole. (I tend to worry about upsetting or angering people and fear abandonment if that happens, which leads to me being kind of a people pleaser.) As painful as it can be at moments (and once it led to me briefly terminating), it's also taught me quite a bit.

However, about that one comment your T made, I agree that it's not a client's responsibility to prevent their T's burnout. It's up to them to set and hold their own boundaries. When T told me he'd felt "trapped" into replying that one Friday night because he was concerned about my safety, I said he could have just said he was unable to reply more that night--could I say for sure that I'd be safe? And if not, call this crisis line or go to the ER. That I'd have understood about that because I know what his general time boundaries are in replying to a client. That I hadn't expected him to reply until morning (certainly not to the second email before then). So it was his choice to break his own boundaries. I would think your T could set a limit on number of calls/emails/texts a week or a time limit on calls, etc. My T partly deals with those boundaries by not allowing texts except for scheduling, only allowing scheduled phone calls (though a brief call during crisis could be OK), and charging if emails take him more than 15 minutes to reply to (so he's getting compensated for his time, though he often allows a bit more time than that for me without charging).

I agree about sharing real emotions in the therapy relationship because I am confused about how some people respond to me sometimes and it could be effective although painful. I think that the burnout thing was a warning. I expected to have a discussion about it at the next session. I did not expect therapy to end without explanation. I think that's the opposite of DBT and pretty much any other therapy. And I don't know if I can get past that hurt and form a relationship with her again. I do feel stuck because of the limited options and the difficulty of finding someone with whom I click. And the DBT was helping. That's the horrible part.

I think these posts point to something important which is, apparently, often not effectively dealt with or addressed in therapy. Certainly was not for me.

Yes, that was my impression, too. Had been for years.

I think it could lead to a lot less grief for clients, and better understanding sooner it this was explained up front. I would have been glad to know that I was going to get something like that. I think I could have handled the upset better if I had known what is was "for". My last therapist DID reject me, which eventually 6 months later resulted in me connecting that horrible feeling with some feelings I had had as a child. . .Which I had apparently dissociated or numbed out, which led to me not understanding and/or responding to a lot of social stuff my whole life.

So, reexperiencing some rejection "helped" . . .but then what. . .After being a people pleaser, then what. . .That's what's continuing to be a bear of a problem for me.

Yes, I agree.

I've come to believe that I have lacked a good sense of self AND others. Enmeshment, people pleasing, all that kind of stuff -- I was in therapy for years without much help on those, as I have repeatedly said. So that's the part about me, my lacking that therapy is/was supposed to help with?

But then, for effective living, there's the understanding other people part, too. Interpersonal skills in DBT was not helpful to me, because I believe I did/do not pick up on things about other people. Once the trauma was mostly un-numbed, I may be somewhat better at doing it now, but it's still a struggle

If the comment about burnout was a "warning", then I think in your best interest it should have been made so explicitly. Maybe the hurt "tells" you she was and maybe still is not a safe person?

It's great that the DBT was helping. Maybe there are other ways to get and continue with some of what it was offering in other ways.

I'm also someone who prefers if a T verbalizes their feelings and reactions. They will typically act it out in other forms anyway (I believe OPs termination via text was that, for example), which can be much more confusing and annoying than putting it into words. It can be informative and also makes the relationship more natural. I personally trust people who are fairly expressive more easily with private material. But it shouldn't be excessive, at the expense of therapy and the client's feelings. A T talking about their burnout with a client is way too much, IMO, even if honest.

I don't tend to be very good at picking up on other people's feelings either - exactly why I prefer if they verbalize these things. And I actually don't like when others try to read and interpret me from apparent non-verbal, indirect signs because I have been misunderstood so many times that way. One reason why I prefer directness - both giving and receiving. Unfortunately, many people cannot handle it very well and seem to prefer their own interpretations or illusions. I really think that is not effective communication.

I think that the "acting out" interpretation is probably a good one. My interpretation about the "burn out" comment was that it was that it is probably a standard response when clients text too much or for reasons that they aren't supposed to. "Hey, remember texting is for coaching and here is why: I don't want to get burned out answering too many of them." Or "I allow coaching via text, but that's all. The reason is if every client texted me a million times, I would get burned out and then I wouldn't be helpful to anyone." That was my interpretation and I was not going to text her again that week for sure. But then she texted me.

I hate text messaging. In my opinion the only thing that it is good for is "hey is 8PM ok?" "no...how about 9?" I would have preferred to talk to her on the phone or in email.

So...I met with her. Essentially what happened is this: her team told her she was reinforcing a behavior that she didn't like of me calling or texting for reassurance. This was causing her to feel burned out. So somehow or other she got it into her "wise mind" that she should send me a text terminating the relationship. I called and asked for a session and her team said yes of course you don't fire someone by text you idiot (although probably not like that) and so we had the session.

She said that she needed to "make repairs" for the text and for reinforcing a behavior that she didn't want. Also, she told me that by me asking for the session I was "being more skillful than her." Then she told me that I couldn't use phone coaching for a month. So at the time I was in "please take me back" mode and agreed. But then I get to thinking...she harmed me by firing me by text and then said something about "needing to make repairs" and then I get punished. But I didn't do anything wrong. If she even one time had clarified boundaries around coaching I would have stuck to them. I like boundaries.

A few days ago I started looking at other DBT programs, and one of them called me back and I got to talk to a very nice DBT therapist and I said that I wasn't sure if I wanted to make an appointment or not (or actually get on their waiting list), but then I told her that I was already in a DBT program and something didn't feel right to me, but I wasn't sure if it was OK or not OK. So I told her the whole story and she said "that's not making repairs." She told me that where she works "repairs" will sometimes be an apology and sometimes be something like a soda or a coffee. And in DBT both the client and the therapist are supposed to do this. Also she said that my therapist should have asked me to cut down from "five texts a day" to maybe "one." And I said I was really only doing two a week. She also agreed with people on this site that the therapist's burnout was not my fault.

She suggested that I do a DEAR MAN, which is a way of skillfully asking for what you want (that is if I wanted to stick with the therapist). I want to stick with her for now because she was helpful and because I want to practice my interpersonal effectiveness skills and because I don't want to reinforce her texting behavior by going away and leaving her alone. But I want a real repair. So I think I'm going to ask that phone coaching be restored and maybe a nice card telling me what a wonderful client I am. Ideas?

@maybeblue

Sometimes we choose toxic relationships because they are unconsciously "familiar" to us. Wanting to stay in a relationship with your "so-called repairing" DBT T, after having heard from professionals and peers on PC, is indicative of the familiarity and a sort of "Stockholm Syndrome," IMHO. The "repair", like you pointed out, was not a repair at all. Your asking for a reinstatement of the phone coaching, after she "punished" you with restricting that privilege as a sort of "retaliatory repair/behavioral treatment" response, will only bring on more disappointment for you. If you were to utilize probability, based on the patterns of your T's behaviors, your T is likely to say no, stick with her own "retaliation/punishment," and cause you to feel at fault (i.e., gaslighting, but in a passive aggressive way, which reinforced poor boundaries, poor interpersonal effectiveness skills, and unrealistic DEAR MAN outcomes).

You are unrealistically expecting her to be kind to you, after your T had already received correction and reprimands from others. It is highly unlikely that the damages caused by your T in the first place will be repairable since it sounds like your T may have unresolved borderline traits of her own (and/or experiences with being victimized by those with borderline traits); many people choose the field of psychology to work out their own issues and then attempt to become professionals who treat those same issue; unless those issues are resolved, there will be counter-transference and mistakes made, including therapy abuse.

You were brave enough and wise enough to contact a different DBT group. You can leave, but what is really keeping you with your old DBT group? It is denial if you think it is anything other than attachment; attachment to your T for unconscious familiarity with your T's behaviors (maybe that parallel that which you had experienced in childhood) is what is keeping you attached to your old DBT group. You claimed that it wasn't attachment, but to deny that is indicative of the nature for which borderline traits were born - denial of your self, denial of your true needs, making excuses for the abuser, triangulating the situation by asking for advice that you will not take until people start agreeing with you, which then removes the opposite stimulus you sought, which then causes the dialectical behavior of black-and-white thinking to emerge, which then causes confusion for everyone who is trying to help you. The healthiest choice would be to thank them all for their last meeting, but that you will move on to a healthier DBT group.

Staying in the "drama" of that situation is also indicative of borderline traits. It's not healthy, but it's familiar, and it serves its purpose to feed into black-and-white/dichotomous/polarized thinking patterns. You feel you are "bad," so to be treated badly is familiar and offers you a chance to attempt to counter that in an unhealthy, toxic way by stating that you're "good," whenever others take on the responsibility through triangulation to make the decisions for you, and then when those decisions are presented to assert for you (instead of you asserting for yourself) that you are a good person who deserves better treatment, you go back to feeling like the bad person who needs punishment, and then when people agree with you (through triangulation) that maybe you know what is best for you (i.e., your decision to stay in a toxic environment, because we don't know you or your needs as well as you know them yourself), then you switch back from I'll stay to "maybe I should go." This swinging pendulum of choices, which is exacerbated and made alive through triangulation in many cases (or in seeking answers that only you yourself can choose), is the black-and-white thinking.

Truth is, even if we were to give you an answer, you will be indecisive and bounce back and forth until, after all thoughts and avoided feelings have been exhausted, you will finally make a decision, or a decision will be made by the T for you (i.e., your T's termination a second time).

We are here to support you and to offer you feedback, and to comfort you when you feel bad. But here I see no expression of feelings, which is the point of all this black-and-white thinking - avoiding feelings. You may be avoiding the feeling of being betrayed by your parents and then having this behavior from the T reinforce those harms done to you. You may be avoiding the feeling that a final confirmation of your T's wrongdoing is harmful to you and was not right; you have a right to feel sad and angry about that, without acting on that anger, but still feeling the feelings and knowing that those feelings represent the "wise mind" thoughts of, "I don't deserve this treatment, and I have proactively found an alternative with a new DBT group, so I will leave this toxic environment."

Your T is a projection of your desire/longing to reconcile with your parent who neglected you; if your T could take you back, then maybe it could reconcile the pain within you to have your abusive parent take you back; maybe all the pain will go away again - that is transference, that is projection, and that is irrational thinking - sometimes on an unconscious level.

Your T cannot repair the relationship or the pain you have from childhood; your T cannot repair the damage she had already caused in the present-day relationship between you and her. Your T made mistakes, but those mistakes will take time for your T to learn on her own, not through you.

You deserve to feel feelings, and to be comforted by those here who can help stand alongside you with your feelings. Being afraid of feelings and swinging the black-and-white pendulum only creates more confusion for you.

I'm glad the meeting went well in your eyes, but please see what is healthiest for you and try to use some of the DBT skills that you are intelligent enough to work out. DBT skills are not meant to make excuses for other people or to stay in toxic relationships; they are meant to help you build more empathy for yourself and others *while*, at the same time, allow you to regulate your emotions (including expressing them, not stuffing or avoiding them) and use your wise mind to know when to walk away from a potentially toxic/damaging relationship. What you have learned so far, by your T's example, is the WRONG WAY to use DBT. That's not healthy. Your T may not have transference issues with the others in the DBT group, or maybe she has. That is not your concern. The burnout she experienced was never your concern. Her lack of boundaries was on her. Her transference with you was on her.

You can take or leave this suggestion of mine, which is entirely your choice. I care, but I also care about the truth, and so I'm doing what I can to be both honest and caring toward you. Please, know that only you can make this decision. We can help you to make the decision, but we cannot make the decision for you.

We also feel your pain, but it is important that you feel and express your pain in a healthy way. Avoiding it through making excuses for your T only worsens that pain, and prolongs it.

(((safe hugs)))

Maybe other people here on PC will have a better response. I just wanted to be authentic when expressing my support for you. Please know that I do care. This is not a rejection or anything of that sort. I just want you to find the right help for you, and for you to be in a safer, nontoxic environment, so that you can get the healing you deserve. I may make mistakes myself in my assumptions of what goes on in the unconscious and the stuff about borderline, since I really don't understand it all too well, but I do understand what I'm seeing and hearing, and it is painful to see and hear someone with such intelligence as yourself negate her own intelligence in lieu of approval from a T who acted unethically.

But wait... it's not really on you to worry about not reinforcing her behaviors, surely? Iirc, you're a therapist. However, you aren't the therapist in this situation and I don't think you'll be helping yourself by making this therapist's issues your concern. Keep it moving is my advice.

@lillib Actually what I was asking was for ideas for a real repair. But I might post a new thread for that. I never said that I wasn't "attached," I said that I wasn't "enmeshed." There's a difference. The other DBT program has a 3 month waiting list and it's an hour further from my house. So it's not like I could just quit this therapist and go there tomorrow.

I think that you are interpreting a little too much when you bring in theories of my childhood. I'm not willing to label this as a "toxic" relationship at this point. Frankly what I think her problem is that she felt like I was contacting her too much, but didn't want confrontation about it so she let it slide hoping it would go away until it built up and she sent an impulsive text. She promised me that she would never do it again to me or to another client. I think I'll give her a chance. She might have borderline traits. If so I bet that helps her understand clients better.

I don't quit relationships impulsively. However, I do have limits. If/when they are reached, I will leave this relationship, but I want to see if I can learn more from her in the meantime.

I hope it works out for you, and I hope you find the ideas you need for a repair.

Leaving would not mean impulsivity. If it were someone else who left, the action would not be impulsive. It would be a wise choice for that person, given the situation. Labeling that impulsive would be a stretch, given the circumstances.

But more power to you for staying. I hope it works out.

Maybeblue -
This is a tough position to be in. Me personally, I don't know if I could ever trust the T again if she terminated with me in any fashion let alone through a text. However, I tend (not always) to have extreme attachment to my Ts. If ex-T would have taken me back, I probably would have gone back. In one sense, I'm glad she's gone. Looking back, she did do the best thing for me, just in the wrong manner.

Since you are choosing to stay with her, I think you should definitely continue the conversation with her about her terminating, her "burnout", and her "punishing" you. I've never been in a DBT program, but my Ts do know DBT and I've been in a few DBT groups. I've never heard of punishment as being a healthy approach. Taking away phone coaching for a month is NOT a boundary. That is a punishment. Taking away phone coaching altogether could be a boundary as well as a punishment, but then you wouldn't be doing a real DBT program. Why should you be punished for her lack of boundaries anyways? She is the one who deserves punishment imho.

I do think you should use your skills to communicate your thoughts and feelings. It's great practice.

I hope it all works out for you. If not, maybe keep that other DBT T as an option.

I'm not entirely sure I can get over it either to be honest. And I'm probably going to start looking for other options just in case. I am on the waiting list for the other DBT program, but it really isn't very practical because of the long drive.

due to other circumstances you seem to be trying to "polish a turd" or make the best. Unless she makes real repair, no good therapy will happen here.

Yeah, sorry. She is blaming her behaviors on you and punishing you for them. So theres a 3 month waitlist, get on it and leave her behind. Leaving her isn't impulsive. She's a bad therapist and sometimes you just have to call a spade a spade. If you left it would be due to her poor provision of care and the very real harm she is doing to you in her carelessness. That's not impulsive. To me that's being aware and acknowledging what's healthy and unhealthy for yourself.

I didn't mean to sound insensitive to your needs. I just hope everything works out. I like what the others have said.

PS: Maybe it is a trigger to see someone in pain from the hands of a T, so I'm sorry if my responses were harsh or overly protective, apart from being overly analytical. I really hope for the best for you. Maybe you aren't ready to leave yet. That's okay. Just know there are many people here on PC to support you when things go wrong.

That's so insightful , thanks.

A helpful link from PC regarding patient rights in therapy, which can help you with your current T and any other future T you may seek, should the current T not work out:

Your Patient Rights in Therapy