New therapist after 12 years

I had the best therapist. She was awesome. February 2007 I called her office (a friend gave me her number) seeking help. Something was wrong with me and I didn't know what. Later we figured out I was having an anxiety attack.

She helped me tremendously those first few weeks, just so I could focus on functioning at life. I'm not saying I was great at it, but functioning at a level that didn't raise eyebrows. Slowly we unraveled so much about what I was going through, what I had been through, and goals for my future.

She was there when new challenges popped up. Always listening and offering the best advice.

She knew so much of my history that after a while, I'd just start the session with whatever was most troubling me. She knew why I made decisions the way I did and why my boundaries were where they were at. She was there through it all. She knew exactly how to word advice in a way I would accept.


Then last spring she told me she was leaving the field. She needed to focus on self care. She has no plans to return to the therapy world.

I was devastated. She was always there. For 12 years I saw her. She helped me through the darkest of times. I had kids, she had kids. She helped with coping those difficult new life states. But I get it, self care is important. I don't blame her for leaving. It just sucks.

It's been 7 months with my new therapist. It's been going well. But it's not the same. Because I don't want to fill my new therapist in on all my history, I just don't talk about the childhood abuse. Or how it's hard to maintain my boundaries. I don't talk about how it's hard to watch my daughter reach the age I was when the abuse started. I don't talk about the flashbacks. I don't want to spend 45 minuets filling her in on my background/history only to never get to discuss the topic that requires she know that history.

I focus on my professional life during our sessions. I started a new business venture right around when I started seeing her. She has a background in corporate life prior to becoming a therapist so she is very helpful with those challenges.

Will I ever be able to discuss the hard things with my new therapist?

7 months is not all that long especially when you are starting with someone new after 12 years. My Pdoc and I have been working together 8 years. She is comfortable and familiar. There is so much I don’t have to say because she already knows. Sometimes she feels more like my older sister than a doctor. Things are easy and effortless. But it wasn’t like that back at the very beginning. I liked her and all but there wasn’t what there is now. My current T is amaizing, I feel so lucky getting to work with him. From the very first session being with him was like being with my closest mentor from college. We have been working together just over a year. There is so much we are still figuring out, so much background he still doesn’t know.
It sounds like you had a really great relationship with your first T and I am glad it worked so well, good T’s are hard to find. It doesn’t sound like this new T is doing anything wrong but that she is just not as comfortable as first T. Give it time, you are still grieving. Relationships take time. Maybe it will take some time to catch new T up on everything, maybe you will discover she doesn’t need to know the same everything that old T knew. She will never replace first T but I doubt you would want her to. In time she should become her own kind of comfortable. If she doesn’t or there are other things that don’t fit your needs maybe she isn’t the right T. But seven months isn’t very long after twelve years.

Oh Katy, I can relate to your story in many ways. zfor me it really difficult not to compare my second therapist to my first one. Like you I want her to know the history and I often feel she doesnt understand because she wasnt there for me in the trenches when I was struggling.

I think it does get a bit easier but not without some pain and frustration.

Have you talked to your current therapist about you previous one?