After 5 years, I decided to end my therapeutic relationship due to me becoming distrusting and uncomfortable with my psychologist. I was in psychotherapy and throughout the years the relationship had highs and lows. What made me decide to stop going was that the last session felt rather cruel. I was telling her something that made me feel small and her response led to me crying which I think she thought I was crying about the issue rather than her outburst. She proceeded to try and end the session 15 minutes earlier (her last session ended late, so mine was delayed). I reminded her we had time left to which she responded she was checking in with the next patient (through text) then sat down again. Afterwards I texted her and expressed this, saying that I’m uncomfortable with the tone and approach, not the content of what was said (which I recognized I am interested in working on). She had a great response saying that she was sorry for what I could have felt was cruel and hoped I would continue to go so we can talk it out (I expressed feeling reluctant to continue and acknowledged she said early in our sessions (1st session) this could eventually happen). After a month of cancellations on my end, I decided to finalize the relationship as I cannot get over what happened and feel like it is not a safe space at all. After I expressed this, her response was not as nice telling me she felt it was a pity that after so many years this is how i’m deciding to end things, without talking through what offended me nor doing a “worthy closure” of these 5 years.
Being honest, it felt out of place, judgy and low-key manipulative.
Three years ago I also had to confront her because I could feel her becoming impatient with me, growing tired of me talking about an issue constantly that felt big and important at the time. I also felt like she pushed me to break up with my boyfriend (we talked through it and i never broke up). She has grown weary of me talking about being sexually abused once (many years ago) and has even told me that I should tell my parents if I want someone to feel as wronged as I do because other people won’t. When I tell her something I don’t like of other people or friends she says it’s something she does too so it’s normal and maybe i’m looking too much into it (ex. Not prioritizing other people, expecting people to accommodate to ones schedule constantly, etc). She also said that she could tell I make a big deal of some things just to have something to talk about on sessions when there’s nothing else going on in my life (while I actually felt like I needed to talk that stuff through) There are many issues I tried to bypass as a bad day for her (we all have them at work!) or skewed views. But I can’t anymore.
And just two months ago we talked about me stopping therapy because I’m doing good and have come a long way.
The question is: should i, or should i NOT do the closing session she’s pushing me to do?
I don’t find value for me in paying her to tell her what she did and why that motivated my decision to end the relationship.