r/TalkTherapy

I’m in total panic because I’ve just realized that my therapist of four years is spending her holidays at the same resort as me.

I’m here with my husband, and she’s here with a lot of her family, including her husband and baby son. We’re both going to be here for a while, so I’m not sure how to handle the possibility of running into each other.

Our therapeutic relationship is quite warm and close. She’s always been very warm towards me. When she got pregnant, she told me, and I gave her a little gift for her son; she gave me a big hug in return. We usually greet each other with two kisses before sessions, and we often end sessions with a hug. In the last session I told her I was pregnant and she was really happy for me and we hugged again!

She once told me that there are patients who really leave a mark on therapists, and that I’m one of those patients. I think the fact that I’m a doctor (I’m a family physician) may also contribute to the closeness of our relationship, since we’re both healthcare professionals. There’s a lot of mutual admiration and respect, and I genuinely care about her as a person.

So now I have absolutely no idea how to behave if I see her outside the therapy setting.
Should I just say hi and act normally? A quick “Hi, nice to see you!” and move on? Should I wait for her to acknowledge me first? Or should I avoid her completely and try to pretend I haven’t seen her?

I know the professional boundaries are different outside the office, but because our relationship is warmer, this feels incredibly awkward to me. I don’t want to embarrass her or to make her feel uncomfortable. 

Can you please tell me what to do? Can I please get an honest opinion from other therapists ?

Edit: to the one wonder about the “kisses” greeting. We are Latinos. We greet each other with 2 kisses. I also do that with my long term patients in my clinic. It’s not “too much”, it’s just the way we greet each other, even when you don’t know the person too well. We can also shake hands, but that is very rare in our culture, only when you want to keep lots of distance.

How much does your therapist talk in your sessions? How much do you talk? Do they ask lots of questions? Are there extended periods where you sit and listen to them? Are there extended periods where they sit and listen to you, or do they tend to respond/interject a lot? Does this vary session to session? How do these different aspects of sessions work for you?

Genuine question from someone who has only been with one therapist for awhile and is curious about the other ways therapy can look/what's "normal."

It can be positive or negative.

Mine is that I feel anger more than sadness these days when thinking about people who hurt me. It’s like therapy taught me that I actually didn’t deserve that and now I’m making up for years of not being angry.

I was screening a therapist today and she asked me to commit insurance fraud with her if I wanted to be her client.

I don’t have concrete proof obviously but I took notes of the conversation.

I reported this to my insurance company, but don’t know anything about licensing or oversight in my state (Maryland).

If anyone is familiar please let me know

Why or why not?

IR, as in Instant Release

I feel a bit ridiculous writing this, but I’m genuinely struggling with jealousy over a review I found online.
I had a therapist in Germany for around two years, and I became quite attached to him. He was warm, funny, empathetic and very attentive, and we had a playful dynamic in sessions. He helped me enormously with my eating disorder, and I’m genuinely grateful for the therapy.
Recently I found a review from another former patient who had been in therapy with him for almost three years. Her review was so positive and detailed. She described him as caring, funny, empathetic, trustworthy, professional, transparent, etc. She also said that therapy fundamentally changed her life and that she would never forget him.
The problem is that so much of what she wrote sounds like my experience with him too. She also had an eating disorder, and she describes him in almost exactly the way I would have described him. And then there’s the fact that she apparently stayed in therapy with him for almost three years, whereas I was there for about two.
I know this sounds irrational, but it made me incredibly jealous. I think I had this unconscious feeling that the connection I had with him was somehow uniquely mine. Seeing someone else describe such a similar experience made me feel replaceable.
I also know he’s a therapist. Of course other patients are going to find him warm, funny, caring and helpful. He probably has similar dynamics with many people. I even know he asks patients to leave reviews, so it’s completely possible she was simply responding to a standard request.
But emotionally, it still bothers me SO much.
I keep wondering whether she was attached to him too, whether she had a crush on him, whether he was sad when her therapy ended, whether she got some kind of special treatment because she stayed longer, etc.
I don’t actually want anything to happen with my former therapist. I know he was my doctor and that the relationship was professional. I just hate the feeling that something that felt so special and personal to me was also experienced by someone else.
Has anyone else experienced this kind of jealousy over another patient’s review of a former therapist?

Is it appropriate to invite my therapist to my promotion ceremony? I wouldn’t make it awkward, but I figure it would be a nice gesture for the invite since she has seen me through it. I have never met her only seen her over zoom for about year.

Hi there! I am 25, looking to go back to school for a Masters in Social Work, as I’ve had my own therapist suggest as the best route for my circumstances to eventually becoming a talk therapist.

Before I decide to pay for more school, take on loans, etc, I am hoping to read a few books that might open my eyes to the reality of the career. I want to be at least 75% sure of this path before committing to it as I tend to get excited then bored of career paths quickly. This has been on my mind for a little over a year now which makes me hopeful that it could really be a viable career option for me.

Let me know your recommendations and thank you in advance!

For context: I have been with my therapist for 2 years and the relationship we have is mind blowing for me. I’d say is a 10/10 therapeutic relationship.

Yesterday I was feeling curious and spent some time on google, and I found some heartbreaking, gut wrenching information about my therapist’s past. I actually cried when I saw it and feel like I need to comfort her next time I see her.

Everything I found was public and accessible by anyone who can put 2 and 2 together.

Since she did not disclose this to me, I am torn on whether to ever admit to knowing this information?
I feel like she might feel violated if she finds out that I know and might terminate me. She is very private and there is not really anything about her online, so she might not know that this information is public and somewhat easily accessible for those who put in some effort in the snooping.

I wish I could unlearn it - we have an amazing relationship and I don’t want to mess it up, although I feel like knowing this will inevitably impact on how I relate to her. I haven’t stopped thinking about her since I found out.

Don’t google your therapists y’all.

i have therapy tomorrow, and lately i’ve been struggling to put my feelings into words. my thoughts feel so jumbled, and i end up ruminating about a million different things at once

last session, i wrote down everything i had been feeling in a note and read it to my therapist. i felt embarrassed at first because i’m usually pretty good at putting my feelings into words, but she was really sweet about it. so i’m doing it again for tomorrow’s session…

the funny thing is, my life is relatively okay right now, but somehow this is the loneliest i’ve ever felt. i’m still struggling with a lot of my inner thoughts and anxiety, and i’m finding it hard to understand why i can still feel this way when i feel like i should just be grateful for everything that’s going well

i think that’s something i’m hoping to unpack in therapy tomorrow. i also need to tell my therapist that i want to take things slowly because we’re supposed to do emdr tomorrow. i know that two things can be true at the same time, but i find it so hard to actually apply that to my own life

writing everything down has honestly been really helpful for me because it gives all the thoughts in my head somewhere to go. if you struggle with putting your feelings into words too, have you ever brought a note or written something for your therapist?

I’m gonna tell her that too if that’s the case LOL she’ll probably laugh 😂

After being a LEO for over a year, This sweet, kind, funny and patient guy has become tired, jaded, snappy, inaffectionate, verbally road raging a lot, having frequent nightmares and poor sleep, teasing me constantly, dropping slurs(not directed at me)…
I’ve brought up therapy multiple times the past 2 years but he keeps stalling on it.
What do I do? It’s getting to the point where I’m more relaxed when he’s not home.

It’s not romantic love. But I’m sure that the feeling is a kind of love. Love that’s very specific to the therapy relationship. I’ve been seeing him for a long time and feel very close to him. Is it okay to label that feeling as love?

I’m diagnosed with OCD, and my psychiatrist agrees trauma is very much part of my picture (SA history and parental neglect and abandonment) What she hasn’t been able to confirm yet is whether what I’m also dealing with is BPD, CPTSD, or some overlap, and we’re working on.

I have also an anxious-avoidant attachment style, and I notice a strong push-pull pattern with the few people I let close, including, honestly, my own psychiatrist and therapist. I’m socially isolated outside of them, and I’ve become intensely attached to my long-term therapist in particular. At times this all gets heavy enough that I have suicidal ideation, which comes and goes in severity.

I’m trying to understand myself better while my specialists work out the fuller picture, so I’d really appreciate hearing from:

Clinicians/specialists: what are the actual differentiating features between BPD and CPTSD, especially when OCD and trauma are already confirmed and the attachment/relational patterns look similar on the surface?

People with BPD or CPTSD: how did you or your specialist start telling the two apart in your own experience? What did the push-pull with attachment figures feel like from the inside for you?

Not looking for a diagnosis from Reddit, just trying to learn the nuances so I can have a better-informed conversation with my psychiatrist next session. Thanks for reading.

I attempted 10 days ago and my next therapy appointment is tomorrow. I tried to OD on a whole list of medications at once plus a bottle of wine. My girlfriend woke me up and straightened me out, thankfully and I was able to recover without any medical interference. As of right now, my girlfriend is the only person who knows. I'm feeling much better, and I don't think I'm in much of a suicidal mindset now. Should I be truthful with my therapist and tell her that happened? Or is there a chance there will be consequences? ALSO one of the medications I took was a whole bottle of my antidepressants. So, I am completely out for the month. Should I tell my psychiatrist so I can get replacements? Should I tell her so she'll know that I had that much Lexapro in my system at once? Lots of questions....

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Anxiety runs on both sides of the family, and boy did she catch it. She's had a therapist before but just never opened up to her (and she didn't have appointments outside of school hours, so it was only for the summer last year). I think she just wasn't silly enough, too clinical, my girl doesn't like feeling analyzed or put on the spot, and humor is a big diffuser in our family.

This therapist is funny and personable and my daughter was just starting to open up to her after three appointments.

And then she didn't show up. Messaged at the last second about technical issues. Rescheduled. Messaged at the last second about accidentally injuring herself. Rescheduled. Messages AFTER appointment start time about vertigo. She was very apologetic and yesterday we agreed on giving it one more try today at 11:30. Even though I'm sick TO DEATH of arranging my life day after day after day around an appointment that never happens, it was important to me to stick it out because my daughter actually likes her.

This time? No show, no message, no response. Nothing. Just ghosted. And my poor girl, she says to me "Mom, maybe she doesn't like me."

YAY THERAPY THAT'S EXACTLY WHAT I WANTED HER TO GET OUT OF THIS.

So I scheduled with someone else for tomorrow and sent a message wishing the old therapist well with her health issues... Pray for me that my girl connects with the next one. I'm so frustrated right now. I feel like I wanna cry, this is so stupid.

it may take a few sessions. Trust your intuition. And also I'd like to add that therapists are still human, not perfect because that's easy (for me) to forget. I know I found the right one because he

1. Remembers small details (that doesn't mean he doesn't forget some things sometimes)

2. he listens to understand and takes his time to respond helpfully and thoughtfully

3. he takes his job very seriously, and is excellent with his boundaries

4. He calls me out (gently and helpfully not shamefully)

5. he shows that he cares in so many ways, genuinely he wants me to succeed and believes I can succeed

6. I can talk to him about ANYTHING and I know I will be okay, and we will be okay.

7. He validates my feelings without always agreeing

8. He uses actual therapeutic, scientifically proven interventions

9. He encourages my progress

10. He can tolerate my emotions

11. He challenges me

12. He's very non judgemental and KIND

a good therapist doesn't have to be perfect, but he is perfect for me.

Its also taken a dozen or so tries with other therapists throughout life, so don't get discouraged if you have to keep searching for the right fitting helper 💞💜✨

My T had mentioned not seeing us continuing past X month at the rate we are going and named a month a few months away.

I’m a little sad because even though I don’t have a major pressing issue I’m working through, I like having that hour where the focus is just me with nobody cutting me off while I talk. I know some people don’t need therapy forever but it just makes me a little sad knowing the end is near because it’s something I look forward to twice a month.

Any insight?

If there any therapist can answer, do you get tired of us for not doing the homework or taking too long to make anything or for the therapy to go too long for a year and over
And for everyone do you feel the pressure when you go to your therapist without doing the homework and fee like you’re disappointing them or it just me