They are a veteran of ptsd, depression, anxiety and marital discord. The Department of Veterans’ affairs paid me to see a therapist. To my last session, I shared with my therapist that I had made a sexual dream about her. I did not share any detail on the dream and I did not say or I suggested having a crush on her. (I don’t do it.)
My therapist exploded to me, saying that this is something you shouldn’t lead to a therapist. The next day I felt so bad for the accident I sent a message to the therapist and apologized. I told her I was embarrassed and I would never have shared something like that again. He didn’t answer.
Two days later, I received a phone call from his receptionist who told me that my therapist was interrupting the therapy with me.
For the record, the therapist never told me that no topic was prohibited. In fact, he told me that the therapy was a safe place to share any problems I wanted to raise. I remember asking them: “Can I tell you something?” And she said, “Yes, whatever”.
I feel confused and abandoned. He was the only person with whom I could share anything and not feeling judged to me. This is how many veterinarians feel if we share something terrible we had done or did not get on active service. I don’t think I ever trust a therapist again.
I feel lost, alone and wounded. Can you offer a guide?
From the therapist:
I’m so sorry that this happened to you, because you did nothing absolutely wrong. Instead, the transgressor of your therapist left you in a deeply shocking situation. A therapist should create a truly safe space and is devastating when confidence in the therapist is broken. What you have experienced, especially after sharing something so gently personal, is not only painful but also destabilizing.
In therapy, you have every right to breed a dream – even if it is your therapist and even if it is sexual – and trust that the therapist will manage anything you bring to those conversations with skill, compassion and professionalism. Before suggesting how to navigate in this violation, I think it could help you understand how this dissemination should have been managed.
When people go to therapy, two dynamics generally emerge: transfer and countertransference. Transfer occurs when patients direct feelings related to a person in their life on the therapist. If, for example, you have a problematic relationship with a family member you think, you are checking, you could transfer those feelings of being controlled on your therapist every time he suggests an intervention to try.
These feelings may vary from anger to adoration and romantic or erotic transfer can occur when a therapist recalls a patient of a romantic partner or a past love object, or when a previous need is satisfied by the therapist: unconditional acceptance, a safe environment, emotional intimacy or feeling seen or evaluated or protected. Dreams are often the way of the subconscious mind to develop complex emotions and the transfer can be very useful if the therapist helps the patient to identify this process as a way to obtain information on the feelings below.
But something seems to have interfered with the ability of your therapist to do it. In training, the therapists learn to recognize their transference feelings towards the patient, what is known as a countertransference. A therapist whose patient reminds her of her mother impossible to pleasure can start feeling helpless and begin to be affected by this patient. Or a therapist can excessively identify with a patient who struggles with a problem similar to what the doctor has faced in the past (divorce, an alcoholic parent) and not be able to unravel the feelings and experiences of the therapist by the therapist.
As for the transfer, the countertransference must be brought to light and elaborate. But while the transfer is discussed in the therapy session, the therapists develop their countertransference by receiving feedback from other clinicians (or from their own therapists) to avoid confusing the work they are doing to help their patients.
We have a saying in therapy: if it is hysterical, it is historical. Generally when people have intense reactions, there is some history at stake. It seems that your therapist had a strong emotional reaction to your dream, but has not adequately explored what was at the base. He made your dream the problem, instead of understanding his problematic feelings on your dream. In this way, he violated the holiness of the clinical-patient relationship by breaking and then abandoning you, causing pain, preventing you from developing this disturbing experience and leave you without closing or continuity of care.
The sudden withdrawal of your therapist has strengthened the fear that many veterans manage ptsd, depression, anxiety or trauma experience: that vulnerability leads to abandonment.
But this experience, although deeply painful, does not mean that you should completely give up on therapy. You deserve a therapist who will walk by your side and give you space to elaborate everything you have passed, without judgment or fear of abandonment. Your therapist’s actions have shaken the foundations of your trust, but I think you can reconstruct it with the right support from another doctor.
You can start by sharing your experience with the coordinator of adequate mental health resources, which can discuss your options on how to manage the situation with your former therapist (for example, by presenting a complaint so that other patients should not bear something similar) and provide Referral to a new therapist who has been thoroughly.
Interview with two or three therapists asking for a consultation before starting the treatment and telling each of them what happened to you and the effect he has had on you – that you are suffering from the loss of the relationship you had, heard from a person you trust, is religious to open up in the first place. Look, how every therapist replies and notes who you feel most comfortable.
Finally, I want you to know that you are not alone. Even if it may seem so right now, there are people who understand the layers of what you have passed and they will be there to support you.
Do you want to ask the therapist? If you have a question, send an e -mail to [email protected]. By sending a question, you accept the terms of sending our reader. This column does not replace professional medical advice.