Not all therapists are good at their jobs. In fact, some are really bad at it. Here’s how I learned this.
My husband had just made it through his second quintuple bypass surgery. Yes. His second open heart surgery with five new coronary artery grafts that bypassed all 17 of his stent implants and his previous five grafts.
We were grateful beyond measure. A brilliant heart surgeon and his team had worked for five hours to give my sweet Jimmy new life. He would live to get to know his grandchildren. He would live to fish again. We would continue to have our life together.
Underneath my gratitude, I was traumatized, scared and exhausted. I was crying a lot. The all too familiar feeling of living on “ready five” had returned: anticipating the next emergency, jumpiness at the sound of my cell phone ringing, flinching when I heard sirens, a feeling that I couldn’t and shouldn’t rest.
I needed to get back into therapy.
I asked my primary care doctor at the time for a recommendation. He gave me two names. As I look back, he didn’t recommend them with any kind of enthusiasm. This should have told me to keep looking. I could have asked him why he recommended these two women. Instead, I chose the one who was closest to where I worked.
In the interest of full disclosure, my first therapy experience had been extraordinary. Bonnie was smart and empathetic as she challenged my thinking and gave me concrete things to practice between sessions. She helped me to heal mentally after Jimmy had a mild heart attack.
But now I was living somewhere else. And this second therapist (I’ll call her Lynn) had a tough act to follow.
I went to six sessions with Lynn. The only slot she had for me was a 1 pm that I had to wedge into my workday and reapply my mascara afterward so I could look like I hadn’t been to therapy when I got back to work.
The first session was fine. I packed my story and my problems into a neat little 45-minute package, and she listened. I didn’t feel much of a connection to her, but I gave her and myself the benefit of the doubt.
She was late for the second session. Not by much, but enough to annoy me. I hate late. But I thought, hey, everyone is late now and again. So I gave her the benefit of the doubt again.
A couple of things needled at me after the next couple of sessions. I was in talk therapy, and I was getting stuff out of me and into the room. But I wasn’t learning. I had always scribbled notes during sessions with Bonnie. She gave me homework, which was perfect for me. I never took notes with Lynn, and there was no homework. Just talk.
She also had a way of talking about herself in session, and not in a way that related to me. It felt like I was in a gabfest with an acquaintance rather than in therapy.
We spent the first ten minutes of session five talking about a problem she had with her daughter at school. I listened as she got her stuff out into the room. Yeah. There I was taking care of her. She pivoted the session to me and what I needed, but I felt ripped off. The benefit of the doubt had dissolved. Still I went back for session six, which would be my last.
Near the end of the session, Lynn slid a four-inch square packet across the cocktail table toward me. It was some sort of diet meal replacement thing. “I’ve been wanting to talk to you about this,” she said. “You’re in marketing. This could be a great opportunity for you. I think you’d be really good at this.”
What the actual f&*k?
My therapist was trying to get me to be a part of her down line in a multi-level marketing company.
How dare you betray my weak trust. Have you even listened to a word I’ve said in here?
She went on about this “amazing business opportunity” and how she wouldn’t be involved with something that didn’t work and how she was sure I knew a lot of people in sales who could really get behind this.
I don’t remember how I ended the session or what I said. All I remember is taking the packet off the table and choking on my own politeness as I left.
Two days later, I left Lynn a voicemail, telling her that I was “in a good place” and that I wouldn’t need any more sessions. It was a lie. I wasn’t in a good place. I was in a bad place that felt even worse because I didn’t have the guts to be truthful with this woman.
The story of Lynn taught me three things about therapy relationships.
1. There’s a business aspect to therapy. Go into it with that understanding. If it doesn’t feel like a fit, don’t wait for the fit to develop. Chances are it won’t. Tell the therapist that it doesn’t feel like a fit and leave. If they’re good at what they do, they’ll understand. If they’re not, who cares?
2. The benefit of the doubt is a cop out. I used it to avoid being honest with this person I was hiring to help me with my mental health. I gave Lynn the benefit of the doubt repeatedly because I felt vulnerable and wanted to believe that she cared about my healing. I knew better. I should have exited the relationship much sooner.
3. Know what you want to get from therapy and ask yourself if you’re getting it. In my case, I wanted tools I could use to help me deal with uncertainty and stop living in constant fear. Learning was important to me. When I realized I wasn’t learning, I should have left.
I eventually returned to therapy a third time. It was a beautiful, truthful experience that made me stronger, moved me forward in my life and that I’ll write about in this blog.
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