today was supposed to be my first day of therapy and the therapist didn’t show up. I’m pissed off. I wasted 2 hours for nothing.
I’ve sent her a polite message, asking if she’s sick and hoping she is well, but in reality I wanted to yell at her. However, if I yell at her, chances are she won’t treat me.
Before you suggest to find another therapist, finding a shrink where I live is very difficult and the other ones I contacted have either ignored me or are overbooked. I need therapy and it bothers me to be so dependent on one person.
For those of you who have experienced something similar, how doesn’t it bother you?
Flip it around. If you missed an appointment, would you want them pissed off you wasted their time? Would you want them to yell at you? Most likely you would have had a good reason and would want them to understand. It’s most likely the same for them.
Not only does this phenomenon have a name (Fundamental Attribution Error), OP’s situation is the example case given on the wikipedia page:
In other words, observers tend to overattribute the behaviors of others to their personality (e.g., he is late because he’s selfish) and underattribute them to the situation or context (e.g., he is late because he got stuck in traffic).
Except the therapist works for the OP, not the other way around. If it were just OP’s friend who stood them up, then you’d have a point. But this is someone OP had an agreed-upon appointment with someone they are paying to treat them. And also keep in mind that many doctor’s offices will charge for a missed appointment if the patient didn’t show and made no attempt to communicate ahead of time.
Sure, there are probably understandable circumstances that have caused this, and the therapist will probably make it up to them. But that doesn’t invalidate OP’s feelings and expectations, especially in the moment.
I’d feel safer with a person who raised their voice at me for being late, than with a person who just let it go.
That’s…a really weird way to feel. Essentially, you’d feel safer with someone that lacked empathy? This isn’t your buddy, this is a professional. You’d prefer it if your therapist wasn’t in control of their emotions, and would rather get angry at you than someone simply saying, “It’s okay”?
There’s something to be said about emotional honesty and transparancy, I suppose. Most of my family’s pretty inscrutable, so I’m always much more wary around them than my more heart-on-the-sleeve friends.
For a professional relationship though, ehh yeah i dunno.
Raising one’s voice isn’t a loss of control. I don’t feel safe around people who let others abuse them, because I know their lack of a visible response doesn’t mean a total lack of response.
Someone who isn’t visibly addressing disrespect against them, is instead building up resentment.
People with boundaries that are too permissive are less safe, in my book, than people who address disrespect immediately and openly.
Ironically, these are the sorts of questions you should be asking a therapist. More general advice is to only allow yourself to stress about things in your control. There’s a lot of shittiness in the world, and stressing over it is poison to your mental well-being. Focus on what you can change and let go of anything beyond that. It helps me to try giving people the benefit of the doubt, e.g. imagine a scenario where your therapist ghosting you is justifiable - maybe a close family member of theirs was in an accident - and choose to believe that. While it may not always be correct, this is a much better way to live for your part.
Adding to that, don’t stress about things that are still up in the air, once the therapist has responded with a bad reason for missing the appointment there is plenty of time to get stressed about all the potential repercussions, no need to imagine worst cases while you don’t have all the relevant information yet.
“Don’t stress” is terrible advice to someone who has no experience of control over what upsets them, which seems to be an issue OP deals with.
You’re a human being in the body of a human animal. While you can try to use your thoughts to fix/rationalize/justify your feelings, I suspect you’ve already made those attempts with limited success.
OP, here are 2 implementable suggestions:
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DO stress. If you’re already in that state, trying to force yourself to feel another way will make it worse. Let yourself feel what you feel. Have the experience of allowing the sensations in your body to be what they are. If the sensations involve pressure, heat, discomfort, tension, etc, have them. If you find yourself having new sensations in reaction to the feelings you experience, have those new ones too. This kind of somatic practice can help you discover a new way of experiencing life that your mind doesn’t dominate.
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Pick a breathing exercise and do it for 2 minute, 2 minutes, 5 minutes, whatever works. Doesn’t matter which one, as long as it doesn’t have an end goal. Breathwork can help you discover the different modes of being in your experience.
Dismissing advice that doesn’t work for you personally isn’t helpful - different strokes and all. I’ve dealt with anxiety and have found that rationalizing emotional responses to events outside my control normally works well for me. Ultimately, there’s no one-size solution, so people need to try different approaches to find what works for them. A variety of perspectives is always best
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It’s pretty unprofessional for a therapist to fully blow off a first session with no communication.
That being said, I’d honestly suggest that when you do start with her, you tell her how her absence made you feel (in a respectful way). Therapy works best if you come to the sessions being honest about your own flaws that you want to improve. It sounds to me like you don’t like feeling the way this incident made you feel. If she is a good therapist, she will not be offended and instead help to provide you strategies to manage the negative emotions you are feeling.
Lots of advice here, some of it good, some of it questionable.
Two things I’ll amplify from other comments: there’s a reason your therapist missed. It’s could be anything from messing up in their calendar app to a pet or a family member being injured it passing unexpectedly. This falls into the “shit happens” category. You’re allowed to be angry, upset, disappointed, or any combination - your time was wasted. There are generally two outcomes - 1) the miss was unintentional or unavoidable or 2) the therapist is unreliable. Until you find out that it’s case 2, recognize that a couple of wasted hours - in the course of your life- is small potatoes (perspective).
Another is the concept of “agency”. There are things you can affect in your life, in your relationships, and in the world. There are things you cannot. Nobody can force you to allow yourself to ignore the latter. They will always get under your skin. However, if you find yourself dwelling on those items, try and take a step back and identify things in your life you control or which you can alter/adjust. Finding those areas where you have agency allows you to impart your will, to be a positive force in your life trajectory.
I won’t even begin to tell you this is easy. It is a process and a way of interacting. Here’s an example - recognize your disappointment with your therapist but take the initiative to reschedule. Taking it a step further, the day before your next meeting, confirm the appointment. It can be a text or email - simple, low contact. If you don’t get a response, escalate near the end if the work day (or first thing the morning of the appointment) with a call. These are things you can do to manage your therapist and your collective schedules. Most professionals (I am one fwiw) will not be offended in the least with good (but not excessive) communication. If they are, or if the therapist still flakes out on you - well, we’re back to case (2) above and you’re on the troublesome path of finding a new / another therapist. BUT - you’ve done all you can in your power to make this a success. Recognize your initiative as a positive, personal attribute you will continue to leverage in your life.
I wish you the best!
I think you should bring this up with your therapist. Do it politely, but don’t ignore it. If your therapist refuses to treat you in response to your braining it up politely, then you’re better off with no therapy than with this person.
