When You Should NOT Fire Your Therapist

The last blog covered when to fire your therapist. But when should you resist the urge to fire them?

Back in the day, before I was a therapist myself, I dumped therapists. Yes, yours truly let them drop like a sack of potatoes. 

One in particular, my FIRST therapist, was going on a trip to Israel during the time that there were a lot of suicide bombings happening there. She told me where she was going and I asked her if she was worried about all of the bombing that was happening there. I’ll never forget it, she responded, “Are you mentioning it because you are worried that something might happen to me there?” I was NOT ready for that. I was too busy playing the, “I’m so independent and don’t need anyone” game. The truth is, I did care about her. She was the first person that I really told things to.  She acknowledged my wounds and trauma.  And I was not comfortable that she fully saw me. I left her soon after. Although now that I am older and have many years of therapy under my belt, I can see that was an important time to explore my horror that I might actually be worried about her, or that she meant something to me. I wasn’t ready. I could have saved myself years of work if I had just been honest about how her question hit me. 

It took me a while to see that sometimes people leave me because they are too scared of what I represent to them. I have been the only person that someone has disclosed childhood trauma to, the only person to know how they are struggling in their relationship, the only person who knows that they have a trauma that has made them unable to function in their life. Even though it’s hard to stay, I would encourage you to. Tell your therapist you are struggling, and work through it together. 

You shouldn’t fire your therapist because you disagree with a boundary they placed with you. They may be the FIRST person that has ever set a boundary with you. Maybe that is part of why you struggle in life, you don’t allow people to have boundaries or you don’t respect them. I see this often when a therapist enforces policies they have in their practice; like late fees. If you forgot to reschedule your visit and it’s already past the window of rescheduling, why would you not expect them to charge the fee if it’s in their policy?  We need to survive and plan our weeks too. If a therapist enforced their policies, respect them. It’s their bread and butter and they advised you of it ahead of time. An expensive lesson to learn, but don’t dump your therapist over it and move onto the next, especially if you liked them otherwise.

Don’t fire your therapist if you feel like you couldn’t go deeper. A therapist can only go as far as you are willing to go. We are not psychics. I hear it often….. My old therapist didn’t ask the right questions.  They didn’t push me enough. They didn’t pull things out of me. Wow. That’s a tall order. I’m going to put it back on you. Are you being totally honest with your therapist and telling them how something brought up a strong feeling in you?  Are you speaking from the real you or are you sending your “representative” who isn’t really being real about what is going on? Are you withholding something?  Before you fire them, realize that it’s a shared relationship, not just up to one person to do all the work for you. That’s never going to work. 

Also your therapist is human. If you feel like one session your therapist was not listening as deeply as you hoped or looks distracted. It happens to all of us. If this is not a pattern and happening more visits than not, we have off days too. We have breakups, divorces, kid crises, sicknesses, sadness, parent or friend deaths, anxiety or depression,  or a really shitty night of sleep. We can’t really say much to you about specifically what is going on because it’s all about you, but if you sense something is off, it probably is. Your therapist is probably trying to take care of themselves as best as they can behind the scenes, sometimes that is not enough. We also just need grace sometimes. If it’s a regular pattern or you suspect a bigger issue, it’s ok to fire, but I’d encourage you to try to talk to them first. 

So there you are. A few things for you to consider when thinking about firing your therapist. Maybe you shouldn’t but ultimately it is your choice.