The second part is always the darkest of the trilogy. The Empire Strikes Back. If you read ISO A Therapist Part One, you know that we've had our ups and downs with mental health professionals. I have struggled with whether to share this part because I have one inner voice telling me not to be too negative. But I have another, bossier inner voice telling me that people who have encountered other crazy therapists need to know that they are not alone. So here goes.
After B, we were thoroughly disillusioned with therapists. B was supposed to be a trauma specialist and was part of the top-referred trauma therapy program in the area - and she was a huge flop. So we pulled out our Daniel Hughes books, and websites, and every other resource we had and said, we are going to make home the focus of therapy. And then something magic happened: she asked to see a therapist.
At first it seemed like a manipulation, or a ploy, or a set up. She very much wanted to see a woman of color therapist, and we knew we needed a therapist with a strong attachment and trauma background. Not a large population meets those criteria in New Mexico. But then the second magic thing happened: we found a woman of color who had just started a group practice focused on attachment work!
We will call her L. (It is occurring to me just now how good I am at forgetting names.) She did an initial intake at our home and said all the right things. All sessions would be at our home too, as that was her philosophy. We talked attachment theory. We talked pitfalls. We talked lessons learned. She seemed to hear us and have a wealth of experience. Just the interactions in the intake were more real and deep and genuine than any interaction I had seen between my daughter and a therapist... ever. Then at the end of the session, she informed us that she was finishing her dissertation and didn't have time to work with us. What now? Come again? But she had a colleague who was just as amazing who would work with us, and we would meet her at our next/first session.
Alarms should have gone off at that moment. Why would she come to our home and meet with our child if she planned to disappear so soon? Who were we getting passed off to? Why wasn't the new person at the intake meeting? What was their history together that she could so confidently palm us off on her, and her on us?
We should have run, but we didn't. We were optimistic. We wanted it to work so badly that we didn't believe our own lying eyes.
So the new therapist, S, shows up. S is not a woman of color, but she is a woman. And like I said, my daughter is at a moment when she is wanting to do the work. So we proceed. The format is family session, brief alone time, family session. Now I know that some attachment experts and parents say never to allow therapy sessions with the child alone. And I totally get that even though I don't agree - especially as the child reaches adulthood. But I digress.
Second session in, daughter makes a choice to begin talking about her (pre-us) history of sexual abuse. She uses her time with S to strategize about how they are going to open the conversation, and then we come back together and daughter tells us this is what she wants to tackle. We say WOW. This is big. This is hard. I'm not sure that I would have started there, but if that's the call you want to make, we can do it. S says, ooh, time is up. But since we have opened up such a big topic let's get another session on the calendar right away.
That third session comes and we wait. Five minutes pass, 10, 15. We get worried, we are calling, texting, emailing. We hear nothing. No session. No call the next day. The day after that we get a voicemail from S. Apparently the day of our scheduled session was S's birthday, and she hadn't realized that when she scheduled the session, and then the day came and she just didn't feel like working. So she didn't even bother to call? What now? Come again?
We thought to just call it quits right there. But S basically pleaded with us to at least give her a chance to apologize in person. We called L to ask what the hell kind of operation she was running - but no return call. S comes over to our house and apologizes profusely. She knows she damaged the relationship. She knows she made herself the focus of therapy instead of our family and that was a huge mistake. But all that said, they did have a connection and had embarked on some difficult stuff, and it felt worth salvaging. Oh, and could we start coming to her office space because we live so far away.
After much contemplation and another round of calling everyone we know (and a large number of people we don't know) trying to find someone else, we decide to continue with S. We have session #4 at her office, and it goes ok. The next week we go to appointment #5. More progress. We may even be hitting our stride. At the end of the session, she walks us out of the office as usual. When we get out into the street she says, "Listen, our office is closing and our practice is disbanding. So I can't see you any more. If we decide to start practicing again, I'll let you know."
<bleep>
I still think about this episode when I drive past that street. And I have a few observations:
1. S was clearly completely crazy. She did not honor any level of professionalism that one would expect, even for a novice. She was a straight up train wreck.
2. We were clearly in complete denial because we were so desperate for help.
3. Our denial made it impossible for us to see how crazy she was, but I'm guessing even most of you readers were surprised when you got to the end of that last paragraph.
In a way the whole thing was so insane that even our daughter was like, what the heck just happened? In some ways S did less damage than arrogant K or idiot B because we were all three on the same side - she hadn't split us and in fact had given us a common bond of shock and anger toward her. But for heaven's sake. Why even be a therapist?
I promise that our story (or at least the ISO a Therapist part of our story) has a happy ending. But for now I'll just say that I recall S with great enmity, and while I try to have love in my heart for all people, for her... not so much.
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