Posted by mair on January 29, 2003, at 11:08:04
In reply to Why can't you see more than one therapist at once?, posted by Dinah on January 29, 2003, at 9:08:05
Dinah
I was in this situation for awhile and would never do this again.
For a time I had a therapist (therapist #1) who was also my pdoc. His approach to therapy was pretty traditional. At some point he recommended that I see a woman in his practice for CBT. I think he also thought that I would have an easier time talking with her about certain gender-based issues. I had been seeing therapist #1 2x per week and when I added this other therapist (#2), I saw each of them 1x week.
I really found it to be more confusing than helpful because the lines between what each would cover were not clearly enough delineated. I never quite knew what issues I should raise with one and not with the other or with both.
Things got to be really bad when my pdoc (therapist #1) left on a several-months long sabbatical which happened (very coincidentally) to coincide with a period of time when the practice was breaking up, not at all amicably. My newer therapist (#2) was going to go off with the splinter group. At around the same time I was feeling pretty equivocal about therapy anyway and was talking alot about this to therapist #2 while therapist #1 was away. I think I was also looking for some validation of all of the work I had done with pdoc/therapist #1 and I wasn't getting that from therapist #2. I started to feel like I was in the middle of this break up, and I also didn't get the sense that they were communicating particularly well with regard to my case. (therapist #1 was in regular phone contact with therapist #2 while he (#1) was away). I also felt very torn about what I should do after the split. I liked therapist #2, but I also felt this huge sense of loyalty to therapist #1 and felt that I'd hurt his feelings if I terminated with him in favor of therapist #2. The ugly upshot of this was that I got pretty angry with both of them and terminated therapy altogether. I never saw therapist #2 after she left that practice. Therapist #1 continued to be my pdoc and I would sort of drift in and out of therapy with him on a periodic as needed basis. I never felt that same level of commitment to longer term therapy with him and our relationship, I thought, clearly had suffered. It probably didn't help that I never really worked out the anger with either one of them. After a couple of years of being in therapy limbo, I realized that I really needed to be seeing someone again on a more regular basis. It was then that I hooked up with my current therapist.I really think for this to work you need 2 therapists who are both committed to making this work for you and you need some very clear boundaries about what gets addressed when and with whom. You could end up spending all of your time in therapy talking to therapist #1 about therapist #2 and vice versa.
Mair
PS: I should explain that neither therapist dragged me into their dispute - alot of what I knew was intuitive. Also, I had a friend in this same practice who was part of the splinter group. She was quite circumspect with me but open enough for me to figure out that there were alot of bad feelings between the splinter group and therapist #1.
poster:mair
thread:2321
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20021230/msgs/2326.html