Why is my therapist ignoring me

It may not seem fair, but therapists may do this in order to keep their boundaries well-defined and avoid conflicts of interest. You have a personality trait, physical trait, or component of your history that the therapist chooses not to work with. It could be as something as simple as body odor, or as complex as you remind them of their mother.

Therapists will probably not share with you the specific issue that prevents them from working with you. Some feel ineffective working with certain types of people or those with certain kinds of problems.

I know therapists, for instance, who refuse to see anyone with a personality disorder, because of the complications it can bring to treatment. A therapist may just not feel safe around a certain type of client, or clients who have certain types of concerns. This may feel like they are not being fair to you, or that they should take on past clients no matter what. But therapists sometimes have to make a decision about who to see, and whether the person will benefit from additional psychotherapy.

While most therapists will gladly open their doors to see an ex-patient again, not all will. This entry was inspired by Dr. If you're wondering how to start, here's some helpful…. EFT is a 3-stage psychotherapy approach that can help you identify unwanted relationship patterns and develop more secure ways to connect to others. Are we using the wrong criteria to diagnose mental health conditions?

BetterHelp pairs users with licensed therapists for web-based therapy sessions. Therapy can be a powerful tool for healing and personal growth. Select personalised content. Create a personalised content profile. Measure ad performance. Select basic ads. Create a personalised ads profile. Select personalised ads. Apply market research to generate audience insights. Measure content performance.

Develop and improve products. List of Partners vendors. In psychoanalytic theory , counter-transference occurs when the therapist projects their own unresolved conflicts onto the client. This could be in response to something the client has unearthed.

Although many now believe it to be inevitable, counter-transference can be damaging if not appropriately managed. With proper monitoring, however, some research shows that counter-transference can play a productive role in the therapeutic relationship. The American Psychological Association APA defines counter-transference as a reaction to the client or client's transference , which is when the client projects their own conflicts onto the therapist.

Transference is a normal part of psychodynamic therapy. There are four manifestations of counter-transference. Three of these can potentially harm the therapeutic relationship. Counter-transference is especially common in novice therapists , so supervisors pay close attention and help them become more self-aware.

The mental health community supports seasoned clinicians by urging them to seek peer review and supervisory guidance as needed. Rather than eliminate counter-transference altogether, the goal is to use those feelings productively. How does a therapist know they are experiencing counter-transference? If you are a client, how do you know if your therapist is exhibiting the signs of it?

If you're concerned about the presence of counter-transference in your therapeutic relationship, be aware of these warning signs. In general, be aware of whether the therapist has an inappropriate emotional response to the client. This might look like:. Warning signs on behalf of the therapist include:.

Here's an example of what counter-transference could look like: A therapist becomes concerned when they develop protective feelings for a client.

But when all of their suggestions fell flat, they asked me why I was still seeing Becca. Maybe someone else would find a way in, they suggested, or maybe another therapist would be as stuck as I was, but why waste her time? I knew this was true, but I also knew something else from having been a patient myself: therapy is hard work — and not just for the therapist. What makes therapy challenging is that it requires people to see themselves in ways they normally choose not to.

Of course, therapists aim to be supportive, but our support is for your growth, not for your low opinion of your partner. Our role is to understand your perspective but not necessarily to endorse it. My own therapist put it more bluntly: If I just wanted to feel good in the short term, he told me, I could eat a piece of cake or have an orgasm. So finally, reluctantly, I decided to end our sessions. Why are they telling me this?

What significance does this have for them? People who are aggressively boring want to keep you at bay. What patients need from us is compassion, yes, but also objectivity — a light shined on their blind spots. What we need from them is trust that we care about their progress as much as they do, and a curiosity about the ways they may be unwittingly perpetuating their difficulties.