getting "fired"

Ann, you're not the only one who worries about being let go by their therapist. It's not totally uncommon, especially when clients feel stuck or as if they're not doing well or not doing what the therapist thinks they should be doing (hmmm, like eating enough, or something random like that :)

I agree with Laura that being afraid you may be fired the next time you walk through the office door is an important thing to talk about with your therapist.

In addition, let me say a few things about this "firing" business. First of all, being in relationship with a therapist isn't the same as being in relationship with an interior decorator or landscape architect or house painter or gardener. Yes, these are all "professional" types of relationships, but there are major differences between a relationship with a therapist and one with any of these other professions.

Therapists are HUGELY concerned with ethics and with protecting clients. And we should be. People come to us vulnerable, and wanting/needing help. It's our job to protect them and help them with their work on themselves. A gardener, fabulous as he/she may be, isn't at all obligated to protect a client's mental health- he's obligated not to kill the plants for sure, and obligated to be fair in his business practices...but that's way different than being ethically, morally and legally obligated to protect a therapy client. 

So, an interior decorator is "allowed" to "fire" a client pretty easily I imagine; so is a gardener or a pool cleaner or a dentist (as long as he refers the client to someone reputable). But therapists are bound by strong ethical codes regarding, well, regarding many, many things :) and that's good for clients.

There are pretty clear guidelines for when treatment can or should be terminated- and none of them call for "random" and "sudden" letting go of a client. The ethics call for us therapists to work hard and do the best we can to help our clients. We can, and actually are ethically mandated to, terminate a therapy if we truly believe we cannot help a person anymore. But this decision isn't one a therapist would enter into quickly or casually. And it wouldn't be based solely on the fact that you are struggling with a hard patch of eating disorder behaviors- I mean, hard patches go with the territory in recovery from eating disorders right?

Ending the therapy might be based on something like: no matter what the therapist had tried, you were unwilling to try anything to help yourself and basically refused any help at all. In a case like this the therapist would have to decide what was, in reality, possible, and what was in the client's best interest. Again, though, this wouldn't be decided overnight- and it wouldn't be decided without a lot of input and discussion that would involve the client (issues of termination/ending therapy, no matter for what reason and under what circumstances tend to be thoroughly processed through if at all possible- it's a therapist thing!- because it protects the client to do so, not because therapist find it entertaining).

So, like Laura also said, Ann, you appear to have enough to worry about these days without burdening yourself with thoughts about whether you'll be "fired" by your therapist. Go ahead, talk with him/her about your fears; get it over with, and then use your precious energy to work on your health. That's where your energy really does need to be going, not into worrying :)

Comments

[Super Egg]

OMG there are/were so many times when I thought I would, should or could be fired. But what I have learned so far is that firing myself, which I often still wrestle with, is totally different than what is going on for my therapist. and, it was always scary to ask, because i would think that if i would ask then i might get double fired, which would be double worse. but that never happened, and the result is always the same, i get to know the truth of the matter.

[PTC]

I've almost been fired a few times. The first time, my T said she wouldn't see me unless I went to the doctor to get my head checked out (I had several concussions in a short period of time and she was concerned).

I almost got fired again because I refused to gain weight. She said I had to gain 4 lbs in 2 weeks and I told her that that was not going to happen. She then left on maternity leave so that one kind of fell by the wayside.

I think the talk of firing came up one more time, but it was more like her saying, "I didn't mention anything about firing you..." So, she knew that I was thinking that she was going to fire me.

I don't want her to fire me.

[Ann]

I have to email both my RD and my T daily and I had mentioned that I was wasting both of their time, because I'm struggling so bad and continuing to do worse instead of standing still or improving. I saw my RD yesterday and mid conversation she says, "by the way you are NOT a waste of my time" and then she said something else, but it was something like a compliment and I didn't really listen, blocking out anything said about me that could be positive.
So, at least I know I'm not getting fired, but they have both mentioned several times how concerned they are (first time I've heard that this much over 9 years). Ugh! This journey takes too long, why can't we just make the decision that we want recovery we want to be recovered and don't want ED and then it be over and we don't have to worry about it anymore. Why does it have to take so long and be so hard? This is so hard.