Hi everyone, I have been thriving recently. I've started a new volunteer position doing crisis support, and I've been getting better and better at it. I've also been going out a lot and doing fun stuff. I've been challenging myself, and growing as an individual, and life is great.
However, something doesn't feel right. I've had the same psychologist for about a year now. At first we got along very well, I liked her a lot, and she did great work and changed my perspective on some things. But because she's a psychologist and I'm pursuing a career in counselling (eventually), I'm worried she sees herself more as a mentor to me than my psychologist - I've can't explain why that's a bad thing, because it has it's perks, but it just feels like it. I guess it feels like she's more casual with me than she should be, she does a lot of personal self-disclosure in some sessions. Some self-disclosure is useful, like telling me what kinds of jobs she's done in the past to get to where she is today and build up experience. Other self-disclosure feels a bit useless to me, given that this session is supposed to be about my issues at the moment. Maybe I'm too psychodynamic in my thinking (in which as a psychodynamic counsellor, you would never self-disclose anything, though psychologists are vastly different to psychodynamic counsellors so what do I know). She also often forgets my long-term career goals (which I have to repeat to her every session). She still sometimes thinks I'm pursuing a career in psychology (I'm not) when I'm trying to get into counselling. Sometimes I get the sense that she might be trying to sway me towards psychology because psychologists get medicare rebates and counsellors don't (not yet anyways, it may change soon). But that's not a deal breaker for me, counsellors are still in high demand, and I would rather be a counsellor/psychotherapist than a psychologist. (I'm sorry for swearing in advance but) fuck the competitiveness and uncertainty of the psychology postgraduate pathway.
I've been too afraid to bring some of this up to her, which feels shameful even though it shouldn't be, but I might talk to her about it next session... I just need to vent about some of the other things that haven't sat right with me first. I need to stress that I understand that psychologists have many many clients, and I may not see her as regularly as some other clients (it's once a month at the moment) but I still feel a bit disappointed. Two sessions ago she called me by another client's name and I had to correct her, because she had the wrong notes on her tablet up. Last session she called me by my middle name instead of my first name twice and I didn't correct her because I was too embarrassed/it felt too awkward. Every session I have to remind her that I'm currently job hunting and that I'm looking to do a counselling pathway (not a psychology pathway) in the future - I feel like every session I'm repeating myself for at least 10 minutes. I also feel like she cuts me off sometimes when I'm about to say something (and more often than not it's a self-disclosure rather than waiting until I'm done talking) and so then I forget what I was going to say.
She also always tells me that I can reach out to her via email between sessions if I need anything. I took her up on that mid last week, giving her an update on how my first crisis support shift went and explaining some of the things that were making me feel distressed that occurred during that shift (I'm fine now by the way). She never responded and it's been almost a week. It feels hopeless because I was really needing some support.
I went to couples therapy with my partner later last year and we went to go see a trainee/student counsellor doing their masters in counselling. She was terrific, so helpful, and I told her she was better than my own personal psychologist. It made me do a lot of thinking about this whole situation, and I've realised I'm honestly stumped and not sure what to do about this whole situation. I want to bring it up to my psychologist but I'm so scared, I don't know of what, maybe I'm a chronic people-pleaser and it's better to go along with things but I can't take it anymore and I'm worried I'm not making any progress with her and myself at all. How would I even bring it up, it feels so awkward now that I'm a year into therapy with her. Ugh.
I hope I didn't forget anything, I think I covered all of it. I'm just frustrated and now sure how to approach this. Any guidance would be excellent, thank you so much for reading if you got this far 💜
