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My Therapist Fired Me After I Confessed to a Sexual Dream About Her

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My Therapist Fired Me After I Confessed to a Sexual Dream About Her

I am a veteran with PTSD, depression, anxiety and marital discord. The Veterans Affairs Department has been paying for me to see a therapist. At my last session, I shared with my therapist that I’d had a sexual dream about her. I did not share any specifics about the dream, and I did not say or suggest that I have a crush on her. (I do not.)

My therapist blew up at me, saying that this is something you should not bring up to a therapist. The next day I felt so bad about the incident that I texted the therapist and apologized. I told her I was embarrassed and would never share something like that again. She did not reply.

Two days later, I received a phone call from her receptionist telling me that my therapist was terminating therapy with me.

For the record, the therapist never told me any topic was off limits. In fact, she told me that therapy was a safe place to share any issues I wanted to bring up. I remember asking her, “I can tell you anything?” and she said, “Yes, anything.”

I feel confused and abandoned. She was the only person I could share anything with and not feel judged. This is how a lot of vets feel if we share anything terrible we had done or failed to do while on active duty. I don’t think I will ever trust a therapist again.

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I feel lost, alone and hurt. Can you offer any guidance?

From the Therapist:

I’m so sorry that this happened to you, because you did absolutely nothing wrong. Instead, your therapist’s wrongdoing has left you in a deeply upsetting predicament. A therapist should create a truly safe space, and it’s devastating when trust in your therapist is broken. What you’ve experienced — especially after sharing something so delicately personal — is not only hurtful but also destabilizing.

In therapy, you have every right to bring up a dream — even if it’s about your therapist and even if it’s sexual — and to trust that the therapist will handle whatever you bring into those conversations with skill, compassion and professionalism. Before I suggest how to navigate this breach, I think it might help you to understand how this disclosure should have been handled.

When people go to therapy, two dynamics typically emerge — transference and countertransference. Transference occurs when patients direct feelings related to a person in their lives onto the therapist. If, for example, you have a problematic relationship with a family member who you feel is controlling, you might transfer those feelings of being controlled onto your therapist whenever she suggests an intervention for you to try.

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These feelings can range from anger to adoration, and romantic or erotic transference can occur when a therapist reminds a patient of a past romantic partner or love object, or when an earlier need is being fulfilled by the therapist: unconditional acceptance, a safe environment, emotional intimacy, or feeling seen or valued or protected. Dreams are often the subconscious mind’s way of processing complex emotions, and transference can be very useful if the therapist helps the patient identify this process as a way to gain insight into underlying feelings.

But something seems to have interfered with your therapist’s ability to do this. In training, therapists learn to recognize their own feelings of transference toward the patient — what’s known as countertransference. A therapist whose patient reminds her of her impossible-to-please mother may start to feel helpless and begin to resent this patient. Or a therapist may overidentify with a patient who struggles with a similar issue to one that the clinician dealt with in the past (divorce, an alcoholic parent), and become unable to disentangle the patient’s feelings and experiences from the therapist’s own.

As with transference, countertransference needs to be brought to light and processed. But while transference is discussed in the therapy session, therapists process their countertransference by receiving feedback from other clinicians (or their own therapists) to avoid muddying the work they’re doing to help their patients.

We have a saying in therapy: If it’s hysterical, it’s historical. Generally when people have intense reactions, there’s some history at play. It sounds as if your therapist had a strong emotional reaction to your dream but didn’t adequately explore what was underlying it. She made your dream the issue, instead of understanding her problematic feelings about your dream. In doing so, she violated the sanctity of the clinician-patient relationship by shaming and then abandoning you, causing you pain, preventing you from processing this disturbing experience and leaving you without closure or continuity of care.

Your therapist’s sudden withdrawal reinforced the very fear many veterans who are managing PTSD, depression, anxiety or trauma experience: that vulnerability leads to abandonment.

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But this experience, though deeply painful, doesn’t mean that you should give up on therapy altogether. You deserve a therapist who will walk alongside you and give you room to process whatever you’ve been through, without judgment or fear of abandonment. Your therapist’s actions have rocked the foundation of your trust, but I believe you can rebuild it with the right support from a different clinician.

You can start by sharing your experience with the appropriate mental health resource coordinator, who can discuss your options on how to handle the situation with your former therapist (for instance, by filing a complaint so that other patients won’t have to endure something similar) and provide you with referrals to a new therapist who has been thoroughly vetted.

Interview two or three therapists by requesting a consultation before you begin treatment, and tell each of them what happened to you and the effect it had on you — that you are grieving the loss of the relationship you had, feel betrayed by a person you trusted, are hesitant to open up to a therapist again and are seeking someone who can help you to move forward from that experience and heal the wounds that brought you to therapy in the first place. See how each therapist responds, and notice with whom you feel most comfortable.

Finally, I want you to know that you’re not alone. Although it may feel that way right now, there are people who understand the layers of what you went through and will be there to support you.

Want to Ask the Therapist? If you have a question, email askthetherapist@nytimes.com. By submitting a query, you agree to our reader submission terms. This column is not a substitute for professional medical advice.

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Trump’s name must come off of the Kennedy Center, judge rules

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Trump’s name must come off of the Kennedy Center, judge rules

Julia Demaree Nikhinson/AP

A federal judge has blocked President Trump from adding his name to the Kennedy Center, saying that the Washington, D.C. arts complex was named for the late president John F. Kennedy. In a ruling on Friday, the judge also temporarily blocked the administration from closing the Kennedy Center for a planned two-year renovation that was slated to begin in July.

U.S. District Court Judge Christopher Cooper wrote in his ruling that: “The Kennedy Center’s organic statute makes crystal clear that the Center is to be named for President Kennedy, and it cannot bear any other formal name or public memorial based on the Board’s unilateral say-so. Congress gave the Kennedy Center its name, and only Congress can change it.”

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A Kennedy Center spokesperson told NPR in an email Friday afternoon that it will appeal the decision. Roma Daravi, vice president of public relations for the complex, wrote: “We will review the decision carefully though the reality remains — the Center requires an urgent and significant restoration – a truth that even the plaintiff acknowledges. With $257 million secured by President Trump and approved by Congress, the resources are in place and we remain committed to pursuing every lawful avenue to ensure the Trump Kennedy Center is restored as a national cultural landmark for all Americans to enjoy.”

NPR has requested comment from the White House, but did not receive an immediate reply.

As part of his ruling, Judge Cooper ordered that all signage and online materials referring to the “Donald J. Trump and John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts,” the “Trump Kennedy Center,” or anything similar must be removed within 14 days.

The judge also blocked, for now, plans to close the Kennedy Center for two years of renovations. Trump and the center’s current voting board members – all of whom were selected by the president, who also became chairman of the center last year – had planned to start the renovations in early July, just after the 250th anniversary celebrations. In his 94-page ruling, Judge Cooper called the renovation plans “murky,” and wrote: “None of the board members had sufficient information in advance of the March 16 meeting to make a well-considered decision to close the center.” The center has been winding down its programming and has already dismissed most of its programming staff.

Referring to a Truth Social post written by President Trump in February, the judge also wrote: “There was no ‘one year review of the Trump Kennedy Center, that has taken place with Contractors, Musical Experts, Art Institutions, and other Advisors and Consultants, deciding between’ complete and partial closure, as President Trump claimed.”

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Cooper’s ruling resulted from a lawsuit filed in March by Rep. Joyce Beatty of Ohio, an ex-officio member of the Kennedy Center board whose voting rights there were stripped last year.

The ruling does not prevent the Kennedy Center’s board from a future closure, but the judge said that it should do so only after the board has “sufficient information to make a considered, independent decision, taking account of its obligation to both maintain and operate a premiere arts venue and its solemn duty to memorialize a fallen President.”

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L.A. Affairs: I went on 53 first dates in one summer. Here’s a look at my spreadsheet

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L.A. Affairs: I went on 53 first dates in one summer. Here’s a look at my spreadsheet

Three years after my second divorce, with the help of a dating app, I went on 53 first dates in one summer. Fifty-three times, I put on my first-date uniform (nice but not trying too hard), flat-ironed my hair and texted my date itinerary to my friend Karen to make it easier for the FBI to track my whereabouts just in case this was the internet date that finally went wrong.

I had a system. The system involved a spreadsheet. I kept track of what I wore and what stories we shared to avoid repeating myself in case there was a second or third date. There were exploratory follow-up dates, but it usually only took one to know.

The coffees and lunches and dinners of that season flicker in my mind like a rom-com video montage. There were some average dates, plenty of nice-guy, zero-chemistry dates, but a few stand out.

Here are the notables.

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There was the extremely tall, minor league baseball player I met at BJ’s in Burbank. He said no more than four words to me the entire meal, but managed to chat up our waitress. I believe he walked me to my car and went back for her number.

The quiet and irritable TV editor I met at Guelaguetza on Olympic Boulevard. We ordered the chicken mole and chapulines. During the meal, he had a panic attack and excused himself to call his therapist. He actually told me this.

The experimental-video director with the white faux hawk I met at Go Get Em Tiger in East Hollywood. He spent the date in an hourlong monologue about his ex-wife Julia, stopping only to show me many, many photos of Julia.

A young man, originally from Phoenix, asked to meet at Soot Bull Jip on 8th Street. A struggling writer-actor-production assistant, he confided that he had looked up my name on Internet Movie Database and noticed that I was a producer. He then proceeded to pitch me an animated children’s show about singing giraffes. He also asked for a ride to Vons. I declined both.

The screenwriter I met at République who, based on his startling non-resemblance to his photo, had obviously posted a picture of someone else on his profile. He brought me three mixed CDs of music based on what he “knew” I would like. It was all Radiohead and Elliott Smith. I adjusted my dating profile because I was apparently coming off as depressed.

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There was the nervous and uptight English tutor, with a script in turn-around and a famous roommate, that I met at a Starbucks in Koreatown. This guy corrected my grammar within the first five minutes of our introduction. Then, he proceeded to inform me that rather than be put off by this, I should be grateful for the new information so I could fix my error and not appear to be uneducated.

The trendy, bearded sports photographer I met for a late-night dinner at Fred 62 in Los Feliz. I had high hopes for this guy, and we made plans for a second date. But then things started unraveling once we realized I had already dated his younger brother.

There was also the suave (Hand kiss? Really?) and extremely tan French tennis pro I crossed La Cienega Boulevard for and met for lunch at Thai Vegan in Santa Monica. He was on a nonstop series of calls on his cellphone during the entire meal and then asked for a second date. I said, “Non, merci.

When describing these guys to Karen, I used their identifying traits to label them. (Stalker Creep. Dude Looks Like a Lady. Mom Jeans Guy.) Like an FNG in Vietnam, it was better not to learn their names.

Due to a story he had shared with me via email, date No. 53 was identified as Naked Drummer. I tried to reserve judgment. Before Naked Drummer came to meet me for our first date, he called at the last minute and said the following:

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“I want to recap. I just turned 30. I am currently living with my mother. I play guitar in an alternative folk band. I have a semi-crappy temp job at Disney with no benefits. I drive a green ’97 Plymouth Grand Voyager minivan that smells like weed. If you would like to change your mind about this whole dinner thing, now is your chance.” He described himself as tall, dark and tall.

For some reason, I broke many of my first date “safety rules” with Naked Drummer. I gave him my address. I let him pick me up. When he came to get me, I let him into my apartment. We went for dinner at Noshi Sushi on Beverly Boulevard. None of that is prudent behavior, and I do not recommend any of it except the chu toro.

Naked Drummer was a funny, smart, nice Jewish boy who had been touring in bands in that Grand Voyager since college graduation. On the first date, we bonded over takuwan rolls and our histories as teenage goths. My goth uniform included black Maybelline eyeliner I used a lighter to heat the tip with before application. His goth uniform included an olive-green trench coat he borrowed from his mom. We were a match made in Joy Division heaven. He confided he was an Insane Clown Posse Juggalo, I intimated I was in the Kiss Army. (We were both lying about those last two.)

Reader, I married him.

The author is a former writer, director and producer for television. She and Mr. Rosenberg live in South Pasadena. She’s on Instagram: @smacksy.

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L.A. Affairs chronicles the search for romantic love in all its glorious expressions in the L.A. area, and we want to hear your true story. We pay $400 for a published essay. Email LAAffairs@latimes.com. You can find submission guidelines here. You can find past columns here.

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Poppy Liu wants to remind you how revolutionary I Love Boosters is : Bullseye with Jesse Thorn

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Poppy Liu wants to remind you how revolutionary I Love Boosters is : Bullseye with Jesse Thorn

I Love Boosters starts like a fun heist movie. There’s a gang of cool ladies from the Bay Area who steal clothes from high-end designers and sell them at a steep discount to their friends and neighbors. But I Love Boosters is also a Boots Riley movie. The film is surreal and bombastic, branching out in a thousand directions and traversing a dozen genres. So it can’t really stay a heist movie.

Poppy Liu drives that change more than pretty much any other character in the film. She plays Jianhu, a garment worker in China who joins the gang and brings with her a bonkers new wrinkle to the story. It’s a role Poppy was made for. She’s made her career playing confident, somewhat unhinged weirdos. She was cast in a lead role in the 2019 sitcom Sunnyside, had other parts on Better Call Saul, The After Party, and Hacks.

Liu joins us to talk about starring in I Love Boosters and the message that she hopes audiences take away from the film. She also chats with us about her upbringing in Minnesota, how she got into comedy acting, her role on Hacks, and much more.

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