hi, so one of us had our second therapy session with this therapist- 15+ years in trauma centred therapy, other things i forgot atm- and the intake and first session was great, s and her really meshed well. and we had an appointment for today at 1pm and s wasn't here, but our youngest(ch) was. and then this happened? copy/pasted from our text with her
(i’m r)
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ch: hi is it ok if it's not s shows up for therapy?
therapist: Thank you for asking this question. I need S to show up for therapy. We can move our session to Saturday. I am seeing a client at 10 if S would like 11.
r: why can't one of us show up therapy?
therapist: That's a great question and I'm glad you asked it.
The practice has set that as a standard and that's what we follow as private therapists in an outpatient individual setting.
Now there are programs, typically called Wraparound, where any and all of you can show up. That therapy can and often is still out patient but there is a team support.
r: we're not understanding how that's an answer to our question
in our understanding of how we work is that we're not separate people, we're separate consciousness yes, but we're all still the same body
therapist: It is that you're separate consciousness. Each individual consciousness is seen clinically as an individual client. I can discuss it further in person with if they're available this
weekend.
I truly enjoy working with S but perhaps this practice/ setting is not a fit for them OR I may not be doing an effective job communicating this via text.
r: so we would have to schedule separate intake appointments tor each ot us? so then how would that work for helping us work better together?
if we switch during a session, is that session then over?
therapist: I feel this is a better
conversation face-to-face with
S. In the meantime, I will confirm our practice policies.
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i don't like it, it feels like it's complicating things more than helping. i don't get the point of it. she knows that our goal is to work together better, less amnesia between switching mainly. and now we dont have anything scheduled cause we dont know when s will be back. s is currently the host ig, but we are just one person? we share consciousness, co front, switch rapidly, so i dont really see how what out therapist is saying is helpful or even doable?
tldr; is this normal/typical for did/plural centred therapy? should we go back to looking for a therapist?
location is California, US.