Do I have a reasonable expectation of my therapist?
I would love any input if my expectations of my therapist are reasonable. This is the shortened length, I did the best I could to keep it condensed. TLDR at bottom of post.
Background: I see my therapist weekly, it's been maybe 2-3 months. Overall I like them, I don't feel like I get much out of therapy but I'm trying. I have a poor history with therapists, I think I can sometimes be to sensitive to things due to that or maybe my expectations of therapy are not realistic.
I'm considering finding another therapist because I feel they can get too side tracked talking about themselves when giving an example for something from their life, orwhen discussing something about their day or things of the like during our "ice breaker" period at the start of a session. Sometimes it is related and somewhat relevant albeit with maybe a little fluff, or completely unrelated. I don't mind the small talk when starting our the personal examples, but it can feel excessive and it interferes. I find myself internally thinking "can I please get back to what I was trying to say?"
Second reason, in simple terms, the only two times they've said we will follow up with something/continue
a discussion the following week, we never did. One was going through criteria, point for point, of a diagnosis I feel i may fit and having in depth discussion of how/if I might relate to the criteria and discussing if the diagnosis fits or not. i was very happy with this conversation/approach even though we didn't even get through the first criteria. Unfortunately the next week was awkward as she just asked what I wanted to discuss or what was new with me. I didn't say anything because, maybe we're getting back to it, we never did, and one i realized that I felt dejected, and uncomfortable so I never acknowledged it. The second was the possibility of medication, if it would be beneficial and working together to have that discussion with a psychiatrist. Again, didnt get brought up, even though I had asked if they remembered where we left off "of course I do" and I expanded on the issue we discussed considering meds for. that went fine but..... they didn't bring up medication at all. They could feel differently than they did last week once we discussed further but....idk.
I completely acknowledge and agree that I should advocate for myself and people are human and they can be forgetful and make mistakes but I feel its reasonable to expect them to do what they said would be done and initiate picking back up. I dont think that should be on me to do so. Yeah I'm an adult, but I'm in therapy for a reason 🫠
After discussing with a friend, they feel it's not a completely reasonable expectation and if I want to have those discussions I should have said something. I fundamentally agree with the sentiment, but these aren't outliers, it's literally the only times we were supposed to pick up where we left off. I dont expect them to memorize everything, but like..... not even writing it down? Twice they didn't do what they said they would and the fact they didn't, and didn't remember.... to me it suits something... I don't really care who's right, I just want feedback if that is a reasonable expectation of a therapist? I hope I'm explaining well, any feedback would be much appreciated 🙏🏻
TLDR: I want to know if it's reasonable to expect a therapist to be the one to initiate a session by picking back up where they said we would the week prior. Should I be expected to remember and bring it up of they don't. (especially when the discussion are about a possible diagnosis and possible medication use.)