What is everyone’s experience with counsellors/therapists (I’m unsure of the difference)?
I have come here to post about my first experience as an adult with a counsellor, otherwise I will attempt to punch people and throw things at the wall.
This stupid woman (whom I have never met, but from her professional profiles seems above such earthy things as hair brushing and eyebrow plucking) rearranged my phone call an epic six times before she finally spoke to me this morning, almost 40 mins later than she said she would because apparently she’d wanted me to email her to confirm that I absolutely, definitely, 100% felt comfortable speaking to her before she dared to phone.
She spent the first 12 mins of the conversation talking about herself, telling me where she was from and listing all the previous places she had worked, seemingly utterly oblivious to my increasingly impatient “uh-hu, ok, fantastic, so anyway…â€
I’d been told by a clinic dealing with physical health (whom I suspect were paying for this phone call by the minute) that this idiot could give me more info on my diagnosis…after she’d finished her life story it emerged she couldn’t even remember what my fucking name was! She said she didn’t have her notes with her or her computer switched on, saying ‘oh silly me, i’m such a scatterbrain, always so disorganised’, perhaps expecting me to find it endearing and laugh along with her. I did not.
The two things I wanted to know from this conversation were: 1) what is the problem; and 2) how can we fix the problem? Not only could she not give the slightest scrap of info on either of those things, she thought I’d genuinely appreciate wasting my fucking time by having a chat with her!! Aimlessly asking about my job and family etc, it was like she was totally unable to appreciate that there is no way I would have taken time out of my day to speak to her unless she actually had new information to give me.
The icing on the cake was when she finally got down to the medical bit, and wanted to know about my family history…and started asking about the wrong side of the family from which this disorder came from!! When I pointed out to her that from my research I’d learned that this disorder is only passed down the female line, so she had no reason to ask about my dad’s family, she was silent for a full minute before reiterating that she wasn’t familiar with my problem because she didn’t have her notes with her or her computer switched on…
I ended the conversation there, googled this woman, and found that she was the leading expert in her field of counselling….BECAUSE SHE WAS THE ONLY COUNSELLOR IN THE COUNTRY WORKING IN THAT FIELD!! It was a job title that she had basically invented herself, she didn’t have any relevant qualifications, just a bachelors degree in an unrelated subject.
Ok, so I wasn’t paying for this, and I only wasted 20 mins of my time speaking to the stupid cunt (plus a couple more hours fuming about it/writing this post) so it’s not like i’ve really lost anything, but it’s just so fucking annoying when I thought I was gonna get information today from this woman but it turns out there are literally one-celled organisms living at the bottom of the sea who understand more of biology than she does.
Rant over. And I do feel better for having wrote that.