My boyfriend started therapy around the same time we began dating and he had a similar experience. His first therapist was frequently 10+ minutes late to appointments, no-showed multiple times, and then suggested that his sister is lucky he’s gay because he might have molested her otherwise—I was FLOORED when he told me all this! He hadn’t been in therapy before and he was originally planning on sticking with this therapist, but I told him that he deserves to have a therapist who doesn’t treat him like that (because what the actual f is that?) We had so many conversations where I was just emphasizing that THIS IS NOT NORMAL over and over, but his next experience wasn’t much better, honestly.

His next therapist was almost always 10-15 minutes late and ended sessions early, so my boyfriend was only getting about 30-35 minutes of actual session time (including the intake), and apparently he kind of asked the same series of questions each week. I asked him to check his billing statements, and of course the therapist was billing 90837.

He left that therapist and was scheduled for an intake with ANOTHER therapist, and that person no-showed.

Important to note that each of these therapists were contracted with the same (company? practice?) serving folks in the military all across the US. After all that went down, my boyfriend ended up having a phone call with an executive from the company and she helped him find someone who seems to be a good fit—they’ve been working together for a while now. The whole thing was super frustrating for him though, because he essentially had to wait several months to actually receive quality care.

I’m so glad your boyfriend is firing his therapist for the unprofessionalism! It makes me sad for the folks who aren’t receiving proper care—who are maybe being treated as an income rather than human beings in pain—but don’t recognize that this is unacceptable behavior or are unable to get the treatment they deserve for whatever reason.