Glenn Graham, LPC

It seemed like he was reading out of a therapist’s script book and that he was unaware of how to connect with the human being in front of him. This was dehumanizing in and of itself, but the next day intensified the dehumanizing experience when I received a dismissal email stating in part, “I am not the most suitable therapist to address your unique therapeutic needs.” The idea of an email might not seem dehumanizing, but in the context of therapy and the deeply personal nature of the information being shared by the patient, a phone call would have, at the least, been respectful. It may have been helpful as well in getting an insight into what my “unique therapeutic needs” might be so that I could find a practitioner with the proper qualifications. A phone call might have also eased my suspicion that my dismissal was more a response to his not liking my questioning whether he was hearing me, than it was his acknowledgement of being under-qualified, which in my case, he seemed to be.

It seemed like he was reading out of a therapist’s script book and that he was unaware of how to connect with the human being in front of him. This was dehumanizing in and of itself, but the next day intensified the dehumanizing experience when I received a dismissal email stating in part, “I am not the most suitable therapist to address your unique therapeutic needs.” The idea of an email might not seem dehumanizing, but in the context of therapy and the deeply personal nature of the information being shared by the patient, a phone call would have, at the least, been respectful. It may have been helpful as well in getting an insight into what my “unique therapeutic needs” might be so that I could find a practitioner with the proper qualifications. A phone call might have also eased my suspicion that my dismissal was more a response to his not liking my questioning whether he was hearing me, than it was his acknowledgement of being under-qualified, which in my case, he seemed to be.