Background – Partner “Beth” and I are both 39. I have been working with this therapist for 6 months and she’s been really great. Beth has done a few sessions on her own with Therapist and we are considering doing couples therapy with this Therapist.For Beth’s session yesterday, she had trouble with wifi and zoom and didn’t connect to the zoom room. She lives overseas so phone wasn’t an option. She emailed the assistant at 25 minutes past the hour. The assistant said they waited 10 minutes and then deemed her a no-show, which meant the full fee was due. (I’m paying for this, and I’m supposed to pay in advance, but I didn’t do this because I didn’t have Beth’s session in my calendar).
We had a call and Beth was very upset and angry at the assistant for her cold energy. I agree the assistant was pretty cold and clinical. But I wondered why Beth hadn’t attempted to make contact with the therapist or the office before 25 minutes after the call. I emailed the therapist and paid the fee and explained that Beth was having trouble connecting, but the therapist responded that the notification that Beth had joined the zoom room at 21 minutes after and the fee was not refundable per clinic policies. Therapist was pretty neutral and firm in her tone – which I read as assertive and protecting her business, Beth read as un-empathetic and “trying to catch her out” and “drive a wedge between us”.
I told Beth – I’m not accusing you of anything, but if you forgot about the appointment and joined later, it’s ok, please just tell me. She didn’t take that well and insisted that she had been trying to join the call since the beginning of the appointment. I asked, is it possible you clicked on the wrong link, and then joined later? “I don’t know, I was clicking on the link constantly to get it to join, I guess so.”
Ok fine. So, moving forward, please just let her know via email if you’re having connection issues so I don’t waste $150. Beth agrees to this but is still very upset over the energy and tone of the conversation and doesn’t want to see this therapist any more. Maybe it’s not a great idea to do couples therapy with my private therapist anyway, so I’m fine with this, but I’m a little concerned that she’s not showing any responsibility towards getting herself connected on the call and is focused on criticizing the cold and clinical energy of the therapist and her assistant.
I need a sanity check here. I see this therapist today for my private session. I’m not sure if the problem is her tone, or Beth’s attitude towards it, or maybe it’s a bit of both. I want to continue privately with this therapist on my own as she’s one of the few who has been able to make actual progress towards diagnosing my mental health issues, but I’m ok with finding a new one to do couples therapy, I don’t want Beth to go into a situation where she doesn’t feel she can trust the therapist. But I’m afraid Beth is not feeling good about this therapist and won’t support me continuing (she has said she is 100% happy for me to continue with her – I’m just worried now that she has a bad opinion of her and will change her mind over time). Help me untangle this please?
TL;DR: Partner couldn’t connect to Zoom for therapy but didn’t notify therapist until 25 minutes after appointment time. I’m on the hook for the full fee as they deem it a no-show. Partner is super upset at how their office handled the issue and wants to quit therapy. I’m trying to support her but struggling to take her side here.