'I don't feel like I have the bandwidth for this': Unprofessional therapist abandons session after just 8 minutes

Ada Elder

Jul 23, 2023 9:00 AM EDT

It's 2023, and pretty much anyone with eyes or ears is well-aware that therapy helps people. And given the copious amounts of global sickness, stress, and suffering, a huge percentage of the world's population could benefit from it. Finding a good therapist, unfortunately, is much harder than accepting that you need one. Even if you manage to reach one who claims they take insurance, much of the time they are fully booked or, do not, in fact, take insurance. Not that I'm speaking from years of experience.

Even after the arduous process of finding someone you jive with, it can take an equally long, or longer, time to build trust with a mental health professional. Generally speaking, things will go fine after that process, and hopefully you'll emerge somewhat healed at the end of the therapy process. Sometimes, however, it's the therapist who really needs help. Such is the case in this unfortunate tale from @blankenboat. In a recent tweet, @blankenboat explains that after just eight minutes of their session, her therapist decided she didn't have "the bandwidth" to do her job, and said they'd have to reschedule. Talk about unprofessional. The people of Twitter weighed in on the situation, providing their own therapy anecdotes, sympathy, and some healthy criticism of the therapist in question.

Would you go back to a therapist if they decided to just… dip? Or would you start finding a new one? It's a tough call after three years, and sadly it's one that only @blankenboat can make.