Last week I said the session was over 15 minutes before it was actually over! The patient said: "You want to get rid of me, don't you?" The truth was I did! She had been complaining about how victimized she was for the first 30 minutes of the session and I DID want to get rid of her--for the moment. I could have tried to wiggle out of it--"I got confused about when we started" or "I didn't sleep last night so..." But I knew I needed to be honest. "You're right, I think I did want to get rid of you for now because it's tiresome listening to you blame everyone else for not treating you as if you are the most important person in the world." I was holding my breath after that--not knowing what she would say or do. Would she walk out? Would she quit? No, she didn't do either of those things. To my astonishment and delight she was able to take responsibility for expecting people to treat her as special and feeling victimized by them if they didn't. I think she was able to take responsibility for her behavior because I had been able to take responsibility for mine.
For more detailed discussions of apologizing CLICK HERE and HERE.