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Contents
- Probation, ‘borderline’ offenders and the need for boundaries
- When Therapy Goes Bad: a client’s account of a five-year therapeutic relationship with Alison Calladine Counselling, Enniskillen & Omagh
1. Probation, ‘borderline’ offenders and the need for boundaries
This article was initially published in 2019 by the online journal, Probation Quarterly.
However, after the National Probation Service complained, the journal was re-launched without my article.
In 2020, the article was published by The Record, run by the charity, Unlock, under the name, Stacey
One person in 20 is currently living with a personality disorder and a large proportion of these are women. Symptoms vary but in Stacey’s case she struggled with her emotions and relationships with others. She feels strongly that probation officers need more training to enable them to understand the difficulties of working with people with personality disorders.
The first meeting with my probation officer started off badly. She had read my case notes which said I was ‘high risk’ and made it clear she had reservations about supervising me. I had Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) and was known to struggle to manage my emotions. The Community Mental Health Team (CMHT) had refused to help me saying first that there was no treatment for BPD and then, after my arrest, that I was obviously in crisis and so unable to engage, so I was used to knock backs.
Nevertheless, I was a little disappointed with her attitude and the fact that she had pre-judged me. I had never had a probation officer before and didn’t know what to expect. I was 55 years old and this was my first time in prison. I was looking forward to going home to my partner and I was sure that I would not be returning to prison.
After my release I saw my probation officer twice a week. I attended all my appointments and didn’t offend further, so after a couple of months they were cut down to one a week. I wasn’t getting any help from the CMHT but it didn’t seem to matter because I could talk to my probation officer. She’d softened towards me since our initial meeting and I looked forward to seeing her each week.
We spoke about issues I was having but equally, we discussed her and her personal life.
“Enough about you, did I tell you about what I did last weekend?” she’d say.
I liked talking to her. She was funny, intelligent and interesting. She seemed to care about me. We discussed my issues with attachment, a common symptom of BPD, and she seemed to understand what a serious problem it was for me. The feelings can become so intense that some people become obsessed and even resort to stalking. I hadn’t, but I understood how easy it could be to reach that stage.
We talked about anything and everything, and we laughed, a lot. I was becoming attached to her, and she knew it. She asked if I wanted a different officer; I declined. Half way through my probation period I was told by a senior officer that I would now only need to see my officer every two weeks. I had been doing well and the concerns of supervising me, exhibited at the beginning, seemed to have lessened. This should have been good news. It wasn’t; I was devastated. I started to think of the time when I wouldn’t be able to see her, and I couldn’t bear it. I thought of the railway track and how much I wanted to end my life. I don’t know how I managed the drive home. I felt numb, yet desperate.
Once home, I couldn’t settle. I sent an email to the probation officer, complaining about never getting any help from CMHT. She phoned me, but I didn’t answer. I knew I wouldn’t be able to talk because I was crying so much. She asked the police to carry out a safe and well check, but they refused. Over the weekend, I sent more emails to my probation officer, threatening anyone she might send to my door. I wasn’t serious but I needed to do or say something extreme so that I could calm down. On the Monday I was arrested and charged with malicious communication. I pleaded guilty. The police said they had a statement from my officer to say she was upset at receiving the emails. The magistrate was sympathetic to my feelings but said he couldn’t allow anyone to send vitriolic comments to probation staff. He sentenced me to 6 weeks in prison.
While in the cell awaiting transport, my probation officer came to see me. She told me that her manager had recalled me to prison to serve the rest of my initial sentence, another 6 months. She also said she had not made a statement and was neither angry or upset at my emails. She thought the whole saga was ‘sad’. Despite the fact that I would have to serve another 6 months in prison, I was happy that she wasn’t angry with me.
After my release, despite the emails, and perhaps proving that she had not been upset the same probation officer continued to supervise me for the seven months extended probation I had been given. I was still attached to her and grateful that I would be seeing her every week. Our relationship went back to the way it was before my arrest and one day, she became emotional and apologised for what had happened. Looking back, I don’t know if she had genuinely wanted to help me or had encouraged my attachment. She game me a lot of information about herself but when I then tried to probe further, she said it was inappropriate. Either way, the thought of not seeing her was more than I could bear. I said it was OK, I didn’t blame her, and it was true. How could I blame her for being kind?
I do question however, why probation officers (and possibly police and prison officers) do not have the kind of awareness training that warns them about attachments so that they can set boundaries. Individuals with BPD can be extremely vulnerable and prone to overplay the smallest act of kindness shown to them. I was told that a forensic psychologist was available to give advice to officers at my probation office. Clearly the advice did not cover those with severe attachment issues.
Since leaving prison, I have been working to raise awareness of BPD and associated attachment issues. One in ten people with BPD end their own lives; I was very nearly part of that statistic.
In 2022, the article was also published by The View magazine:
https://theviewmag.org.uk/probation-borderline-offenders-and-the-need-for-boundaries%ef%bf%bc/
2. When Therapy Goes Bad: a client’s account of a five-year therapeutic relationship with alisoncalladinetherapy.co.uk Enniskillen & Omagh
I met Alison Calladine, private therapist, through the online Counselling Directory. My mental health had been deteriorating over the previous two years and, as was the norm at the time, there was no help whatsoever for people with BPD. In desperation, my wife and I re-mortgaged our house to pay for the weekly therapy sessions.
When I first met Alison and knew we would be entering a therapeutic relationship, I asked her to never tell me anything personal about her or her family. I promised never to ask. That way, I said, I would not become attached to her. We stuck to that rule, and for the first few years it wasn’t a problem, but then things began to change.
I became oversensitive about some of her statements, taking them personally, ruminating over what she probably saw as innocuous remarks. I felt myself becoming needy and it was making me unhappy. On one occasion I upset her with my ‘hurtful’ (I will come back to this later) comment. She was offended, and I suddenly realised how easy it would be to lose her. I was careful not to upset her again. The relationship was too valuable to me, and I could not take the risk of it ending.
Weekly therapy sessions for five years may seem excessive to some, but it’s not actually that unusual. Whilst it is true that many with BPD dread endings and do not react well when a relationship comes to an end, it is not in itself a good reason for carrying on the somewhat expensive sessions with a private therapist. Most would eventually overcome the initial distress and move on. However, for those of us who have a severe attachment problem, it is not so clear cut.
My attachment to Alison developed after around three years. I tried to hide it from her, partly because I was embarrassed, but also because I didn’t feel comfortable enough to bring it up. Although we had discussed my issues with attachment in detail over the years, we never addressed my feelings towards her. There were clues as to how I felt, and I assumed she knew. One day, I told her that I dreaded the day she would say the therapy had to end. She said it could be open-ended and that, barring a disaster, she would always be there. I wasn’t naïve enough (or was perhaps too cynical) to believe that, but it did make me feel better. I assumed that the issue of my attachment to her was a no-go area, and that was fine with me.
My therapeutic relationship with Alison began to break down the day I discovered (I was told by a third party) that she had moved from Chesterfield to Belfast, without telling me. I checked Alison’s website and the counselling directory and found that she had, indeed, opened up another practice and had already started working from there. I had seen her, online from her practice in Chesterfield, the previous week and had no idea what she was about to do.
Things started to make sense. Until lockdown I saw her face to face at her practice, but then like many others, she changed to online until it was safer, and then operated a hybrid system with both face-to-face and online. I carried on seeing her online. However, after a few months she stopped seeing people face to face altogether. Again, I found out from someone else. I asked her if she was giving up her practice and she replied that she hadn’t thought that far ahead yet. I didn’t know what she meant but tried not to think about it. A couple of weeks later she told me that she had been busy doing other things and that her practice was only a small part of what she did. I asked if she was giving up therapy and she assured me she wasn’t. My reaction at that time, I thought, could leave her in no doubt as to how I felt about her, but we didn’t talk about it.
The feelings of hurt and abandonment, when realising that Alison had moved away from the area, were overwhelming, and my immediate thought was suicide. I can appreciate that this reaction must be difficult to understand by those who do not suffer from this horrible condition. After all, I could still see her online, so what’s the problem? I will try to explain, briefly, how it made me feel (as with everything, no two people’s feelings and experiences are the same). To me, it’s simple; knowing where she was when at work in Chesterfield made me feel secure. Although I would come to know where she worked in Ireland, it wasn’t the same, she might as well have been on Mars. Attachment issues are developed primarily through childhood experiences of abandonment. For me, it’s vital that I know that the subject of my attachment is not too far away. Naturally, I didn’t know where she was outside working hours, and I neither wanted nor needed to.
After finding out about Alison’s move to Ireland I made a 20-minute video explaining how I felt. I talked about my attachment to her and about my thoughts of suicide. Most of the video was taken up by me trying to talk without crying. In all the time I had been seeing her, I had never cried in front of her. I suggested that she spend the first 20 minutes of our next session watching the video and I would join in afterwards. That way, I wasn’t expecting her to do anything in her personal time.
The final session
As arranged, I joined Alison after 20 minutes. I immediately asked her why she hadn’t told me of the move, and that’s when I began to see a side of Alison that I had never seen before. She was defensive and angry. She told me that it was her practice, she could do what she wanted, and it was absolutely nothing to do with me. I said that I wasn’t trying to tell her how to run her practice but that she had misjudged how I would react, given my attachment to her.
Her reaction to this was pure, genuine, shock. She had no idea, saying ‘you said you wouldn’t get attached to me’. I thought this was a rather naïve comment but didn’t say so because I was getting the feeling that she might end the session. It suddenly dawned on me that she hadn’t watched the video, that’s why it was news to her. She said she had experienced technology problems and couldn’t watch it. I didn’t believe her but again, didn’t say so.
I can only describe Alison’s behaviour from then on as nasty and unprofessional. She lost her temper completely and showed a complete lack of empathy or compassion. I realised that this was going to be the final session and, for the first time in five years, I started to cry in front of her. I was distraught; she said ‘look at you, you’re a mess’. I started to get flashbacks to the times I spoke to mental health services, and I felt like I was going backwards. I was torn between trying to hang on to the relationship and maintaining some semblance of self-respect. I ended the session abruptly when she looked at the clock and said nastily, ‘come on, you have 2 minutes left’.
Almost every waking minute for the next week or so was spent thinking about Alison. We still had sessions booked in, so I re-sent the video and paid her another £20. Even though I had already paid her to watch it she still hadn’t seen it and I knew she had no intention of doing so unless I paid her again. I was hoping we could discuss it at the next session.
Although I was hurting, I was becoming angry and started to think of the things she had said and done over the years. Going back to paragraph five of this article, the reason I had offended Alison was because I said I didn’t like it when she yawned when listening to me. We were having a review of how therapy was going. She said she was offended by my comment. I tried to lighten it by asking if I was boring, but she twisted it so that it looked like I thought I was boring. Another time, when there had been a substantial period of silence between us (as happens in therapy) she said, ‘this is your time, you fill it’. I should have realised with these comments that she was getting fed up, but I was attached so I would never have ended it.
After a few days she sent me a message. I assumed she had seen the video because all it said was, ‘I understand’. I wrote back to say that I wanted to cancel all future sessions. At first, I was proud of myself; I had never broken off an attachment before and I knew it was the right thing to do. However, she replied immediately, acknowledging that she had cancelled, and I suddenly realised that I would never speak to her again. I panicked, she was my safety net and I couldn’t face the future without having her there. I emailed her, apologising and asking her if we could resume the sessions. She didn’t reply and I sent several of what I can only call begging emails.
Dear Alison, could we give it one more go please? I am really struggling. Could start a new contract with new boundaries? A fresh start? Please? Best wishes, Sue
She still wouldn’t reply and so I sent a message begging her to reply. I apologised for everything, even though I didn’t know what I had done wrong. It was one of the lowest points in my life. I was embarrassing and humiliating myself. Eventually, she sent a short message saying that she was standing by her decision.
Update
Alison has left her practice in Lisburn and opened up another one in Omagh.
Update
It is now two years since my therapeutic relationship with Alison came to an end. Within a month I had made two important decisions. The first was to find another therapist. Despite how I had been treated by Alison, I came to realise that she was a bad apple and that, with the right person, therapy could work. The second decision was to make a complaint to the BACP about Alison. This was supported by my new therapist, who assured me that it was not usual to stop working with a client just because they had become attached.
My complaint went a long way and then was dismissed. They said that Alison’s comment, look at you, you’re a mess, ‘could have been made in an empathetic and supportive way, or dismissively’. Trust me when I say that it was NOT said in any way except nastily. My complaint about having to pay Alison twice before she would watch the video, knowing how distressed I was, went further. The BACP initially dismissed it, saying there was no contract between us. I pointed out that by accepting payment, Alison was entering into a contract. This was upheld by an external reviewer, but the BACP went against them, dismissing it on the grounds that, although she had accepted payment, she hadn’t actually asked for it. The BACP are known to look after their own. You can see reviews of the organisation at https://uk.trustpilot.com/review/www.bacp.co.uk).
Much of the conversation during the first few months with my new therapist (I shall call her X) was focused on Alison. The loss I felt was incredible, but even worse, her nastiness towards me at the end showed me that she had no respect for me as a client or as a human being. If my self-esteem was low when I met her, it was even lower when it ended. She knew I was having suicidal thoughts. Yes, she informed my GP, but then she dumped me without anywhere else to go. What she did was dangerous. This was Alison’s final comment to me, knowing I was feeling suicidal:
‘I will leave you to assess your own situation, and make the decisions that are absolutely right for you moving forwards.’
In our first session I told X that if I thought I was becoming attached to her, I would end the therapy. I couldn’t go through that again. X was very understanding and assured me that it would be better to have the issue of attachment in the open. Any therapist worth their salt, she said, would not end the client relationship because of their attachment. Yet, this is what Alison told the BACP:
How might this insight (of the disclosure of attachment to me) impact upon our therapeutic relationship? Would I be able to work openly and honestly, knowing Susan was attached to me? Particularly with my knowledge and understanding of how difficult ‘attachments’ are for Susan? Decision. My primary concern was Susan, and it became apparent to me to continue with our therapeutic relationship may cause further distress and suffering to her.’
Clearly, Alison’s primary concern was Alison. She doesn’t know how to deal with someone who becomes attached to her, so she runs away. She has a lot of work to do on herself before treating people successfully with complex emotional needs. Many people are unaware of their attachment issues before accessing therapy and the therapist must be prepared. Otherwise, like Alison, they will cause more damage.
‘Without breaking confidence, I can say that I am not the only person to have fell foul of Alison Calladine. I know of at least two others. The sheer cruelty she has shown by ignoring people’s pleas for help is shameful. I am leaving this blog here as a warning to others.‘
See reviews of Alison Calladine: https://uk.trustpilot.com/users/6760723294b29261b079950d
The difference in me since meeting X is enormous. Feeling safe enough to bring everything to the sessions, including my attachment to her (which really didn’t take long) has turned my anxious attachment, almost, into a secure attachment. There is nothing I can’t talk about and between us, we have concluded that I may be on the Autistic spectrum; it makes sense. I won’t be pursuing a diagnosis; I am happy to know why I do what I do and think the way I do. I have a lot to thank X for already.
**If you do decide to be Alison Calladine’s client, PLEASE be careful.**
Remember…
Therapists have the power to create a sense of warmth and safety, but also to hurt, shame and re-traumatise. It’s important you find the right one.
Update
On 1 October 2025, Alison will reach retirement age and start to receive her state pension. Alison also works as a trainer and supervisor, two equally valuable areas of psychotherapy. However, it is in her role as a private counsellor that she has caused most damage and it is my hope that she will take the opportunity to cease working on a one-to-one basis with clients.
Sue Wheatcroft 