Carmen R. Howlette LCSW-C, LICSW

She sounded good on the phone, but things went downhill after that. First, she forgot to email me the paperwork that she had promised to send, and I had to remind her to send it.
Second, I asked her in an email message whether she had ever been in therapy (as advised by many websites with information on choosing a therapist). She responded by saying she would rather discuss that during our session. I was starting to have misgivings, but decided to at least meet her and try 1 session before I drew any conclusions.
I showed up early and waited in the lobby. A little boy was sitting there all by himself. I was shocked at that because the lobby door was not locked, and anyone could have entered and encountered an unsupervised child. I have been to other therapists’ offices where children were clients, and they all had signs posted stating no child under 12 should be left alone in the lobby.
After a while, the child’s mother joined him in the lobby. I then heard voices from behind one of the doors leading to the therapists’ offices (the space has 4 therapists and 2 doors to their offices). It sounded like someone was having a phone conversation. I asked the child’s mother what was going on, and she just said, «Just turn on the radio on the table next to you.» I had no intention of doing that and was thinking, «Why am I hearing everything on the other side of the door?»
Finally, the child and his mom left. A few minutes later, Howlette entered the lobby, looked at me, and said, «Who are you?» I said, «I’m your 11 a.m. client.» Her response: «I’ll need your insurance card.» Totally unwelcoming and cold. I said, «Look, I don’t feel comfortable with the fact that I could hear everything that was being said when the door was closed.» Her response: «It wasn’t me.»
I told her I wanted to leave. The only good thing about her was that she didn’t try to persuade me otherwise.