If a therapist or counsellor is unkind

Do you give them any second chances? In real life, face to face or possibly on the phone. Or in email if they allow emails.

How do you define unkind? From a therapist or counsellor...

Is anyone in the room ever allowed to feel angry?

Who is the most important person in the room..
Who’s needs “should take priority”

Do you give them any second chances? In real life, face to face or possibly on the phone. Or in email if they allow emails. YES, I always do in real life anyway. With one of the new T's I tried, he was terrible and came off judgemental about my grief, I emailed him how I felt, he sent a kind apologizing email, went in a second time and he was actually pretty good.

How do you define unkind? From a therapist or counsellor... That really depends on the person. For me, it was feeling judged about my situation

Is anyone in the room ever allowed to feel angry? Of course, why not?

Who is the most important person in the room.. During the hour, the client, but in general, both people are important. There should be no competition
Who’s needs “should take priority” During the hour, the client. That's the point of therapy

I honestly don't remember a therapist being "unkind." Were there times they might have been firm with me? Yes, but in those instances there was a generally a safety issue involved and the firmness was needed. I don't equate firmness with unkindness. I was never treated with disrespect or judgment ever by any therapist.

I was always allowed to voice my emotion and opinion. I was never one to be rude or act out against a therapist (that's just not my way or my personality in dealing with anyone in my life), so this really was not an issue that came up in my therapy.

It was always abundantly clear that my therapy was about me. Thus, my therapists didn't spend much time exploring our relationship, etc. (which I would have considered a waste of time for me personally). There were always two people in the room, however, so it makes sense that therapy is a dialogue of communication and interaction; it is not one-sided at all in my experience. Therapy was an interaction and dialogue with that other person about me and my needs as the primary focus.

I think that being kind is not a fluctuating state and if I met with a therapist I felt was unkind, I would probably end therapy with him/her rather quickly.


You could give a therapist a second chance if something happens from a misunderstanding, mixed up session times and similar. But you can´t change a therapist´s (or another person´s) personality and by that I most probably wouldn´t keep seeing an unkind therapist.

To me being unkind as a therapist means that he/she ignores the client´s will and needs, a therapist that prioritizes his/her own agenda before listening to what the client wants. It can mean all sorts of ignorant behavior like being late often, answering to private phone calls during session, ending sessions to early, not following the client to the door when the session is up and so on.

All of this is not something that can be easily changed, it won´t work if a client needs to ask for all of those things. If the right attitude or kindness isn´t there from the beginning, I don´t see second chances as possible.

Do you give them any second chances? In real life, face to face or possibly on the phone. Or in email if they allow emails.

My T has had moments of being unkind and because we generally have a good relationship, I will give him a chance to discuss it either in person or via email. Rarely phone though although it has happened.

How do you define unkind? From a therapist or counsellor...

To me unkind is being rude or invalidating.

Is anyone in the room ever allowed to feel angry?

Absolutely, as long as those feelings are discussed and processed. Most of the time anger is a secondary emotion so whatever is beneath that is usually the real issue.

Who is the most important person in the room..
Who’s needs “should take priority”

The client's. Hands down.

I should take priority, obviously, otherwise I wouldn't be the client.

I don't think you can tell someone else that they aren't allowed to feel certain things. That's ridiculous. Did you mean express instead of feel? Anger is allowed.

The definition of unkind probably differs from person to person. I feel too lazy right now to try to define it, but I will give an example of something the therapist said that struck me as unkind in my last session. I had come in feeling pretty depressed and didn't know what to talk about. We sat in silence for about 5 minutes. Then she asked me why I had come if I wasn't going to talk. This felt unkind and critical to me, as well as dumb since I would have been charged twice as much if I hadn't come.

I will tolerate a certain level of unkindness. If it could be down to my perceptions, like in the comment above, I'm not going to make a huge decision based on a one-off comment. If it were a pattern where I felt the therapist was being unkind in ambiguous comments, that might be different.

It depends on the transgression if I will give a second chance. I have accepted apologies before and overlooked other gripes. I'm not afraid of confronting the therapist.

Yes, I give second chances if we talk it through and can work it out to where I both understand and feel understood.
My examples of unkind from a T were:
I disclosed something I had done which should have been a red flag for her that I had been abused and she said we all do shameful things. In a different context the statement may have been ok, but not in that one.
The T canceled our next appointment and never returned my calls to reschedule... it was her way of terminating me and it went on for three aweful months because our paths crossed in the community often. Finally I cornered her and gently confronted her, she called security... but we worked it out and she gave me a referral.
The third one that comes to mind was the T who told me in a very snarky tone “oh, I forgot, you are too disabled to be capable of that” and rolled her eyes. At that time she had severe, not yet diagnosed health issues so I have written it off to that but we never were able to repair the damage.

Personally I think both people are allowed to be angry. HOWEVER if the T is angry I have higher expectations of how they express that anger. The T that got angry because she had father transference with me, totally blew a gasket on me and fired me while I literally cowered in the corner was totally out of line. I had one T get angry at the people that hurt me. I also had a T get angry that I had violated a boundary of theirs unknowingly... but we TALKED it through, not yelling, not blaming, civilized.

Clients needs come first until they infringe on the direct health and/or safety of the T or violate reasonable boundaries of the T. Ie my need for a hug does not rank higher than my T’s need for personal space if he needs it on a given day.

I never found therapists to be particularly kind. I was not looking for such from them. The woman did express surprise that I did not find her kind, but she was known to act for effect. I believe in using them for what they can be useful for and if that means hiring one for one thing and another for something else, then I would do it. Therapists do not get to dictate with whom I associate.

I am not sure how one keeps another from feeling anything. I can't imagine why a therapist would bother getting angry with a client. It is not the therapist's life and the therapist does not get a stake in any decision a client makes. But if they felt angry it was not my problem.

If it's a one-of situation and I have an established relationship with the T, I will let him know what he said and how it made me feel and see if we can move on. I have in fact done this several times in the past. We all have off days and I know it is never deliberate so I do cut him some slack.

As a client who is not only paying for a service but also in a vulnerable position, hands down my needs should always take priority in the room. This doesn't always happen tho. Just recently I expressed a need to increase my sessions and those needs were not appropriately heard or met. He had his reasons and I had mine. We talked about it and I still disagree with him, but next time I will be more forceful about it if I feel as strongly. Sometimes we need to advocate for ourselves.

I didn’t give the one who told me I was a difficult client because of my hearing disability a second chance.

I'd argue the therapist is the most important person in the room. They are the focal point, they run the show, their needs are paramount. The marketing says otherwise of course.

The therapist is the de facto client.