Unjustified Anger At T

Anger is a hard one to deal with for sure. Have you talked to him in terms of acceptable ways of responding to your anger with him while in session? Perhaps if there are discussions beforehand about not being sure how to you'd handle/respond if you allowed yourself to fully feel your anger and want some level of assistance in managing it or reassurances as to how he'd respond before you let the guardrails down.

Have you let him know that you are struggling again with the limitations of the frame that he has constructed for you? One of my set questions here is, how much of this frame is for you and how much of it is for him? Is there enough of it that is about you or too much of it that is about him?

Personally, I think it is going sour because you have a need and you feel like he can't or won't supply it, and maybe you even feel like it won't matter if you try to talk to him about it, he won't budge. Feelings of helplessness? Confusion around what the need really is? Unsafe in exploring what the need is, where it is coming from - fear of punishments if the exploration goes wrong - bolt, freeze, yell (display anger)? I don't know if any of these are true for you, I'm just throwing out some things that might be going on for me when I find myself angry at the frame and feel constrained by it.

Okay, it's like you read my mind. Yes, it's futile bc he won't budge. Yes, I think it is bc he is independently wealthy and takes 4 day weekends to vacation with his family every week, and I know he's heard my car wreck of a childhood, then locked his work phone in the office until Monday to head for Nantucket and eat lobsters at his summer house. Other T's cover their practices, allow extra sessions etc, but mine doesn't really need to work, and pretty often doesn't . That would even be fine, but I have my own business that I love, and he is inconstantly telling me to work less. I don't have that luxury ( or desire) to take it easy. It's awkward talking about work when you are someone's work. I equate the reason for the frame not to be for my good, but to keep his work hours down. I don't feel entitled to his time, but I also don't think he is responsible about containing the session before exiting stage left .

I have always thought that almost all anger at a therapist was justified in one way or another

Maybe try to start winding down the session a little bit yourself. if possible save the last five minutes where you try to bring yourself back before you leave by focusing on your breathing. there is no rule that says you have to talk. It might be nice to have some quiet time just before the end.

I've struggled with the frame aspect but sometimes you will need more sessions other times you won't. and it's the same with contact in between sessions. but i don't think a blanket rule fits all occasions.

I wish i had answers for you but I don't. Just wanted to say I understand the anger thing. I'm afraid of any that exists in me, like if I ever actually express it at anyone but myself, complete and utter devastation will occur. My anger is a very dangerous but usually sleeping tiger, a mostly dormant volcano. Scary stuff. Hugs

I also don't get the impression that your anger is completely unjustified. Even just the state of feeling stuck and uncomfortable can be very anger-provoking, who likes to be stuck? You pay the T to help you, and if he is not helpful or the sessions make you feel worse, I think feeling angry is perfectly valid and normal. I think therapists also often distort the anger clients feel/express towards them as some sort of transference or displacement - can be, but I think it is also just as often a normal, healthy reaction to what they do, or don't do.

I think "therapeutic frame" is a euphemism for artificial relationship with arbitrary constraints that mostly benefit the therapist..

The therapist sets the fee, the duration of the session, the meeting place, the ground rules, decides on the method, the ideological framework, generally gets to play god, gets paid, doesn't do much, and risks very little.

While you get tossed around violently by the process, have needs exposed but not satisfied and instead analyzed, risk a lot, pay the bill, etc etc.

Being in that kind of relationship seems like a legit reason to be angry.

i wrote a bit of a long response earlier, but deleted it because i'm not sure if it would even be beneficial or not to hear. just know that i absolutely understand and empathise with how you are feeling, because i did struggle with something similar with my own T. in my case, i never was able to fully address my deep seeded anger in therapy with him because there was a lack of a sense of safety and trust for me with my T. much of this was due to my T bringing a lot of his own issues, counter transference, and needs into my therapy. he reacted very similar to your own T and often openly shared how he struggled with knowing or even suspecting, i was upset, disappointed, hurt or angry with him and would either voice those hurt feelings or react with passive aggressive manners (i.e. changing boundaries) or by withdrawing the connection . he could not fathom that i at times struggled to hold him in the highest regards and he did not understand that it really was not so much about him, but more about me. because of this, in my mind, he lacked the integrity, confidence, and courage to maintain the stability that i needed so i could go to those dark depths and work through my deep dissociated and disconnected anger that i kept hidden and ignored for most my life. it wasn't until shortly post therapy that i was able to fully 'unleash' that anger. it was something i was able to do with the help and support of my husband, because my husband, through all of our hard work together in my last couple years of therapy, had become my 'secure base', a role my T could never aspire too. with hubby as my 'safe person', i was able to complete the work with him to fully face and integrate my dissociated anger.

i strongly believe that this kind of deep work can not happen until the safety and trust is fully reached and i sense that much of your frustration stems from failing to reach that level of safety with your T...as much as you try, over and over again. i sense that your T is failing to recognise this important aspect as well, and i don't know if all the talking and reasoning with him will ever convince him or get him to 'see the light'. unfortunately, it never did with my T

I went to session, and brought all this up with more clarity and courage because of all of your help. As predicted, he wouldn't budge, and said how much his training is his compass, and he goes by his training. He said we are a good fit, and have made much progress (which is true) in part bc he is a male human constantly displaying respectful good boundaries, and that we wouldn't have gotten far without this. He said that for the past 6 weeks, he has seen my trust in him slipping away, and that we would work together to find it once more. He asked me to talk about the specific session that things began to erode, and he said though we both attempted to repair it, it wasn't repaired. I tried to think back to these posts, and not apologize for how felt, but I caught myself doing it any way. Like giving the preface that I am not challenging your authority here, or expecting you to change things, but how I am angry about the dichotomy between intensity and push for discovery of harrowing feelings &memories, and the bean counting of time that I get sent out into the streets just a wreck when I want that state be private, and to have/ be taught the coping recovery skills requisite. I told him even how ironic I find it that he is enraged by the men who violated my boundaries and yet here I am bending over backwards to cause no trouble/ observe the rigid boundaries of my Ivy League white male T who needs to catch the ferry to Nantucket on time, and how the suspension of disbelief gets ruined along with the trust when we go from how does a tiny kid feel in those nights to Oh look 44 minutes 3seconds- so what are you doing this weekend? (He knows I work all weekend). He was really hurt, and said how hard he works to always the same M for me, and said how angry I was at the moment without ever raising my voice or looking angry and that caught him off guard. Right then, he said oh it's time to go. We stood up, and I left mid conversation with that uneasy sense when someone hangs up the telephone without saying goodbye.

Sound infuriating and dismaying.

I am sorry this is how he chose to handle the ending of this session. I'd wonder if he was actually listening to what was being said.

You have worked well with this T for a while, in some ways you are a good fit. Are you a good enough fit I guess is the question. My take is intellectually it's a good fit, emotionally it might not be so good of a fit. If that is right, which part more needs the good fit? Can an intellectual side of you be there to be the holding space for your emotional and tiny kid part in lieu of your T? Do you feel that is the best way to proceed?

It sounds like a rather defensive, kinda self-absorbed and condescending response - emphasizing his worth but not addressing your real concerns at all. From all I know about therapy, this can be a very typical kind of comeback from them, one that should be viewed critically, IMO. I know I would give him a hard time after this and would not easily let him deflect and sneak out, using all sorts of (to me) BS about how his training has protected your therapy etc. That is, if you think he is useful in some ways and the arguments and efforts are worth your time, energy and money.

I tend to use intellectual approaches a lot to everything but, that response would not strike me as a good fit intellectually, at all. I would see it as rather shallow.

Yes, this response would definitely bother me, too. It seems like he's making it more about him than you--taking credit for his boundaries being what has helped you. Rather than you giving you credit for all you've accomplished. And talking about how he's hurt, bringing his feelings into the room. And how has just tried to be consistent to you. It's like he's trying to absolve himself of responsibility in a way. (Which reminds me of a couple ruptures with ex-MC--he'd never talk about his own feelings like your T--but he tended to be very unwilling to apologize or admit any wrongdoing. Conversely, current T may mention his feelings/reactions a bit, but he is also very willing to apologize and take at least partial responsibility for misunderstandings. I think I prefer the latter.) It seems like to move forward he'd need to understand your perspective and empathize with it. Even if he's unwilling to shift his boundaries, to understand why they can be so painful and triggering for you.

Sounds blatantly exploitive. He leaves you worse off after giving his paid performance, then waltzes off to his real life. You are left with a mess and must spend hours or days sorting it out. And he encourages it to continue.

Seems many people in intensive therapy have to spend half their life online getting informal group therapy for their therapy. What is the opportunity cost of all that time/energy drained away? I was in that place. And it was all for a fake relationship!!

I’m impressed by what a great job you did expressing yourself to him. In my mind he should have been able to realize how important this conversation was to you and to the relationship. Extending the conversation by a couple of minutes would likely have meant a lot to you. Based on what you’ve shared here it does sound like he has been a really good T for you, but in this instance his inability to be even the tiniest bit flexible is quite disappointing. I’d be upset.

I get angry just reading about this therapist

So whats the point? For him to give you the good, reparative experience you never had by giving you - what? I dont even know what to call out of session time. And why can you only have this experience in this undefined time? That doesnt make sense. Why cant you have the good reparative experience in the first five minutes of a session. All minutes are the same. What is different about out of session minutes? That is what he means by his classic training. Do the work, in the time.

I sooooo did not do this.

I'm so sorry to read your latest session. It sounds deeply upsetting and I know I would feel devastated at the end too.

Obviously I can't know for sure but it sounds like your T is so completely focussed on upholding the 'boundaries' as he sees them, that he is miles away from you emotionally. The point of boundaries isn't simply to uphold ethics and protect the client from harm, they are there to HOLD the client symbolically, to provide a space where healing has the potential to occur. This means that boundaries can should always be flexible (within reason) and very much taken with the client's needs in mind. Your T is clearly not doing this and sadly, it seems this is a blind spot for him. This can happen when a T or indeed anyone takes a belief and makes it absolute I.e 'I must uphold boundaries by ending the session at X O'clock no matterwhat'. It's just limiting and is hurting you more. Had he been truly aware and empathic to how you are experiencing him, this would not have happened. Hell, my T even extended our session to an hour and 15 minutes recently because of something that came up involving my feelings about her. Not saying this to hurt you, but to say you are worth more. I wonder if he is inexperienced because I think inexperienced Ts are more likely to attach rigidly to the textbook ideas of what they have to do, rather than trust what is happening in the moment and adjust accordingly.

I don't know what to suggest. I could say find another T but I appreciate it's not simple and you have much history. I'm sure your T is great in many ways but I guess it's for you to decide whether you can move forward with this T. There are Ts out there who can connect with you emotionally AS WELL as keep boundaries safe.

I agree with this. In many, many ways M fits me, and I have respect and longstanding affection for him. He has a beautiful turn of phrase that inspires me to think and work hard, and he knows just the moment for outrageous black humor. He is truly funny, and a bit soulful.

However, he really needs to be in total control of the environment. For example, he is very upset about coffee smells wafting from the law office down the hall, and how they joke around in a hail -fellow- well- met kind of way with their door open. Once, when he was later than usual but by no means late to our session, he apologized repeatedly for being off the routine. He wants my voice to lead within the session, because he was trained that way and he wants the frame to be perfect because he was trained that way.

Saying that, he did sent me an email telling me to hang in there, and we would work this through, and that it is okay for things to get messy. Because of their rarity , these words matter greatly .

I think my T writing about me on Reddit was a turning point for better and for worse. For better because it revealed how much he cares about my case, and how when he says we have an "exquisite" connection, I do think he means it. For worse bc I think he is overstating his experience treating CSA. It seems like he is an expert on military PTSD treated with prolonged exposure theory. In myriad ways, I appreciate he is willing to work hard and learn how to treat me in staged ways, but I wish he'd been more honest so I didn't find out in a big shocker. It affected my ability to buy into the wisdom behind his rules without questioning if there should be better containment before leaving. Our tacit agreement not to talk about that post kind of creates a dissonance. We talked about it eventually, but not what was in it . I dont know. I have no trouble observing the boundaries, but they seem arbitrary and a little harsh . They make me really angry on particular days when I feel pushed to talk way out of my comfort zone and cant recover from this raw anguish for hours and days. Eventually I want to avoid therapy bc I know it's going to hurt, but yet I am woefully attached to M and he is a huge figure in my week.

That email sounds really lovely and hopeful. Hopefully there will be a way through this together. An ex T once said to me that no therapist is going to be good for everything, just as no one person in life is ever going to meet ALL our needs. And of course, our own feelings and needs change and T who was right for us once might not be right in 10, 20 years time. We all evolve. She also said that relationships are about building a good enough communication for the times we don't understand each other or are frustrated by each other. I think therapy is very similar. It's only on hindsight that I can see how much I grew from my past Ts even though I was angry and upset many times at the things they couldn't or wouldn't say or do.

I can't believe how badly the session went today, and the degree of anger on both sides. I dont recognize myself, and I dont recognize M. It was one of the worst human interactions I've experienced outside of childhood, and I finally understood that cliche you can feel more alone with a person that by yourself. One of the problems here is that M knows I am supposed be safe to display anger and that it would be a milestone for me. He is the one who pointed out that though I am easygoing in real life, there must be a little kid part with rage and that we were going to find out together. Anyway, he invited me to tell him what made me angry, and I said I didn't want him to feel beat up, and that I was angry about specific things but valued out relationship over all. He encouraged me to tell him why I was angry in the interests of healing this non-repaired feeling of the last 6 weeks. So I really tried, but it definitely hurt his feelings and made him defensive, and before long we got into one of the only really bad arguments I've experienced outside of a few around my divorce. I told him that getting interrupted mid sentence at 44 minutes sometimes made me feel like he hung up the phone without saying goodbye bc he does so much empathetic eye contact and wants so much progress and pushing every session. I think I was mean for the first time, and it isnt like me and caught him off guard? He was really hurt by that, and launched into how it was his office and I came to him, and 45 minutes is what he does with all his clients. I said I know and I respect your boundaries and and am not asking for a change and agree it is your office/ your rules, but you said you wanted a description of how angry I feel &why even though I warned you it was unreasonable so why are you yelling now? . Right then he said "sorry it's time. See you Tuesday". And of course I have a heartbroken feeling that makes no sense, and a feeling like I love my T so much but it feels like we are harming one another right now. I dont know what to do with myself, and I dont know if I have a great T who is right for me, but therapy is hard bc of my trauma history, or if I love my T with some degree of unhealthy attachment and it is a self destructive/ mutually destructive reenactment. Whichever the case, I feel like taking Ambien and sleeping through work and responsibilities. It puts me in touch with an anguish I cant describe to be at odds with my T, and then it preoccupies me that he might be deciding my DX is too much for private practice bc he was that angry and he knows he is not supposed be. Then I think that actually I have never violated one boundary or even pushed one, outside this recent spate of talking about them and some earlier bouts of talking about them, but always within the proper time and space he sets.. Relationships have been in the plus column for me in terms of strengths/ weaknesses, so I'm panicked and feel like a drowning swimmer and like therapy is getting ruined without me even understanding what is happening and not wanting it. M has becomes important in my life, more than my SO and friends.