Thanks for the good wishes too Learning . Haven't had my session yet so no update.

Good question you pose there - in fact this T is the first (and only) one to try and accommodate my need to express anger - most Ts are reasonably comfortable with clients expressing anger about things outside of session, none so far barring my current T, have been even remotely comfortable with expressions of anger directed at them.

Current T has taken some direct anger from me already and dealt with it quite well - but even she manages to find ways to redirect or sidetrack or avoid giving me the space to hear my own anger - it's a sneaky kind of way of doing it - I start talking about something I might be annoyed about or resent or feel frustrated with (not necessarily to do with her either) and the next thing I know we're into either lengthy explanations about psychological concepts that seem completely irrelevant to what I'm trying to say, or she's asked me a heap of leading questions that have steered me inexorably AWAY from focusing on my angry feelings and ending up in the realm of speculation about external reality (other people's motives and intentions for instance). It's all very subtle and I'm not quick enough and far too defensive still to realize that I'm being sidetracked so I end up after session feeling obscurely unheard and dissatisfied with the way things went - then when I think about it I can pinpoint all the little things along the way that denied me the space and silence and encouragement to go into my feelings... (not just anger, this includes other feelings too...)

Other Ts' manoeuvres however, if you want a few examples of how they've stonewalled me in my attempts to have my anger heard - actually I'm not sure you do, but I'll give some anyway , include an immediate apology before I've even managed to explain what I'm angry about (a very good way of denying and negating the perceptual reality of the client); an outright statement that anger at T will in no way be accepted or tolerated in the therapy; and deflecting the conversation back onto me, as in - I'm trying to say how angry/resentful/frustrated I feel at T or about something T has said/done not said/not done and the T either just sits and looks and says nothing, acts uncomprehending as if they don't understand what the hell I'm talking about, or asks questions as if to understand but in fact the questions are not directed to or about what I'm trying to explain (sorry I can't remember specific examples without backtracking through thousands of pages of journals ). Oh and yeah, retaliation! The one time I raised my voice slightly and said to a T that I didn't think he understood what I was saying at all, he went all huffy and puffy and said in the end, I will not be patronized! That actually broke the therapy, I continued for a few more months but was never able to trust him not to retaliate again...

In my current T's case, it's mostly the endless talk talk talk coming from T that makes the whole session feel breathless and like I have to grab whatever pauses do appear to try and say what I need to, and she tends to talk so much that she practically interrupts me to say her piece. None of which I think is deliberate to prevent me expressing my feelings, it's just the whole CBT solution focused training coming out, but I'm getting very tired of trying to explain to her every session that I'm needing my feelings heard and accepted and could she please focus on how I feel and not go off on these to me irrelevant tangents. Emotionally though last session got me to the point that I felt it was becoming dangerous to keep trying to be vulnerable with her, because she just wasn't getting me on that emotional level. And she didn't seem to understand what I meant when I tried to explain it, hence the email exchange...

Sorry for such a long reply, I'm sure I've said way too much that you didn't want to know in the first place