My "substitute" T (she was a group leader in my program and when my actual T was absent, she covered for her) and I had a very good, friendly connection. I don't want to say it was a good therapeutic relationship though because we'd laugh and share jokes all the time. That's not to say that we never sat down and had serious talks that were constructive and helpful. She was EXTREMELY helpful when I was super distraught over my relationship with my real T and she helped me reframe some thoughts with that along with telling my T that she needs to straight up tell me why she's doing what she is.

I felt the need to defend her because I don't think she is incompetent despite this comment she made making her sound really bad. I had been joking around with her during one of the groups. We had been laughing and playing and at the end of group, she had a momentary lapse and wasn't in therapy mode. She was holding this giant plastic candy cane and jokingly said to me "you need to behave or I'm gonna take you out back and beat the **** out of you with this candy cane". I have PTSD and I was physically abused. The second she said that she immediately went "oh my god I shouldn't have said that. I'm so so so sorry". She then took me aside and talked to me for a while to apologize over and over and talk to me about how I felt about it.

So it was an extremely stupid thing to say, but everyone makes mistakes and she took total responsibility. It was triggering, but we worked through it.