dalilah, I really related to what you wrote and have thought a lot of that myself (although my T does not try to make me angry with him). I have brought up anger before in session and my inability to have it. My T told me that anger is a secondary emotion, and often masks the primary emotion, such as hurt or sadness. I am a person who just feels the hurt or sadness and doesn't react to those emotions with anger. I still have a lot of work to do with anger. I think maybe somewhere inside me I am carrying some anger, but it is a very alien feeling to me and I shy away from it in myself and others. Like if someone gets angry at me, I just don't understand why they react that way (I feel embarrassed for them), and I tend to just remove myself from the situation. I would like to be able to handle other people's anger better. My T doesn't seem too worried that I don't get angry but instead experience the hurt, sadness, etc. I think with "angry" people he has to work to get them to understand their anger as an expression of a primary emotion such as hurt. We don't have to do that. We have lots of other problems to deal with, so this has not been a pressing issue. Should it be? Sometimes I just feel so clueless. I read on this board sometimes that people get angry at their T's for being late, or taking a phone call during session, or cutting session short by a few minutes. I just would never react that way. I feel like, hey, give the guy a break, so he's a few minutes late, I've certainly had that happen to me in life before. It just seems no big deal to me. I'm not trying to minimize other people's reactions of anger to these incidents, but just puzzling at my own lack of what seems to be a common reaction...

dalilah, maybe you can ask your T outright if she is trying to get you to be angry. Sometimes knowing what they are up to can really help.

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The more I read on here about other T's the more I think I should change mine. He doesn't explain stuff like this to me which creates more uncertainty and needy reactions.

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almedafan, maybe if you ask your T, he will explain things more?