What would be useful for me (and I've had a similar conversation or two with my T) is understanding if (and it was an if for me) and how this translated into conversations with other people. There have been times when I've shut down others by leaving (or other acknowledge/conscious action) and then other times when I've shut people down not by a lack of physical presence, but by checking out and not really listening to them.

My T has always been open to doing things differently when I have raised issues connecting therapy to my negative responses. For me it was really helpful to be able to articulate these things and to have him respond and do it differently. I think it's unreasonable to think that there's some kind of "right" way for therapists to be or for therapy to happen and I don't agree with the general idea that if therapist does or says something specific (such as experience counter transference) then they are incompetent. Not withstanding that some therapists are incompetent and some make more mistakes than others, I just don't think that therapy is about the therapist. I have not found focusing on what my T does or does not do and how I feel is very productive, except in the service of me generally understanding myself and how I relate to others. During the times when I've gone on and on to him about him and how he can do things differently, it seems I've needed a distraction so I don't have to focus on myself and the tough issues that brought me to therapy. Changing my therapist doesn't really help with that. Again, not saying that's what you're doing or that it's wrong to ask therapists to do things differently-- these are brave conversations to have with anyone. For me, it's that changing other people is not my goal even when they make it easy to do so.