1. How does or would your therapist respond to expressing anger towards them?

Really well, as he does respond to all emotional content, but I think he is particularly skilled at the negative emotions of distress, annoyance (probably more typical for me than anger), frustration (mostly at myself). He doesn't get defensive when I'm angry or annoyed at him. He both understands how and why I'm angry, while also not colluding in my negative interpretations of him or his motives. It's okay for me to be angry and it's okay for him to point out that the underlying reasons may not always be perfectly accurate. He explains it really well, has a lot of patience, and makes sure there is time and space for me to say everything there is to say. The deeper I can travel to make sense of it, the more he is there for me. If I just stay on the surface and emote, there's not really much he can respond to.

2. Have or could you tell your therapist you hate them?

No and no, because it's not true. I wouldn't pay someone I hated to work with me. I try to be straight about what I think and feel, so I wouldn't say something that was not true. I can't think of a single person I hate, even some who have treated me pretty badly. I guess hate is not my thing.

3. Is raising your voice in session acceptable?

No, because he is in a practice with other people having therapy sessions next door and in the same building. It's a professional building where there are limits on behavior. During one of my sessions another client next door was too loud, not necessarily angry but just a loud talker. They moved him to a session time where there were not other clients nearby.

Also, I am in therapy to help me learn to express my emotions appropriately. I don't see raising my voice to anyone, including my child, acceptable. I would not want to be helped in any way that promoted a sense of entitlement to raise my voice or otherwise communicate in unacceptable ways. I would expect if I raised my voice in therapy, my therapist would tell me to stop it. That I could speak whatever words I needed to, but the tone had to be such that it didn't disturb the people around us or have the potential to escalate. I see no value in being able to raise my voice in therapy.

4. Do they allow angry phone calls between sessions? Angry emails?

I don't email my therapist except for scheduling. I think sending angry emails rather than dealing directly with a person you are angry at is chickensh*t, so I again am not interested in doing that. I don't want to learn how to write angry emails; it doesn't serve the reasons why I am in therapy.

I've had a couple of crisis sessions on the phone where anger (not at him) was part of the deal, not a problem.

5. Have you ever accused your therapist of hurting you? Or not caring? Or not being competent? Could you?

I don't think I've used any of those words. My complaints have been more in the line of "you've gotten it wrong" or "this thing you said was wrong." I think I have expressed hurt at what was said or did without using the word. I'm sure I could, I think it just wasn't the most precise word to use at the time. My therapist has responded that "you seem really dissatisfied," and I have liked the way he put that.

I know my therapist cares about me, so no. I know my therapist is competent-- makes mistakes, but is very good and skilled at working with me. After nearly 10 years, those things are very well settled.

Outside of your questions, I think the thing that has been most helpful to me is observing the connection between my negative emotions, especially about him, and what he does and says in response. Because he's so good at what I think is called "holding the space," even when I am all wound up in anger, the chill of the emotional environment in therapy allows me some distance from what can feel like overwhelming feelings. So I can observe, a little like an anthropologist of myself, how what I say and do has an impact on someone. Kind of in a "pure" way, because his own stuff isn't in the space, and he doesn't have a stake in the outcome, as compared to a conflict with my spouse or friend or mother or any other person. I've learned that I come on really strong even when I think I'm kind of dialed back, and I've learned to be more gentle, which opens things up for a deeper dialog and greater understanding. Not only does he understand me better, but I understand myself better. For me, learning to modulate my expression of negative emotions has been very helpful. It has been helpful for me to look at how I express negative emotions, as these typically have big impacts on people, and modulate them to achieve what I'm after in the interaction.