Is there a chance he is standing in for anyone from real life or childhood? Are there other times you can remember feeling this? The repetition and the stuckness seem like an enactment. Sometimes the unconscious of the therapist is co creating the issue when it becomes entrenched like that.

Maybe you can brainstorm together how you each are feeling in the moment that it happens, what leads up to it and what resolves it.

There's a notion therapists learn that you can only take a patient as far as you've gone yourself. Is there a possibility you've outgrown your therapist and are frustrated?

At year four, my T and I used to flat out argue/ fight- something I rarely do in real life. It bothered me and his conduct bothered him too. We actually used two sets of yellow and red cards from soccer refing to warn each other. ( yeah , if you are shaking your head- agreed. PC clued me in to end this therapy about three years before I gathered the strength. )

In trauma theory, there's an idea that T and client trade around three roles if they are not very careful: bystander, victim, and perpetrator . There's a feeling in the room that neither one of you know what to do nor want the interaction that is happening. It's an unconscious trying on of roles.