Yes I realise there is something up and is why I made this thread, I wanted to honestly share what I actually think and feel about it all. I suppressed it because I thought it's "wrong thoughts and feelings", but I finally accepted that this is how I see things now. So that is why I wanted to share openly and ask about people's input on all this.

I did have a therapist that did explicitly try to tell me that anger is not okay, and that did have a profound influence on me for a while. I am not fully recovered from that yet but I am doing better.

I do not really understand what empowering therapy looks like. I do not feel like any of the therapists I've had, whether online or IRL, actually connected to me emotionally, or accepted my anger.

I will admit I don't compute how vulnerability is based in strength. Do you perhaps have some example of such expression of vulnerability?

I do have a big dose of Choleric in my "temperament". I personally believe some anger is very empowering, and some can be destructive or directed at the wrong target or goal. After that therapist, I had to sort it out again for myself as she didn't really make distinctions about anger and it was just all "bad" in her opinion.

And yes, anger sometimes is a defense, sometimes it comes with too much mistrust, or is too impulsive and uncontrolled or wrongly violent, and sometimes it's self-assertion and standing up for yourself and changing your situation, or protecting other people.

Fighting for what's truly important, for fairness, for justice, and for all the above things has a meaningful place in my world. That is just how I look at it as far as the purpose of anger as an emotion.

Yes I do associate the empowering kind of anger with high self-esteem and self-respect too. And yes, it helps be strong, tough and functional, in my world. This is me. I am not saying others work the same way I do.

The way you seem to define weakness, it sounds like you view it as being inefficient in achieving one's goals? Lack of strength in achieving and accomplishing goals? I may have misunderstood you.

And finally, yes, so some bad things I am trying to process from my life and my anger did want to become destructive and uncontrollable and it's all been hard work to not allow that to happen. And I am sure it makes sense that it's a defense masking things behind it, and it works well for that purpose, and sometimes I do feel it's really needed for my survival.

I am not sure if this view is incompatible with most therapies. Is it?

And can I ask, what did you mean by, therapy is not for everyone?

I am sorry to hear about your experience. Yes, some of this resonates with mine. I don't really have complaints or grudges about any of the therapists I've had, I did and do feel strong and deep dissatisfaction, and I did complain to some of them before, but I came to the conclusion that I don't really know what REALLY happened in these therapies. So I no longer really have any opinion about what went on. It's just such a complex matter that it's hard to say anything definitive about it for me.

I very much relate to you with how hard it was for me to try and open up emotionally. It was so hard that after a while (years) I just simply tried to force it and speed it up, and unfortunately I only realised later that that was a bad idea too.

I've come to understand that no therapist is perfect, as no human being is perfect either, but if there is a serious mistake, then that has to be fixed so as not to have the therapy cause actual harm to you.

I've also felt like it's a Catch-22 as to be able to receive the therapist's empathy I have to be more in touch with my own emotions, but how I can get to be more in touch with them if I cannot receive their empathy? I did see sometimes that some people can try and reach out with more intense attempts emotionally to help me connect to my own emotions but I've never ever ever heard of an actual therapy approach that "officially" incorporates this.

(Is there one?)

As far as distressing emotions going back under the surface again.....Yes I did that forever myself. Until I had enough of how it removed too much of my energy and vitality too. It might be you've found my own solution where suppressing the emotions do not interfere much with your life. If you want, mind saying more on that?

Yes, some therapists jumped to conclusions too fast, tried to assume what capabilities I must be lacking (completely off track with that), readily ignored and invalidated my "imperfectly expressed" emotion, when I attempted to express and open up, etc.

I do think if I don't even understand what safety and (the right kind of) vulnerability are supposed to be like, it's probably harder for the therapist too to deal with that but maybe I'm wrong on this and maybe I managed to take blame for this where I shouldn't have. I'm going to think more about your post.

I've read in Gottman's marriage books that there are two kinds of emotional systems physiologically. One will react fast to challenges and threats and calm down slowly, in the physiological sense, and the other one will not. The former one will feel the need to retaliate if they are being disrespected or attacked and cannot calm down without that. The latter one is able to self-soothe and not need to retaliate.

(You can guess that this was sex-related differences, though of course it's generalisations about the two sexes)

I agree, some of us probably have to deal with harder emotions, because of harder circumstances etc. But it is very hard to compare the subjective experiences of two people. Objective measurements of functioning can help compare, and help have more empathy, maybe.

That is not really what I meant by incompatibility. Assuming that you meant resistance is a willful act.

That issue certainly has made it even harder for me to feel safe before. If I can't even be sure what is meant by resistance or me having walls, whether it's true or just blaming me out of frustration. One of the posts in this thread was illuminating in this regard. Because I did not even know what it meant when I was told by some therapists that I have walls. One of them was actually nice about it, empathetic, said she wants to work with me on the wall, but another one wasn't like that.

So, it is a dynamics that can become a very dangerous power dynamics if the therapist gets to want to feel more in power or lacks awareness of their countertransference and things like that.

All that with the client opening up about the most difficult things. And them being open to taking in ideas, beliefs, guidance of the therapist even if it's wrong and incorrect or comes from tainted, unpure motivations.

Someone above said vulnerability is strength, but to me it feels like it's not taught anywhere, how to do it from a place of strength, and if the client goes into therapy without this "skill", then yeah, it's a risk and liability, IMO.