Should we feel guilty when we are not nice to our T's?

Since T's have been taught to deal with people like us, should we try to be nice to our T's or is it ok to lash out at them if they do or say something that bothers us? I know it doesn't feel right to be mean to someone but then again I know that T's have been taught to forget about us as soon as we leave their offices so why should we care?

I think that it's important to be educate. But in the meantime if something bothers us it's equally (if not more) important to let it out.

I don't think I would ever yell at my T, we disagreed a lot on a lot of things in the past (and still now), but I always found an educate way to display my feelings/positions.

I tend to treat people with the respect they deserve. It is one thing to be angry in a session about something about ourselves and to express that. It is another to take out our anger on someone else.

I treat my therapist with respect because he is so kind and caring toward me. I don't believe therapists just "forget" about us when we leave. Of course they have lots of clients, but a good therapist does care about all of them.

I have never treated him poorly. I just can't see any circumstances where that would happen.

I have never had a situation where I would ever get that angry at T. We disagree, but we talk it through and I treat her with the respect she treats me. She has never yelled at me, so I would never yell at her.

In every day social life, common courtesy is definitely the thing; but therapy is not everyday life.

You would never tell people IRL the intensely private things you tell yr T. Similarly, in that little room there are pressures that come to bear on clients which do not occur in common social life.

There is negative transference, just to take one example, in which the client very clearly perceives in the T, and reacts to it, some hated or feared feature of someone in who actually lived in an earlier life. Is the client to stuff these transference feelings, hide them, even lie about them, for the sake of common courtesy? It seems the derailing of therpeutic work doesn't it?

Maybe this is a question for each client to ask his/her therapist.

I agree that you should treat your therapist with respect and compassion. Yes, they are trained to put up with a certain amount of acting out. But you still have to strive to be a good person, and if you do end up behaving in an angry way, then your obligation in therapy is to try to understand why, and to try to develop other behaviors. (And to apologize if you find you behaved unfairly.)

NO, but I think it is worth questioning why if you are feeling negative toward your therapist... is it something they said, did they touch a sore spot in you... that information is important, ultimately they relationship has a sort of game element to it, so it is good to be able to step back and see it without having to react...

Ts are not there to be our punching bags. While there are times our anger may cause us to lash out. We are in T to learn how to control our emotions. To learn how to talk about our feelings when we are angry instead of lashing out. This comes with time. But Ts are not there for us to lash out at. If you were to lash out at a friend, would you apologize? If so, then you should apologize to your T for lashing out at him/her. S/he deserves respect just as you deserve respect.

I absolutely think that we need to tell T if they do something that bothers us. There is a lot of information in those sorts of things, and for me, it's been good practice in speaking up in real life.

I don't know if it's "okay" to "lash out". I do think the rules are a little different in therapy than in "real life", but I also think that there are ways to work through conflict without lashing out. Not to say that I haven't called T an asshole a couple of times (), because BIG BIG feelings come up in therapy and they are sometimes super hard to deal with. But when I did, I apologized, and tried to find a better way to express what I was feeling.

Welcome to PC

the question wasn't should we not apologize if we lash out, or even should we lash out. The question wasn't should we or shouldn't we treat our T with courtesy and respect and compassion.

The question was, shoud we feel guilty when we are not nice to our T.....

if we are just ***holes in general we won't stay in therapy anyway.
If we are not just that, and the lashing out, the wrong perception, the trigger, the whatever you call it, is a case of negative transference, don't think for a minute that it is just left to lie there like that!! It's a tool, as we discussed elsewhere; the T can use it to show the person their behavior pattern; to help the client trace it back tothe source; to help the client form a better reaction for the future.

So shoudl we feel guilty? If it's due to transference, I say definitely NOT. Because my T says not.
Should we apologize? I say definitely YES. and I know from plenty of experience that the guilt will set in anyway, and shame too, and you just have to own it. I think the T really wants to hear you say, "I know, it's not about you". that is (at least in my case) progress in therapy.

No, I don't think it's OK to lash out at therapists or be mean to them. I do think it is fine, however, to express your anger towards them in an appropriate manner. In fact, this can be very helpful to a client, especially one who has difficulty feeling or expressing anger. This can help teach you how to be angry at other people in your life. Definitely do not hide the feeling, if at all possible (I know that's really hard for many of us). If a client needs help with knowing what is and is not an appropriate way to express anger, then that is an area to work on with the therapist. If you do accidentally lash out instead of expressing appropriately, then just apologize. I am sure they will understand.

Because the therapist is a human being, a professional who is trying to help you, deserves respect, and because you have a relationship with him/her.

Actually the OP did ask if we should lash out. There was this question: "should we try to be nice to our T's or is it ok to lash out at them if they do or say something that bothers us?" and that was the one I responded to in my post.

Sorry, Sunny, I guess my answer then would be defintely yes, and definitely yes.

Well, do you feel guilty?

I say if it doesn't feel right, for whatever reason, don't do it and if you do it anyway, then apologize and learn from it.

i think it's important to say something if you are bothered about something, but i also think therapy is a perfect place to practice skills on how to communicate effectively in the real world. e.g., when i first used to get angry at pdoc, i would simply cancel appointments but now i've learnt to tell him what's wrong. and slowly ive been learning how to express that more effectively. although pdoc has dealt with my anger before, it's not an "ideal" way for me to express myself, and (besides the fact that i try to treat everyone with respect anyway), i care about treating pdoc the same way i would treat other people, because it means i get feedback on how to be more effective in the outside world.

Well, if the question is, is it OK to lash out at our Ts and be nasty and not nice to them - I'd have to say, no. It's no more OK really to do that to them than it is to do to our friends or family who care and want to help. That said, is it OK to show/express anger, negative feelings, and do it in a more respectful, controlled way in therapy, yes! There's no sense in bottling up our feelings/emotions about how things T said or did affected us.....better to be honest and open about it, to simply say it. And better to say something than just act it out, say with being late, or doing a lot of eye-rolling, or whatever. Like deli said, therapy is the perfect place to practice our communication skills, our relationship skills and learn how to do better at expressing our emotions and dealing with our feelings and situations in real life.......and our Ts should be ones who are safe to learn and to practice these skills with, so that we do better with our real life situations and relationships.

I think the best thing to do is be honest with your feelings.
Your T knows that you are not attacking them personally. If you have pent up anger then show it. Get it off your chest.
That is what T is for. But I think it is more honest to say, "I feel really angry when I hear your response about..." or "That makes me feel pissed off and hurt because..." It seems more productive then a statement like, "I hate you or you always do this," because it puts the emphasis on how the session makes you feel.
Your T knows your anger is due to the past.
It can feel very much like anger is boundless and infinitely deep. But don't worry. It is not. Best to address it.

However, I want to add that I don't think our T's forget about us when we leave their offices. Instead, they have had professional training in the therapeutic relationship. It is just different than a friend relationship. I think it's like - we are not Ts friend. We are their work - a person with a story that they care about and are invested in.