Your T ever push buttons to get a reaction?

Just wondering if anyone else's T pushes to see the reaction they will get. Well mine did this past session and I failed the test with my anger.

I basically walked out just before the end of the session. She says I have been bottling my anger for months, yes I flared in anger but it only lasted 5 minutes before I was practically in tears.

As I told my ACT worker today I am emotionally numb and very sad and at this point feel like I am swirling just above the drain about to drown.

To me trying to get a reaction out of a client is like poking a stick at a hibernating bear!

Did your T actually say they were doing that? wondering if it was deliberate or just happened. Often mine has done it although supposedly not deliberately (I wonder at times). I don't see your response as failing though, what makes you think that?

My T has admitted during a session that he has pushed buttons on purpose and told me there was a reason behind it. However, he didn't let me leave without making sure that I was okay.

My license was suspended almost 6 months ago, what I heard from my pdoc was that she was making me wait 6 months before she would fill out the paperwork.

Well now I am told a 6 month review, maybe I misunderstood and maybe I didn't.

All I know is that I got angry was about to walk out and was told, see if you could drive you would take off and be reckless.

It was my ACT worker that told me today, that she was pushing buttons to see what my reaction would be. My pdoc thinks I have just been pushing the anger down the last few months and faking it to just get my license back.

In all honesty, I am so beat down and broken I don't have the energy to fight or be angry anymore. I suffer from borderline.

Even when I walked out of the session, I sat outside just having a cigarette and would not have been impulsive like I have in the past, I'm just so tired.......

I understand that she wants to be sure I will never drive recklessly again but I just think it is wrong to provoke me.

Well I walked out with out my anti depressants and I won't say I crawled to my ACT worker this afternoon for them, but no one bothered to see if everything was okay.

Mondays I am at an art group in the next building which is a walk across a driveway. They know I am there.

When the act worker was getting my meds, my pdoc happened to be walking down the hall and all she asked was "will you be coming on Friday?" Guess she thinks I am pissed off at her, which I was the rest of Friday but I am over it know.

Only once.

I had my H drop me off at a session after spending the night in the emergency room with a kidney stone. I arrived on Vicodin and was still in pain. I know that she was upset that I showed in the first place in that state. However, she decided to try to take advantage of my mental state and pain. Knowing that the Gestalt empty chair technique triggers me to panic, she asked me what would I say to her empty chair if she just decided to get up and leave because I wasn't talking to her. I reacted very calmly and said that I would say nothing to her empty chair because I see no point in talking to a chair.

Not the reaction she was looking for.

T admitted later that she was very frustrated with me for showing up in pain and drugged. She said she hated to see me in that state because there was nothing she could do about my pain. She also admitted that she was frustrated with me because I was trying to skirt around my issues for several sessions prior to this. So, she made the poor decision to take advantage of it. She apologized. Honestly, in hindsight, I would have been frustrated with my behavior at the time also.

I'm so sorry, Lone Wolfie.

Mine does this every session, its part of the therapy for me. I am emotionally detached so she is (I think) trying to push my buttons to get me to feel emotions. But the issue with that is i do what you did in your session, every session! I don't walk out very often anymore but i used to pretty much every session. Its definitely like poking a bear! Rawrrrrr!

I don't think my T has ever intentionally pushed my buttons to get a reaction. She has stumbled upon things that are highly triggering for me, and when I react to it, we talk through it. She knows some things are hard for me to bring up, and I've asked for her help in talking about those things, so she does intentionally bring them up, and they do cause a reaction, but it's at my request that she's doing so.

If T ever did just push my buttons to see what happened, I think that would seriously damage our relationship. It's not something I would handle well, and would probably shut down and walk out.

Were you able to say that you didn't like your buttons being pushed like that? tough situation to be in where they are trying to check if you can handle anger better

My T has never done that, because I told her that if she ever does, I'll probably tell her to F off. So...she does not do it intentionally.

Yep, I've been pushed by my therapist, and guess what? I failed. Why? Because I was trying to "hide", to be normal, to be without fault, to be the one who was right, to not be AFFECTED by what everyone else was saying about me . .. gee, what other excuse can I give?

I'm not trying to be rude or disruptive, I'm just trying to say that I've been on the receiving end of "therapeutic interventions" that I saw coming and tried to thwart. It doesn't work. It harms you. It works against your healing.

I would wish that your therapist would talk about how he/she thinks that your current "calm, cool demeanor" was a front. It's important to have those conversations. But guess what, many of us in therapy block that conversation because we read or understand what the "currency" is for our therapists. In other words, we know how to tweek them. We know just the right thing to say that will make him/her question her thoughts or beliefs (he/she might not admit that, but most of us know when we've found the right currancy). We out think them.. . not a good thing! It means that we lose out.

Honesty. Openess. Bareness. Emotional nakedness. Raw courage. These are all things that we need to strive for. Guess what? Most of our therapist have not even PRACTICED this level of openness. Sad but true. But if you and I are to heal and grow, we need to step beyond their failings and fears and find our own strenght. Good luck!

Ditto. I personally hate this kind of therapy. It puts u in such a hard position. I think it's almost unfair. Unless they know that u can handle yourself, flaunting the fact that u aren't ready in your face by testing u like that is unfair. sry she did that. If my t did that, I would blow up, then shut down and we would get nowhere. I would talk to t about it. It may not be the right technique for u.

Ps I got angry on your behalf reading this. Lol

No, my T has never done that. It sounds mean. I give him lots of personal and sensitive information--this is trust. If he were to use the information (knowledge of my buttons) to get some sort of reaction out of me, then it would be a breach of trust. Therapy is not a game. This would seriously harm things between us. I think my T would take a more direct and honest approach, e.g. "I'm worried about you because your friend died and you seem unmoved by it. I'd like to help you be able to express some of your feelings in therapy--are you able to talk about it?"

I think we take anger with us. And when we're ready we attach to something that on another they would be just a normal response. Anger is hard to take responsibilty for. It's more manageable when we attach it to being caused by an external event. Rather than it being born in us.

t brought something up once and i freaked out. i don't think he was trying to push my buttons. that imho would really be a cruel thing to do to me.

i have read somewhere??? that most t's figure out your triggers in the first six months you are seeing them, and know to stay away... unless like some people say, they need they t's to confront them head on....

Oh boy, my t is a pro at this. She has got this technique down to a science.
There are two teenage alters she especially loves to do this to, and quite frankly, i kind of like to watch it happen, because they both totally deserve it she pokes, they react, eventually theres a bunch of emotional reaction from said teens, (she can be subtle or totally transparent, and they still fall for it every time), eventually they catch on most of the time and start telling her f- you, and argument entails, and the fun really get started.

She gets me too, but on more emotional topics, usually trying to provoke tears, not anger.there are several different subjects she can bring up with me that will get me to spill my guts.

I am also pretty emotionally detached. My T started off slowly, but now is starting to push buttons to get something out of me. I thing she has enough respect to not break me.

It is strange to read all these replies saying its bad, when my whole therapy consists of that exact thing, lol! Button pushing. She doesn't do it to make me angry. I think she wants me to emotionally break down into a river of tears but I just get angry and tell her "You are pissing me off, the session is over", haha.

Never intentionally, that I know of. I've known her long enough that sometimes they do get accidentally pressed. I think therapy brings that out though, because sometimes you need to get to the bottom of those issues. So, when touching on those really difficult issues, it can be so easy to activate that triggered reaction, particularly when you're being vulnerable and open...and maybe therapists sometimes misjudge how far they can safely push an issue.

I've probably accidentally pressed her buttons too, judging on how angry and frustrated she has been towards me at times recently.

I think when you've known someone long enough, if there's a level of intimacy in the relationship, then buttons do unfortunately get pressed sometimes whether it's intentional or not.

I haven't had a chance to talk about what happened yet, I will this Friday at my session. If I can muster up the courage to talk, which seems to have been a problem the for a while now.

I feel I have nothing to talk about, I do a lot of writing that I send to my pdoc sometimes a few times a week, but lately it is only once a week and it is 3 pages long.

I hope this doesn't damage the relationship we have built over the last 9 months because I pretty much was cussing her out in my head most of Friday after the incident.

Being borderline you love them one day and can hate them the next and it can be a slight slant, even one that is perceived and not real, this was very real.

Which is probably why she asked me if she was going to see me on Friday for my session when I saw her Monday when I was getting the meds I left without on Friday.

I would have told her to F off if I hadn't be so quick to walk out and I doubt she would be surprised or offended either!

There was a flip remark made and I think it is her frustration showing.

From what I am understanding from what you wrote is the because I am borderline I am manipulating her and YOUR WRONG.

I have been nothing but honest during sessions about feelings and my self harm, I have never tried to hide anything.

Yes the last many weeks I have not talked much, she reads what I have written that week so that I have an opportunity to respond which I generally do not because I have pretty much said what I wanted in written form, something I am better at than verbal.

As I mentioned before, I feel completely broken and raw to the bone. I'm feeling emotionally numb and am a shell of the person I once was. Wondering if I will ever be who I was before, the person that could laugh and smile.

((((LoneWolfie))))
I think the so-called love/hate or push/pull relationship comes from idealizing people in order to trust them. For me, I have to think that they are at least a little better than human in order to build trust.

I think that the times when I push them away, because of whatever, that it is more significant that a slant, perceived or otherwise, because it triggers something within. People with BPD are very sensitive to others' nonverbal communication, and although what is real on the outside vs. what is perceived can be debated, the pain is real and not perceived. I think, based on experience, that what triggers pushing others away (or hate) is when whatever is said/done brings forth the intense shame, making it almost unbearable to tolerate. I say this to you because I think you should be kind to yourself.This afflictive disease is unrelenting.

Yes, my xT did something during the abrupt termination phase that I felt was pushing my buttons, but who knows?? I also feel completely broken and raw to the bone, excellent description Good luck at your Friday session, I'll be thinking about you