Therapist reacted badly to criticism

My wife and I have been going to a therapist for marital therapy, and it has been very helpful.

In a previous session, I discussed my concern that my wife has trouble saying I love you to me when she is angry. I also commented that this broke one of the ground rules that my wife and I agreed on.

My wife didn't see a problem with her not being able to say I love you when she is angry, and that she didn't remember we had agreed on this as a rule.

Our therapist sided with my wife that she didn't remember this rule, either. Our therapist also commented that it is easy for me to say I love you to my wife, even when I'm angry with her, because I had a difficult childhood and was used to receiving mixed messages from my parents.

In the following session (last week), I started by telling our therapist that I felt she validated by wife's behavior (not being able to say I love you when angry), by saying that it wasn't a ground rule of our marriage, and also provided an excuse that my childhood was bad, and that my wife's background was not.

Our therapist reacted badly to my criticism. She interrupted me, became defensive on why she disagreed with me and didn't provide justification or excuse the behavior, and then counter-punched by accusing me of wanting her to "take my side", or to provide "one sided therapy" to me.

I was taken aback from her response, and am partly offended.

She teaches us to use active listening and empathy between my wife and I, but she didn't use these techniques when responding to my criticism of her.

How do I take up this subject with her during our next session later this week?

I wanted her to explore my criticism, and react in a mature way.

I think your observations that she reacted badly are very specific in terms of her behavior, at least as you observed it. I don't think "offended" is a very specific reaction.

I think your point that she didn't listen well and failed to be empathic is a great point about how you felt.

Whenever I raise issues with my T about his response to me from a previous session, I do it pretty much as you have laid it out here. I say, "I saw you do this" and "you said this" to be as specific as possible and then what my interpretation of his action or statement was. I think you've laid it out here very concretely and with an eye towards what you observed rather than some vague feelings. I think you can say exactly what you say here, although personally I don't think that a criticism that you were offended is the kind of criticism that people can work with and acknowledge. The other things you've said are.

I think Anne has explained really well, but I hope you don't mind I am really curious as to why it is so important your wife say this to you. It could well be my stuff, but do you really want her to say it if she doesn't mean it right then. It seems to be a ground rule so I apologise if I've misunderstood I was just curious.

If your wife says she doesn't remember and the therapist believes her, is this "taking a side"? I think therapists typically take people at their word and it isn't so much taking sides. She is just believing your wife when she says she doesn't remember. Do you think your wife is lying about not remembering? I don't see that this is going against what you say about there being such a rule. It sounds like there was once such a rule (according to you), and your wife has forgotten it (according to her). No conflict there. Why don't you two discuss whether you want to keep this rule in the future? And then move forward.

Personally, I can see this happening in my own marriage (now over). My ex-husband didn't seem to have a good memory about certain things that were important to me, things with emotional content, perhaps similar to your "rule" about saying I love you in anger. I don't think my ex was good with emotions and probably tended to banish talks about love and such from his mind/memory as he didn't like them. Maybe your wife is doing something similar--she never liked your rule so conveniently forgot it? We had couples therapy too and I remember once it came out that my XH didn't remember what had been a huge turning point in our marriage, really one of the worst days of my life. He had no recollection... That sure did hurt.

From this one incident you've shared, it seems like a lot of your focus in couples therapy is on the therapist? I think her believing that your wife has forgotten is not a big deal and is not taking sides. It seems a more important issue is that your wife forgot something that was important to you. I think your therapist's response about your wanting her to do one-sided therapy with you and take your side may be a reaction to your trying to shift the focus of couples therapy onto the therapist, a classic triangulation move on your part. By all means bring this up again. Family therapists are trained to be able to handle this kind of thing and hopefully she will be able to get the focus back on "the couple" without being drawn into this herself.

Good luck and good for you to be doing couples therapy. It is definitely not for the faint of heart.

Mike it seems that yr T is maybe unintentionally giving you a chance to model what you were trying to address. You are angry with her but you are still committed to the therapy and the anger is not to take first place.

If that doesn't make sense, how about this -
Do you have children? If so, maybe you could remind yr wife of times when she, or you, had to address a problem with one of them, certainly keeping your love for them in mind, even though you had to lay down the law. Even though their behavior may have made you angry - but you were not angry AT THEM, you still loved them. And if you still loved them, you would have been able to say so - and then you three might expolore why she could do that for the child but not for you.

My understanding is that your wife didn't remember. Your therapist didn't remember, which you saw as siding with your wife, because they both forgot the same thing. Them forgetting something isn't an opinion or action they both decided on, it's something that happened to them both and which you have interpreted as ganging up on you. I wonder if you are looking for things that support the idea that they are siding against you?

From your post, I understood that you are frustrated and feel alone on your opinion, so you are feeling got at. But I think sittingatwatersedge is right - this is an opportunity to model what you're trying to address.

And now I'm going to ask the question that's kind of like the elephant in the room here. Are you quite sure it's your T who reacted badly to criticism and not you?

Thanks for the comments everybody.

I appreciate your input.

I guess I need to add more clarification.

My biggest concern here is not about who was right in regards to the marriage ground rule about saying I love you even when angry. It's a discussion that can't be "won" because it comes down to whose memory is correct. We ended up talking about our feelings on why it is important to me to be able to say I love you when angry, and why it is hard for my wife.

My concern is that in over a year of therapy, this is only the second time I've brought up my concerns to our therapist on how she handled our issue, and both times, she reacted negatively to my criticism.

I wanted her to react with understanding and kindness to my concerns. Active listening has been an important part in our therapy of how my wife and I have been learning to communicate with each. We always comment on how easy it is to use active listening, reply with empathy, etc. when the concern is not directed at each other, but rather something like about a hard day at work. The therapist is good at modeling this technique, but the two times that I directed my concern at her, she didn't use the technique, and it's not fair.

She interrupted me, looked upset and flustered, became defensive, offered a rebuttal, and then counter punched back at me.

I felt invalidated and belittled. It makes it more difficult to express my concerns about our therapy to her. Her reaction doesn’t make me feel safe to express my feelings, and I want to feel safe for my therapy to work.

I understand that our T may not agree with my criticism, but is that really important or necessary?

Active Listening doesn’t require the listener to agree with what I was saying.

Here's a few examples of how she could've responded:

You feel that I took your wife’s side and dismissed your feelings?
Why do you feel this way?
Is it important for you that your wife is able to say I love you even when angry?......and why is that?
Do you feel unloved when this happens?
Is it a requirement to share feelings even when they are not felt at that moment?
Can you accept your wife for this, knowing that she still loves you by just can’t say it?

We have learned about the three ways of expressing anger, and which ones we use: Aggressive anger, passive aggressive anger, and assertive anger. We learned that assertive anger is the best way to communicate feelings of anger because anger is expressed directly and in a non-threatening way.

My wife's issue is using passive agressiveness when expressing anger.

When she's angry, she'll disconnect emotionally from me, avoid eye connect, take away intimacy, etc.

She'll hold this anger inside for days and days, up to a week, and deny anything is wrong and that she's not doing anything to show anger.

Of course, to me the behavioral change is obvious. I'm getting no sex, she won't look at me, touch me, or have a conversation. She won't start a discussion, but respond briefly if spoken to. I just have to wait about 5 days for the storm to end when she's ready to reconcile. It's not a very productive way to relate to your spouse.

When she's doing this, and I say I love you to her, she'll refuse to respond. It is another way of expressing anger using passive aggression.

Obviously the love she feels for me is still there, but she withholds expressions of love to express her anger.

She admits in therapy she does this, and says it is just hard to say "I love you" when she's mad, and that she's working on changing.

I don't use the "silent treatment" very often with my H, and I completely agree it is passive aggressive and not the most productive way to relate to your spouse. However, I feel that demanding your spouse say "I love you" whenever you say it to her is not really a productive way to relate either. I feel this is a power play over your wife, and I think it may relate to her silent treatment of you. I use the silent treatment when I feel powerless because my H hasn't listened to me, and this makes me so unbelievably homicidal that I do not speak to him at all until I feel I can do so without either saying a bunch of hurtling angry words or stabbing him between the eyes. I do not speak because I do not feel in control of what I will say or do. When I am ready, I will sit down and communicate with my H, but it is on MY time and in MY way. Part of it for me is that I feel that I am at the end of my rope with him not listening to or accommodating me in any way, and so I am partly trying to "teach" him about what powerlessness feels like.

I think it might be helpful for you to understand your part in your wife's reaction. Maybe she does this at the drop of a hat, but her silent treatment may be provoked by something that you do that is equally as offensive to her as the silent, no sex treatment is to you. I am slightly different than your wife because I won't deny I am angry. I will one day choose to relate more productively to my H when I feel motivated to find a better way, and I have made better strides at communicating, such as saying "I am beyond angry that you didn't listen to me when you said/did ____ . I am not speaking to you until you acknowledge that you were factually incorrect in your statements and incorrect in the way you handled this, in failing to listen to me. I would prefer your apology in writing with a handmade card. Do not approach me until then and do not speak to me until then."

So I'm still attached to silent treatment, and it's my own power play for sure, but I do communicate clearly what my anger problem is-- although to be fair to me over the years, he's always known what my problem is and what he can do to resolve my anger with him (acknowledgement is my thing). But I think that if he listened better and was more sensitive to my needs, I wouldn't get pushed to the place where I feel I want to give him the silent treatment. His way of relating to me is not very productive either and it is when I feel silenced that I invoke my own silence.

It just sounds like there is a lot of passive agressiveness going on there. It just isn't effective at any time by any person in a relationship. Active Listening is a very powerful tool, and could be helpful here. It forces you to be empathetic to the other person's feelings, and not thinking about being defensive on how you are going to defend yourself. In the end, you understand more clearly what the other person is feeling, and isn't that what's important? People want their feelings to be acknowledged and want to feel validated.

The saying I love you is not a power play. It's reaching out to your spouse to reassure to each other that even when we are at our most angry moment with each other, we still love each other.

It's no different that the love we feel for our kids. Even when they disappoint us or when we're angry with them, we remind them that we still love them very much, and nothing they do takes away from the love we feel for them.

It's the same way that my wife and I feel about each other. Marriage is like a roller coaster, with ups and downs. We don't always feel the intense, loving feelings when things are not going well, but the love is still there.

Mike, I am not trying to criticize you here or side with your wife -- she clearly does not handle anger in a healthy way, and I can empathize because my H would do something similar -- but if you know the love is still there, then why must she say it?

Sometimes I am so angry with my husband that I have to say, "I can't say that right now, but I will when I have calmed down." I recognize this wouldn't work in the current state of things, since your wife is not admitting when she is angry. But I think actually saying the words is more symbolic for you than anything else, maybe -- do you feel so pushed away by the effective removal of your wife from your marriage for those few days that you need a reminder that she is still there? It's easy to focus on rules and agreements and words and things like that, but I think it might help you to focus on what it means for you, and to find a way to get that need fulfilled without having her do something she feels she can't.

I don't feel that you listened at all to what I had to say. I don't deny the power of active listening or even my own passive aggressiveness. I did encourage you to look at the "silent treatment" from your wife's perspective, using my own as an example. You are too busy pointing fingers and trying to tell me what to do instead, but I see no evidence that you find it useful to examine how your behavior could lead to her behavior. I very much doubt that her behavior has nothing to do with the behavior of yours that came before it.

That's what "I love you" means to you. Obviously, I think, if your wife felt the same way she would do it. And just because you see it as "reassurance" doesn't make it any less of a demand or a power play. It's not my job to reassure my H constantly that I still love him even when I'm pissed. Just because I don't feel like saying I love you, it doesn't mean that I don't love him. But I think he needs to be secure in that love without repeated and frequent assurances, and whether or not I say it at any particular moment when he wants or demands it doesn't mean I love him any less. In my own marriage, I will not do things just because they are demanded or expected or are "rules." I'm not big on control and neither is my H. This is what works for me, your mileage may vary with your own experience.

I'm wondering if what you perceived as a bad reaction by your therapist was actually just a misunderstanding of her response. I'm wondering if you expected her to react badly and so saw that behavior.

I don't see the therapist explaining that she didn't remember the rule and that saying "I love you" has different meanings for you and your wife as siding with your wife or providing excuses. She was trying to show you how those words can have different meanings based on your backgrounds, and how saying them might be easier or harder based on one's experiences. That's not an excuse, it's just an explanation of the situation that might help you to understand why your wife struggles with this aspect of your marriage.

I think maybe you are expecting a lot of validation and reassurance from both your T and your wife, and it sounds like you get upset when you don't receive it. I think it's a T's responsibility to point out when we are falling in to unhealthy patterns or engaging in distorted thinking. I think it's also very helpful for T's to help re-frame things and help us look at things from another's point of view. Since this is a marital T, she can't focus solely on both of you, but needs to facilitate an understanding between you both. I think that's what she was trying to do in this case. Perhaps, if you find that you need a T that can offer more validation and reassurance just for you, then maybe an individual T would be helpful in addition to the marital T.

I think it would probably be worthwhile to bring up your concerns to your T, but you also need to be prepared to listen to what she's saying without letting pre-conceived ideas cloud what you hear her say. In couples counseling, the focus is on the relationship of the couple, not their relationship with the therapist. It seems like you really want to focus on the relationship with the therapist, and maybe she was just trying to point that out.

I appreciate your comments, and I apologize if you feel I'm not listening to what you have to say. I'm actually not demanding that she say it. It's just something she is working on doing, knowing that it is important to me. In therapy, it became obvious to me that she thinks it is something that is positive to do, but is not forcing her to do it, nor am I.

My wife did say that she would try to say something like what SallyBrown posted, ""I can't say that right now, but I will when I have calmed down."

I'll take what I can get if that is something that she can do. It is an improvement from what she's done in the past.

I don't want to get too off-topic, though. I didn't intend to start this topic to discuss how my wife and I are dealing with this and other issues. My wife became very angry several weeks ago, and it turned into a 5 day period of passive agressiveness.

We resolved the issue that caused the disagreement in therapy, but are now working on the passive aggressive part of her behavior.

Believe me - I'm not suggesting that she is the only person who has issues to work on. I do, too.

I started this topic to discuss how our therapist responded to my concern on how she handled this in therapy when it came up.

It is not important to me that our therapist disagreed with me.

My problem is that she responded negatively; defended herself; and counter attacked that all I wanted was "one-sided therapy" where she took only my side.

I wanted her to use the tools with me that she is teaching us.

I want to feel safe and be able to discuss my concerns with her, and frankly I don't.

This is only the second time I've voiced a concern with her in over a year of therapy, and both times she responded in this way.

I want to bring this up with our therapist, but I'm afraid to and don't know how to bring it up so that she responds in a compassionate and constructive way. I wouldn't characterized her response to me as either compassionate or constructive.

Believe it or not, it is hard for me to discuss my feelings. I came from a very physically abusive and traumatic childhood, and we never talked about our feelings, but I've made great strides in the past year.

I also think it would be worthwhile to bring it up, and I've decided I'll write a letter, putting down my thoughts, and using some the advice that you all have provided.

The discussion in therapy basically finished on the whole "I love you" issue. I'm not posting this for advice on this. My issue was how my therapist responded to me when I voiced my concerns on how she lead the discussion when it was first brought up.

I don't think I had any expectations in bringing up my concern. Like I posted earlier, I've only done this once before in therapy, and it was at least 6 months ago.

I would expect a therapist (LCSW in this case) to respond better to concerns / input from a patient.

It is inconceivable to me that the way she reacted: becoming upset, flustered, defensive, and accusatory is what therapists are taught when responding to criticism from a patient.

I want to be able to bring up concerns without such a negative response.

We are taught by her that validating and acknowledging each other's feelings is important. She didn't at all.

Is that asking too much?

No, it is not too much to ask. Some of these people are simply not good at their jobs.

Mike, I was thinking about why I ended up asking you about your wife instead of about the MC, and I think it's in part because, although I don't have a good sense of MC's tone, I might have said something similar to you about "taking sides". So I think maybe I focused on how you felt about your wife because I'm trying to get what it is I'm missing here.

It's hard for me to understand why your wife's forgetting is a "side". Can you say more about that? This leads into why your therapist's forgetting would be on the same "side". I think my difficulty getting what you mean makes it harder for me to see why that part of what your therapist said was inappropriate.

I think I also focused on how you feel about your wife's behavior, because you talk about your therapist "validating" her behavior. However, because I don't see anything wrong with this particular facet of her behavior -- not saying "I love you" when angry -- I also don't see anything wrong with validating it. I see it as no worse than validating someone going out for a walk when they're angry until they cool off.

You seem pretty rational, and I'm wondering if you can see that from my perspective, you are making two giant leaps: first, from two people forgetting this same "rule" (which you seem willing to compromise on anyway) to "agreeing" about it, and from agreeing about a rule to validating an entire set of behaviors. That's another thing I'm not sure of: validating what behavior? Validating her silent treatment wholesale, or validating just not saying "I love you" when she feels she can't do it?

I will say I don't agree with your therapist trying to explain away why "I love you" is easy for one and not the other. That seems presumptuous to me. However, I also see it as having the intention of helping you see that your wife simply isn't always going to be able to do the same things you do, or express herself the same way. But, like I said, I don't know her tone. Still... I feel like I relate to her intentions.

It's true that MCs need to be sensitive to the dynamics of marriage counseling. It's very easy to feel like the therapist and spouse are taking sides against you (been there, done that, and indeed, sometimes our first MC did take sides... she was not so good). At the same time, the MC may feel very strongly about this "rule", and I would have to agree with her. Having rules like this is extremely destructive. I am not defending your MC, and I think it's worth telling her those questions you wish she had asked, instead of jumping to conclusions. Assumptions are also toxic.

Still, I can relate to her sense of urgency here. This "rule" is bad news, dude. It is very frustrating, I am sure, that your MC didn't explore your feelings about it more thoroughly. But I think people are asking about the "rule" because it's not something I would expect a therapist to be on board with, and something I would hope my own MC would validate for me -- my need to not say "I love you" when it feels like a betrayal to both myself and my partner to say it at a time when I can't feel it.

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I appreciate your taking the time post such a thoughtful reply.

Two sessions ago when I brought up the episode of my wife's holding anger for 5 days, and described the passive agressiveness, including her not saying that she loved me, mine main issues were twofold: that the therapist justified that it was okay for her to not be able to reply that she loved me because she my wife didn't believe it was a rule, and that she excused the unwillingness to say I Love you by claiming that I had an abusive childhood and received many mixed messages from my parents, i.e. they would beat me, but then tell me they loved me. My wife's childhood was a very happy one, and she has not experience receiving mixed messages. The point is that you can separate your feelings from your behavior.

And that is where the therapist dropped the discussion two weeks ago. The withholding of "I love you's" is something my wife admitted was a way to show anger. She not only withheld physical love and affection, but also withheld saying the words. It is not loving behavior, and she admitted she did it to hurt me.

So last week, I started the therapy session by telling our therapist that I felt she handled it wrong; and described how I felt she practically enabled the behavior by justifying it, and then excusing it.

I didn't bring up that I thought she was taking sides, so I think my therapists reply to me was inappropriate that I wanted therapy that was sympathetic to my side only.

The therapist appeared upset, frustrated, interrupted me, became defensive, and then accused me of wanting one-sided therapy.

I quickly acknowledged that it is not important to me about whether or not there was a rule.

I wanted to understand why the therapist answered as she did to us. I still think her approach was not helpful.

The good thing is that the therapist quickly pivoted at that point, saying it would be more helpful if my wife and I discussed it, and we worked on it.

My issue is still this one point: I think my therapist reacted inappropriately to my concerns on how she handled that one issue in our therapy.

Dagnabbit I just lost my quoted reply for the 2nd time.

Why aren't you in therapy on your own? It would give you the chance to work out these issues. The therapist is kind of right. You did reach a good result for the marriage counseling, but you don't like how she dealt with you, and you don't like how your wife deals with you.

Ya know, in the "tell me you love me" scenario, the parent says it to the kid; the kid isn't forced to say it to the parent.

I think you have a good point, but you're skimming over the facts in your last 2 lines - if you want to talk more to the therapist about how she reacted to you, that is your individual therapy. You admitted she pivoted and had you and your wife discuss the issue - that is "good enough". Maybe not perfect, but so what? If you harp at stuff like that after the problem is resolved...?? Hey, nobody's perfect. Talk to a t about it. There is something else going on. I know, I been there.

EDITED TO ADD
And now I lost my edit. Tonite is not my nite. No it's not fair that WE have to go to t to figure out how to get treated well, but its the outcome of a lousy childhood sometimes.

Thanks for the input.

I actually am in individual therapy. I don't think I want to discuss this in individual therapy because it happened during our marital therapy session.

That is a good point about the child not having to reply back to the parent. I thought about it last night.

My answer is, yes, we shouldn't be forced to reply back "I love you", but my wife is not a child. The behavior expectations are different between a child and an adult. She acknowledges that she is withholding the statement to express anger. It is not a loving sentiment and is antithetical to a supportive, loving relationship. It also not a healthy way to express anger. The therapist spent a lot of time with her on explaining why it's not good to withhold it....and no one is forcing or demanding she say it. It is an ideal to aspire to, and she said she would try to say it, or even write it down. It's good enough for me.

To me it's not good enough that our T pivoted away from the discussion about how she handled my criticism. I appreciate that she focused the discussion back to my wife and I.

My point is that she should be able to handle our concerns about our therapy without getting upset, defensive and accusatory.

It is hypocritical for her to advocate that my wife and I use Active Listening techniques when dealing with concerns we have toward each other, but that our therapist doesn't use to me what she's advocating. I've only brought up my concerns on two occasions in two years, and she responded inappropriately both times.

It doesn't make me feel comfortable bringing up concerns with her and that is a problem.

Frankly, I don't get why a the majority of those of you who have provided me input on this don't see that point.

Therapists need input or concerns about their patients therapy without getting upset, defensive or accusatory. Responding in a less than positive way is unhelpful.

What would you like people to say that would be useful to you? I agree with your main premise - I just think it is too ambitious of a goal for most therapists. I do not believe most are able to do that well despite it being theoretically part of the job description. The one I see is defensive, upset and accusatory. I either ignore it from her and keep telling her how wrong she is (I do this with some things) or I just accept she is not safe to discuss some things with and so I don't tell her those types of things (I do this with some things). Just how I do it.

Do you really believe that most therapists are not able to handle criticism well?

That's really discouraging.

In my opinion, it's their job. At minimum, an LCSW has earned a Masters degree, and earns a living dealing with people's feelings, behavioral problems, and neuroses on a daily basis.

I have higher expectations of a therapist than a patient in using techniques that they are teaching their patients to use.

I really do believe most of them do not handle criticism well. At best, in my opinion and experience, they mostly will think it is the client's problem and not theirs.
Again, I do not disagree that they perhaps should be better at it. I just do not believe nor have I found, that they are better at it.

I don't disagree with you on that. I do think that you should be able to discuss concerns with your T about how things are going and about what she's doing that does or doesn't work. However, I also think our own experiences can cause us to distort the way we view a T's response. What we may perceive as defensive or accusatory may not be at all what the T intended to convey. At that point, it may be helpful to clarify with your T what she actually meant vs. how you heard it. It can be as simple as saying "when I brought up my concern last week, I felt like it brought out a defensive response in you. Was that accurate?"

A good T will be willing to have this discussion and if they were being defensive, they will own that. If they weren't, they will try to re-phrase their response and discuss what happened.

I'm constantly giving my T feedback on what's working and what isn't. In one of our sessions, she said something to me that sounded very critical at the time. My emotional reaction was immediate, and my T apologized that what she'd done upset me. I realized later, that the way she addressed me reminded me of something my mother would do, so I heard "critical" from my T when she was just trying to challenge an unhealthy behavior pattern of mine. We talked about that and my T apologized if her tone of voice crossed from being challenging to critical. It was a good conversation, and now my T knows that a similar circumstance might be triggering to me. She will be more cautious of her tone of voice in those situations, and I will be more aware that I'm being triggered due to past experiences.