I punched a table during a session. She's won't see me anymore but I'd never hurt her

This really is a difficult situation and frankly, I'm not surprised it raises so many and so different opinions... so here's mine

At first, I was also feeling like the T might have overreacted- most ppl do punch stg inanimate when they're angry but still even when I thought she did overreact, I believed she had every right to terminate. Once the T recognizes he/she can't work with a client for any reason, isn't it better (even for the client) if the T terminates? I don't think Ts ought to have thicker skin or whatever, and/or that termination speaks about their capability/expertise. (The way she did it was a bit weird though...)
However, from the OP's later post- about the OP choosing to intimidate her to get what he/she wants... yeah, that did not sit well with me and I do think even many Ts will have a problem with this particular coping strategy...
It's great that the OP realizes that this is not working for him/her and is willing to work on it. I think maybe being open with your new T from the beginning will help- good luck.
BTW, I would send the apology mail anyway, would help me feel better about this unfortunate situation and I would hope that the T might feel better too.

Psychotherapy is often categorized as one of the professions with the highest risk of assault of violence. Therapists are alone in a room with unpredictable people.

Some therapists specialize in working with dangerous and violent populations, and thus have that thick skin. Most do not, nor are they required to "butch up" (and honestly, as a butch who wouldn't tolerate that kind of behavior from a client for two seconds, what does that even mean?) and tolerate physically intimidating coercive behavior.

I don't understand thinking the therapist overreacted to someone admitting they used a violent tactic to try and get their way. And yes, hitting furniture is violence.

Not meaning to jump on you, Stopdog. It seems you cope with therapy by being very distant from therapists as people, and maybe our difference of opinion stems from having different fundamental perceptions of therapists and their vulnerable humanity. I don't know.

watino asked for suggestions how to deal with his anger more productively. here are a few ideas:

- take an anger management class
- get a male T who won't be as likely to be intimidated by you
- ditch the entitlement attitude (you were not entitled to know what the T discussed with her supervisor. that is private & between them.)
- learn about boundaries and respecting the boundaries of others (lots of good books on this)
- learn that calm negotiation beats heated confrontation any day & is more likely to get you what you want
- realize you won't always get your way in life and learn to accept that graciously
- get to the root of your feelings of anger & powerlessness

good luck!

We simply disagree. I don't understand anyone feeling sympathy for or defending the therapist - but seemingly some people do. Just different opinions.

That is an excellent point, the OP has BPD, angry outbursts of one kind or another are to be expected. If the therapist got a halfway decent education she knew what she was getting into.

The DBT manual for therapists is full of examples of angry and much more destructive behaviors than simply hitting a table once. If that is all it takes to frighten a therapist into unprofessional behavior then one shouldn't treat people with BPD, it is that simple.

Therapists who work with people with BPD often have clients on a behavior contract as well, and a violent outburst could be immediate grounds for termination per agreement. No way of knowing in this case, we have only one incomplete side of the story. I don't imagine this was without history or completely out of the blue.

OP asked for opinions, mine just happens to be very firm about abusive behaviors, in therapy or out.

There is a very big, and very wrong, conflation on this thread between violence and anger. Hitting a table is an expression of violence, not anger. Anger is an emotion. Violence is an act.

There should be no, and I categorically will object, to those who say that *anyone* should toughen up and tolerate anger that is expressed as violence. It is not acceptable.

I have never viewed a client or student hitting any inanimate object with their hands as violence. I simply do not believe it is violence to hit a table.

Legally, it is: 18 U.S. Code § 16 - Crime of violence defined | LII / Legal Information Institute

Also, therapists have a responsibility to themselves to keep themselves safe from harm. Hitting walls or furniture is on every warning signs checklist for escalating risk of physical harm I have seen.

Hitting a table in a therapist's office is not a federal offense.

I have never felt threatened by clients or students who have hit objects. One client on a ward threw a chair at my head. I did not quit representing him. I think a therapist who gets scared this easily should find another job. I do love cross examining therapists and psychiatrists on this sort of thing. Even times when I lose, it is fun to see how badly they handle it. We had one md guy who got clocked by every in-patient client he had. Even the attorney for the hospital who represented him thought he needed a new job if he could not manage to duck at least once.

The OP is somewhere in Europe so this wouldn't apply.

Ah, fair enough.

Seriously? I am not an aggressive person, at least I don't think I am, and I hit things sometimes- I did once/twice while in session- a wall/ the chair I sit in.
Unless you are purposefully doing it to threaten others and/or causing damage it is not a crime.

One alternative: you say what you feel. As in, "I would like a bigger apology."

Second alternative: and I suspect this is the root of your problem, as may sometimes be true with people who *choose* to use intimidation and violence to get what they want from other people:

You are not entitled to have what you want from other people. You are not entitled to extract through violence what you want from other people. You can *ask* for what you want and you can accept that you may not always get it.

It may just be that the less you demand from others, the more you will get what you want.

Definitely agree 100%. Everybody gets to decide for themselves where their line is for what they will tolerate and what they will not. Especially for professionals. It is easy to say that someone else should toughen up and allow others to treat them in ways that are harmful to them.

There are many behaviors related to therapy that one could use the toughen up line for. We could tell people that self harm, especially in reactions to what happens in therapy, that they should just toughen up rather than self harm. When clients express fears in therapy, we should just tell them to toughen up. I have read once or twice that people are even afraid of their therapists coming closer to them or trying to touch them, they should just toughen up as well. We could probably dispense with many issues people bring up here by just telling people to toughen up.

Telling people to toughen up in response to what makes them fearful or upset is terrible advice in any situation. It's essential to being human that everyone gets to choose when to get out and when to stay in, when to be tough and when to be soft. Finding what works for you is the key.

What else could it be?

I would probably interpret it as an aggressive act if it was motivated by a desire to intimidate, but it would not be extreme enough for me to interpret as violence.

I guess I simply disagree with this, it is not the same as in every ordinary life, it is a professional setting and park of the job description of being a therapist to people with BPD is that you will most likely be exposed to raw anger.

Would I ask a random person on the street to toughen up and be able to look at bloody wounds? No, but if you choose to be a doctor you better be ready to get over your queasiness.

No one is asked to go beyond their comfort zone, but you know what you get into when you choose your clientele and I don't think that makes it right to abandon a client when something that is part of the job description happens. All therapists are free too choose who they treat, she wasn't forced to treat someone with BPD.

A lot of people with BPD have abandonment issues, it's one of the diagnostic criteria. That makes it all so much worse.

Given these circumstances I feel quite comfortable judging the now ex therapist as incompetent and unethical. I hope she has learned something about her limitations and will choose her clientele more wisely in the future considering that abandoning your patients is harmful and unethical.

There is a distinct difference between feelings of anger and acts of aggression.

We don't have a lot of facts about what happened, but we do have an articulated description of intention to intimidate through physically aggressive action. I find it curious that some would say the behavior may be unacceptable--but that somehow the T should tolerate it. Seems contradictory to me.

Given the unknowns, I'm relying on the incident and intentions as described, and making a reasonable assumption that this incident is not the first time the OP has used such a tactic in life (he implies it isn't). I think if someone behaved this way outside therapy, most would not tolerate the behavior. But because the OP seems to express the words of wanting to change, his behavior is somehow to be expected as part of the normal process of therapy.

I put more credibility in actions than expressions of regret, sorrow, or a desire to change. I'm sure this is largely because of my past experience working with victims of domestic violence as a court advocate. The pattern of thinking, and the language of wanting to explore the issue, wanting suggestions of alternative behaviors, but within the rhetoric of a justification of beliefs, is very familiar to me. I'm not saying that the OP will become an abuser of women; I'm saying his thinking in concert with his behavior shows an abusive pattern. I don't necessarily doubt his belief in his sincerity; but until he's also willing to challenge his beliefs through appropriate treatment, I don't believe therapy will be effective.

She broke the ethical code previously (refused to give me medical information that I'm entitled to, in form of a document that states diagnosis etc., only agreed to send it to my next T, even tho these are private visits by my own initiative)
Also, story follows a few paragraphs down.

Feralkittymom, I'd give anything to find out if you're correct or if my action was justified. Story follows.



I'm not a (more-than-average) violent or manipulative person, I don't abuse women physically or psychologically. My conscience won't let me and I would take no pleasure in it.
I will however stand up for myself when I am under attack. And I don't always properly judge when I'm under attack.

There's a lot of abandonment and some abuse (towards me) in my past; it's all I can remember. To avoid receiving more of it I created no meaningful interactions with anyone for most of my adult life, just the bare-minimum superficial that's required for a job/studies.

I had to learn to rely on myself only and never depend on anyone for any reason: that's a weakness that others will exploit. For a period my survival literally depended on it.

The relationships I've had were primarily with abusive and controlling women. One in particular gained my trust and admiration for her intelligence, then progressively filled my head with negative input. The message became that I'm a horrible person and it's best for everyone that I kill myself. The method she used was interpretation - same as in therapy, but through her sick mind - twisting everything in the worst possible way (e.g. if I now would claim that you're all sadistic people that read this thread because you enjoy seeing me suffer - it's absurd but imagine if I had 100% of your trust and said that; mixed with, most of the time, clever and correct things).

So naturally trust is not something I'll give away easily. But this therapist gained it, so much of it!
She cared, was kind, empathetic and clever. It was wonderful, warm. I could rely on someone for the first time since forever. I didn't have that ever.
One thing she claimed sent always chills down my spine tho.
That "I must depend on her". I knew only the dictionary definition of dependence: that I must be weak, helpless, and subservient. That I can't rely on me but on her only.

This is the only meaning of the word I knew. I told her that it makes no sense that I should be like that, it's unhealthy. She threatened me and said therapy would not be effective otherwise, so I forced myself to believe her and adapt.

Now I know that what I thought she wanted is called 'dependent personality disorder'. That I'm worthless, she's some über-wise God, and I must listen to her always and only her.

I explained this many times. Maybe 50 to 100 in 2 years. That dependency I understand as addiction to heroin, I must avoid it. Please, explain what you mean, I begged. She always firmly refused. She avoided the question, twisted it, turned it around, distracted me - anything but telling me that there's a "good kind" of dependence also. I didn't know.

This made me so frustrated, so much cognitive dissonance. We fought so much on this topic. She just told me that it's not important if I disagree: I just must trust her more. So two years later I opened a psychology book (I'm in med school) and learned there are different kinds of dependence:

- substance dependence (bad)
- codependency (bad)
- dependent personality disorder (bad)
- dependency needs (good - this is what she meant - that some of our needs as humans can only be fulfilled by others: emotional intimacy, being seen and heard, belonging, being offered unselfish support,…)

This is what she intend to offer me!
It was a revelation.
For two years she let me believe that she wanted me addicted to hear like someone is to heroin! I know it sounds retarded but, I did not know of this "dependency needs", I grew up alone, I had no experience with them, I made it so very clear that I did not understand.


I deserved an explanation. I was entitled to it. So much suffering could have been avoided.
The situation with my ex repeated itself: gain my trust, then "poison" my mind (by letting me believe I must be weak, helpless, subservient).

The therapist herself then described herself as being blind to what needed to be done, admitted to the mistake.
Ok. And I was ready to forgive her. But I wanted a plan:

- this is why the mistake happened
- this is how we're going to repair the damage
- this is what we'll do to avoid it from happening again

So I gave her a week to gather her thoughts. Then I wanted to know if her actions constitute malpractice. To know if I should continue with her or not. I pay for this myself after all. She refused to answer because "it would prevent you from speaking about your feelings" - so manipulative!
Thus I asked politely, then demanded, that she lets me know what her supervisor thinks of this. She avoided the question, for 10 minutes, in different ways.

So I lost my temper. I needed to know: is it safe for me to continue with her or not?
So I got mad. I yelled "will you tell me or not ?!" , half stood up, and punched the table.

Now kindly someone tell me who I should blame here, and I'll accept the situation and work on it, but can't until I know.

Yes, it’s a stance many therapists take. To help a client grown up developmentally (in a way they didn’t manage during childhood and adolescence), it is often accepted that the client will depend on the therapist’s support to some degree, until they are healthy and able to separate (like a child leaving home).

I’m not sure if I follow you, but it sounds like your therapist offered something (meeting healthy dependency needs), but you were afraid to accept that because you didn’t know it could be healthy? Do you think you could have accepted that there can be healthy forms of dependency if she’d told you earlier in the relationship?

It sounds like your therapist apologised for something that may have been a mistake in your case, but you refused to accept the apology and intimidated her instead. I do think that it’s really unfortunate that your therapist ended so abruptly without offering any assistance through the transition.

I wouldn’t personally feel particularly intimidated by someone hitting an object like a table in front of me, but clearly your therapist did. I would be annoyed by someone trying to intimidate me into behaving in a particular way. I would also not respond to anything along the lines of ultimatums or time limits.

Based on what you've said, it's pretty difficult to tell if your therapist was the best fit for you, or if it would have been best if you'd been referred to someone else earlier on.

The blame, or the responsibility? Sounds like you wanted to shoot the messenger.
I totally understand about "depend" being a bad word. I had the same paradigm shift around the word "deserve" - i could never use it in the sense that i deserved something good, only that i didnt deserve the treatment i was getting. But it took a sentence-completion exercise in DBT group to make me aware of that.

Your therapy, in terms of your awareness of matters, seems to be progressing just fine. But in terms of attachment and relationships, not so much. You WERE deprived and abused, and that still colors your world view. A therapist can help you overcome that; help you cut out bad processing and put in good processing, but its not brain surgery, its a two-person team effort.

Maybe we're some weird subset - intellectually gifted but emotionally stunted. My t keeps saying, most parents would have liked a kid who did well in school. Not mine.

I'm not sure if actions were justified or not, but they certainly sound understandable. Sounds more in frustration, than 'to be intimidating', not certain if you are technically writing in a non English language? Something close? Because it seemed that there was focus on that word, and acceptance that intimidation was what it was?

I receive a summary sheet, in the States..

If you are legally entitled to it, where you are, then you needed to know your diagnosis.

Rhetorical, since she cannot be asked, why would knowing your diagnosis, hinder you from discussing feelings?

Sent from my LG-MS910 using Tapatalk 2

Splitting perhaps?

You believed that she wanted a bad kind of dependence from you and she never said anything differently. You later discovered that she in fact wanted the good kind and got mad that she hadn't explained that to you?

I'm guessing she's been in the business a while and probably should have the ability to explain what she was trying to do, so we can't blame inexperience?

Perhaps she believed that by not telling you she was encouraging you in learning to trust?

Maybe she thought you were deliberately trying to get a reaction from her by 'claiming' (not saying you were just that she may have thought it) you didn't understand.

I think she seems to have gone about things the wrong way in your case but you seriously messed up.

You say you will not be bullied, yet is that not essentially what you tried to do to your T by punching the table?

You made a conscious decision (albeit through flawed thought processes) to perform what you believed to be an intimidating action in order to get what you wanted.

She probably won't come back but that doesn't mean you can't learn and grow from what's happened.