attitude toward abusers

my T seems to strongly dislike the mother . she has even called her names. she does not hide her feelings toward the mother. she readily points out times when she thinks the mother has been horrible etc. I get confused about this at times because are T suppose to be nonjudgmental. it isn't like she spends the session trashing the mother or anything but she doesn't hide how she feels about her

does your T hide how they feel about people who have abused you? do they hold back any reactions they might have had ? how did you feel if your T didn't ? or did ? just wondering

My T makes it clear that he thinks my mother is horrible. It makes me happy to have someone on my side and not saying, 'oh but she's your moooooother. You have to be nice. You have to forgive her.' T just openly says, "Fu*k that and fu*k her." He was also pretty harsh about my father. That was less comfortable for me and we talk about that more. He acknowledges that my father was my only source of nurturing, and gives him credit for that. He has toned down the harshness with my father.

Do you think it might help you in the long run to have someone trying to help you acknowledge how horrible your mother is?

OMG it was almost the same here when T started on my farther who was not perfect but didn't hurt me . T was all over that although he didn't hurt me he did nothing to help at all . in fact week after week he brought me back knowing what was going on. anyway we did talk about that and she did say that maybe she was a bit harsh in her judgment of him.

as far as it helping me that my T is so open about the mother .I don't know it might . it doesn't always make me uncomfortable at all . for the most part she speaks the truth. it is strange to hear someone else speak my truth and not the mothers . I never talked about it to T so I have never had a T be this way at all. it intrigues me for sure. and at times feels like yup she is on my side even if I feel bad about what she is saying about the mother. the only other counselor who talked about my family like that was my foster mother and that was because she had the privilege of having a few run ins with them lol

T has made it known how she feels about my 2 abusers. However, she also knows that it is very difficult because I have so many mixed feelings so she walks the fine line of supporting that while I hate what they did there is a part of me that loves them both.

I'm thinking that it's our reaction to the things that our therapists say and do, that is the crux of therapy. Have you discussed your reaction to what she says with her - it seems to me that maybe it is helpful her saying these things because you can discuss how you feel about it?

Yes the ones I see have said things/acted somewhat appalled about my parents and another guy. I have never felt like their reaction meant they were on my side. It has always felt to me like they were pretending over reacting because they thought I was under reacting and thought I might be influenced or manipulated by their over the top response. The second one is harsher about my dad than the first one is.

This is it exactly for me, but reverse the parents.

My t would like to see me get angry rather than go on about how stupid i am/was. Here someone was stomping all over my boundaries, just because they could get away with it, and all i do is say, boy was i dumb, i kept going back for more, i kept believing the next time would be different, because thats what she told me.

My T once said that my main abuser was just a "perverse sadistic psychopath" and somehow I like that expression, I think it suits him pretty well But apart from that she rather doesn't say what she thinks about my family members, only asks what I think and why... And my T looks so calm that it's pretty difficult to imagine her being mad or swearing...

My T has commented that my father was cruel. But she becomes animated and disgusted when she talks about what two previous PDocs did. Maybe she is just mirroring me. She has told me she dislikes injustice.

Off topic: once in a while I look online for the obituary for abusive prev PDoc, but find, instead, that he has won accolades for his gardening...or a top ranking in chess tournaments. I hate him.

She has described one of them as "very sick." I don't know what her opinions on the others are. I can't imagine her response would be too outspoken given my conduct in the situations

my t gets quite angry at the people who abused me. she does not hide it at all. she has quite a lot to say about them

I feel a bit like this. Always afraid that they're just placating me

It may be that whether they show their thoughts and feelings about abusers depends upon the degree that the client recognizes the abuse as abuse, and whether or not the abusers were biological parents. I was never in denial about the abuse, so while my T certainly never condoned their actions, and did validate my recognitions, he never expressed judgement about them as people, only about their actions. I think this was important because at some point all biological children recognize connections to their parents that can't be broken, and it's important to not self-hate because of that.

Yes my t says, he was toxic, and mom was not there for me, and was not a good parent. T2 used harsher words, I will never forget these words she used which almost made me cry she said " this happened to you, because I wasent there for you" had I been your parent I would have protected you, I would have protected you sweepy" why in the world a t would say that I dont know, but that is why t2 meant the world to me.

My T will flat out say he has anger towards the people in my life who treated me wrongly.. and most importantly he validates my reasons for staying away from my family and agrees he would do the same.

I don't think that disagreeing with a therapist about whether something was abuse or the extent of it if it was, means one is in denial. Therapists are not always (in my opinion even usually) correct.

My T doesn't judge ME. But he has plenty to say about family.

My T just called my ex-husband to be a masochistic ¢0¢k $u¢k€r. I loved it!

My T has never really said her thoughts/feelings about my family (accept the occasional "wow").

My fiance, on the other hand, she has told me her thoughts/feelings about him... But it's a delicate situation. She knows I have to depend on him atm, but she also knows I'm not safe with him. So I can tell she tries to be careful about what she says.

I guess they are only human and they prob develop a kind of a bond with some of their patients over time and it prob makes them really feel that way towards them.

I don't doubt that it can happen for some people.
But it does not happen with all and certainly does not explain either woman's response to me.

The first one I see missed the mark completely this week - even in the brief murmurrings allowed to her- concerning something that could be considered in the abuse lite category. And for me at least, it isn't because the woman feels a bond that I can see. I feel no bond for her.

Same here. "But he's your fatheeeeerrrrrr…" …boy does that get tiresome.

How do you forgive someone who has no remorse?

My answer: you can't and you don't

LCM despises my mom. She thinks she is awful and cruel. She also does talk to my mom directly on occasion and I used to wonder whether or not she hates her because she's horrible to LCM or comes off as horrible or because of what she did to me. I asked her and she said that she hates her for hurting me.

She is more quiet about my dad. I think it's because she doesn't want to bring it up ever. When I do talk about it, she is careful to give me space and say nothing. There was an instance when she might have had to talk to him about money transfers and she said she can't do it and instead lost a bit of money to avoid talking to him. I asked her before she answered that she was never going to talk to him if she is indifferent about him. She said hell no. So I guess she feels the same way if not stronger about him but just doesn't talk about it.

I don't think it is a matter necessarily of correct or incorrect, but of consciousness. If a client is fully cognizant of an action and its effect, or lack thereof, in his life, and disagrees with a T, that's fine. But when a client shows predictable symptoms and dysfunctional behaviors known to correlate with abuse, and reports actions that appear to be abusive, then it's appropriate for the T to note that. A client is always free to disregard the interpretation, but it's not incompetent of the T to note it.

In any event, I think Ts making attacking statements about biological parents is a problematic strategy because children--and the adults they become--are, on some level, bonded to their parents and such criticism can easily feed self-hate. It's a sensitive strategy to balance.

But all of this presumes some degree of rational belief in psychological theory and its relationship to human behavior; in the absence of that, then everything a T says would be deemed suspect.