T raised her voice at me – is that okay?

Hi PCers. I was wondering if anyone might have some perspective to offer on this. I sent my T an email last night, and it wasn’t a very nice email. I was trying to be honest about how I’ve been feeling in therapy, but the way I wrote it was all rather dysfunctional, and I expressed a lot of anger towards T. I also indicated experiencing sui thoughts.

We had a session today, and she told me that she felt “frustrated” that I hadn’t taken steps to get antidepressants this week, and her voice was raised, and she snapped at me. I started crying and asking her to please stop yelling at me, and she retorted, still in a raised voice, “Well, you certainly feel free to yell at me over email!” I hadn’t meant to sound like I was yelling at her, and I kept whimpering and asking her not to yell at me…and eventually she said that she didn’t think she was yelling, which felt kind of crazy-making, splitting hairs over the definition of "yelling."

Do you think this is a big deal? Maybe I deserved it? I didn’t call her names or curse at her or anything in the email; I know it wasn’t very pretty or presentable, but I thought she’d be able to help me with how miserable I’ve been feeling about our relationship, and she scolded me and reduced me to tears.

She started using a normal voice again eventually, but she still sounded pretty annoyed at various points. And then at the end, she said, “I don’t know why you stay with me. You hate me so much! Part of me feels like we should just call it quits.” Which made me start crying again and begging her not to leave. She told me she wasn’t going anywhere. ????

I realized some things about where my negative feelings towards her have been coming from, and I typed up this whole reflection on it and sent it to her for us to work with during our next session, and I wrote how I really am so fond of her and want us to get back to a good place…which is true...

…but maybe I shouldn’t have? Was her behavior inappropriate? It certainly didn’t feel good. But maybe it wasn't a big deal? Or is it a red flag?

Thank you if you read this. I really appreciate this forum. I don’t participate much—I feel like my input would be useless, so I’m always scared to reply to other people’s threads, lol, but you’re all very helpful, and it’s much appreciated! Maybe I’ll get over my insecurity soon and start participating more.

You did not deserve it and I would have yelled back. They don't get to take their frustration out on clients.
I do not consider it ever appropriate for the therapist to raise their voice at a client. I do not care why they may try to do it -iI pay them to stay back.
I have written the woman letters when she failed outlying exactly how she failed. I think it is important for them to realize how they fail and to be told about it.
The first one I see does not seem to be bothered about how negatively I view her or her ilk.
I don't view the second one quite as negatively as the first.

Has my T raised his voice to me? Yes. However, I think one has to consider context and the times that he did... well they were appropriate. Your T raising her voice? No, I don't think it was. She may have frustrations with regards to your lack of whatever, and she's got to have it together enough to know that people seeking therapy are often doing the best they can and it may take more or longer to get from point A to B.

“I don’t know why you stay with me. You hate me so much! Part of me feels like we should just call it quits.”

This part bothered me more than the raised voice. I don't think it's appropriate for any therapist to raise a voice or take things personally, but some can't help it if they feel pushed. It's hard to know without having all the details. Did the session end okay? If so, then maybe just give it some time to cool off. There's no need to make a decision right away.

And, I don't mean this in a blamey way, but it helps to keep emails to either business matters or things that aren't emotionally loaded. They can cause more problems than they solve. I'm not saying never email, but just use it as a way to stay connected rather than hash out problems. If that makes sense.

I would definitely get upset over that.

My T doesn't ever raise her voice to me. Actually, when I start raising my voice, she starts lowering her voice which gets me to lower my voice back down. Most of our sessions we actually talk at a notch above a whisper.

Now my T has talked to me many times in the tone like a parent would to a child in trouble.

No, I don't think it's ok, they're supposed to be supportive. I think everyone gets frustrated with everyone at some point and clearly she's mad you aren't taking her advice on the meds, but raising her voice is an amateur move and not cool.

“I don’t know why you stay with me. You hate me so much! Part of me feels like we should just call it quits.” I didn't like this comment much, because it sounds like a threat, like she's basically saying "like me or else!" I don't see my therapist saying this kind of **** to me under any circumstance. If he did I would have to step back and really evaluate what was up, and then probably ask him about it the next session. Maybe she will apologize? You never know, everyone has an off day.

In my opinion, it's totally unreasonable to blow off anger or to say ugly things at other people, even our Ts, without also expecting to get some blow back.

That's what happened to you. You blew off steam and in the process you got some blow back you didn't like. It happens. Is it okay? IDK. Don't know what kind of therapy your T practices. My T would have had my butt for lunch if I demonstrated an expectation that I could throw mud balls at other people without getting a little splashed with mud myself. It was sort of Reality Therapy. I hope you and your T can work this out.

I could understand her frustration over getting the email but I think she handled it passive aggressively. She should have told you from the beginning that she was upset about it instead of throwing it in later.

I have been in therapy quite a while and have had therapists raise their voice at me many times usually when they are frustrated and feel like therapy is going nowhere. I almost had the same exact experience as you with my current therapist of 6 years in the beginning. She would get mad and say this isn't working and suggest I get somebody else and I would plead and cry and beg her not to dump me and tell her it is working. I don't know how many times this happened in probably the first two years.

We have come a long way since then though. I wasn't used to her style. She had a different style then I was used to and I found myself angry and frustrated with her a lot. I was trying everything including bringing in journal entries and she would barely skim them when my other therapists would go into detail with me. We rarely have ruptures anymore thank god. I can empathize with you.

This sounds abusive. She's being totally unethical.

Yikes, how upsetting and scary to get yelled at by your T. She can be frustrated at you, but I think she should have expressed it without yelling which can escalate things and make it harder for you to hear her. She is human and she has feelings which may have been hurt by your email, but she is also the professional here, you were not equal buddies who can yell at each other. I hope after your T calmed down she would realize you are fond of her and you can both repair the relationship.

i would have cried too

I think t's need to hold their **** together better than their clients. I would expect my t to be frustrated if I took things out on her unfairly, but I wouldn't tolerate her yelling at me. She's paid to help me interact better with people (among other things), not react to my own reactiveness. I've had several people fill that role in my life, I wouldn't be paying someone to do it.
Yes, t's are human. They have reactions and off days, but this would be huge for me. Angry yelling is one of my triggers...

I would keep an eye out for more reactive behavior. If this is a single incident and you generally get along well, it may be a fluke. Just be careful you don't set up an abusive dynamic with her (From either point of view).

That sounds like an abusive husband telling his wife he "doesn't know why she stays with him" and leaving the threat hanging out there, that he will leave her, in order to make her beg him to stay. Not okay.

I agree with other posters, T's get paid to hold their stuff together and not go off on a client. Also passive aggressive, she should have been up front if your email bothered her, and not "taken it out on you" instead.

Nope definitely not okay. My T has been disappointed in me, tsk tsk tsk, shook her head, sighed, but never raises her voice. I've been yelled at enough in my life, I don't pay people to yell at me.

Thanks all for your feedback!

I like your attitude, stopdog! I wish I were that assertive.

Thanks, NowhereUSA. It was really only three days ago that I agreed to think about meds, so it was quite jarring to be scolded for not actively pursuing them, when I wasn't even done thinking about it.

Yeah, I guess the session ended okay-ish. It basically ended after she made the comment you said bothered you, and I started blubbering, then said she wasn't going anywhere. So, at least she left off saying something positive, I guess.

And you're right about email. The thing is, I often write things to my T over email for us to discuss in session because I tend to get all tongue-tied in person and not say what I want to say...so it's not really that we're hashing this out over email, I'm just writing my feelings out so we can address in session. She usually encourages it, and it usually works for us. So, I don't know.

That's cute about talking just above a whisper. Does it bother you when she uses the "child in trouble" tone? Or does it work for you?

Yeah, right? It felt that way to me, too. But then she says that she's not going to kick me out? But it did feel like a threat. I hope she will apologize...I feel like I need therapy for my therapy! But I really want things to work out with her.

See, that's what I'm wondering, if I deserved it because I lashed out. I think I'd deserve it in any other relationship. The thing is, T has encouraged me to express anger towards her and has said that she won't retaliate and she wants to understand...but that's not what happened. I guess I stepped over a line?

This gives me so much hope!! It's been just rupture after rupture with us lately. I really want to stay with her and work it out. I hope we can be like you and your T. Thanks for the empathy and hugs.

That's a really upsetting thought...I hope not. But maybe. I don't know anymore.

Thanks for the validation. It was upsetting and scary, and it did escalate things...I really don't want to hurt her, and I didn't mean to. I guess I should have expressed myself differently, or maybe not at all.

It helps to know I'm not alone in that.

This is the most reactive she's ever been, but it's not the first time she's been reactive. She's gotten angry with me before, snapped at me, and I've felt upset about it...but this is a different level, I think. Getting yelled at after you say you're feeling sui doesn't tend to up the will to live. :/

Oh boy, you're right, it does call that to mind. :/ Do you think she WANTED me to beg her to stay? I mean, she had to know I would...for the record, she was up front about her anger, in the sense that she aired it right at the beginning of the session...after I asked if she was angry because she certainly sounded it. And that gets me, too, that I paid for this interaction. Makes me angry. Sigh, thanks for your feedback.

This made me think that if you felt completely comfortable with her in the first place, you wouldn't have sent her an email. When we feel safe to discuss anything with T, we do it in session.

If I were your T, I'd ask you first and foremost about what makes it difficult for you to communicate what you need in session.

Her saying that you and she should probably call it quits, which implies that she wants to call it quits, also disturbs me more than her raised voice. If she is so irritated with you that she doesn't want to continue working with you, she should take responsibility for her inability to manage her emotions professionally instead of blaming you for how she feels and making you crazy by letting you know on one hand that she doesn't feel like working with you anymore and on the other hand that she is "not going anywhere". She is giving you mixed messages and that's crazy making.

I find the way she handled it unprofessional. And, yes, it is a big deal for you because as a client you are the vulnerable one in that relationship, especially if you've come to therapy with a lot of traumatic baggage.

The more I think about this, the more I think it's like the dying of my therapy with my recent previous T. When I read you saying that you were experiencing rupture upon rupture and were just hoping for that to end... that was me not that long ago and it lasted a long time before I left. Now that I have a new therapist I realize it was time and money that I could've used to work on my issues in a way that worked for me. The anger and frustration also resonate, even if mine never actually yelled.

Some things I found out: It's possible to feel attached and still have therapy that's going nowhere. Some ruptures are well worth working through but when ruptures dominate something's wrong. If the therapist takes things personally, blames the client as a way of protecting their ego, talks about not wanting to work with you even if they later retract the statement, the focus has stopped being about the client's healing and growth and something needs to radically change and it's time to pull back and look at the very real possibility that the only way to make that change happen is to make a fresh start with a new therapist.

It's hard but to heal and grow that needs to be the focus.

My 2¢.

If you had said whatever was in the e-mail within session, and she'd reacted that way, I might be willing to cut her a little slack. Heat or weariness of the moment thing. But she had time to think about your e-mail and form a therapeutic response to it (which is her responsibility) --only she didn't. That may not be abusive or unethical, but it's certainly unprofessional amd thoughtless. If she's this incapable of containing herself over something pretty minor, what will happen when the going gets rough? If there's any evidence that this isn't unusual for her, and I could find a new T, I would.

My t raised her voice a few times in the past. When we were calmer, she implied she was having counter transference and we worked through our impasse/rupture. It's not fair to be shouted at, but you obviously mean something for her to have such a reason.

I think getting angry with your t is part of the process; unless it was about something specific she had done like missing an appointment ,she should've realised that really your anger was probably a transference; possibly your anger was directed at somebody else. (In my case it was my mum). When I have been angry with my t, she has understood that it wasn't really about her and not taken it personally. To be professional any feelings of anger she had back towards you she should've taken to supervision. I am really sorry this happened to you. It must've really hurt. Sending hugs.

ok, just a biased observation here, but having read your responses to everyone in that post notwithhaste, it sounds to me like you have some reservations around this relationship but still stick around to defend it. There are quite a few red flags in your response, as well as in her actions (though I don't know much beyond what you presented as your interactions)... a lot of what you said sounded to me like the justifications people give for staying in an abusive relationship. Again, this is biased by my experience having worked in domestic violence, but it also jumped out at me as that kind of response.
I would urge you to try to at least get another perspective from another T around this relationship (if possible), or someone you trust to speak in more specifics about your interactions...

You pay for this interaction so how I would look at it is whether it benefits you or is worth paying for. My T has pushed me a few times in a gentle, loving safe way. It made me so upset but reflecting I know it did help and was worth paying for. A T should not raise their voice at you. It doesn't make you want to listen but instead to shut down.

You're right that if I felt more comfortable talking in session I wouldn't need to write. The thing is, I'm not sure that's all my T's fault. I've been like this from the beginning--always choosing to write rather than speak when things feel difficult or embarrassing. It's been over a year now, so maybe my comfort with speaking should have grown? It's actually decreased, and I write more than ever now.

I do find it crazy-making, and it's not the first time I've felt like she sent mixed messages.

Thanks for sharing this, ragsnfeathers. For the past two months or so, I've felt increasingly upset with my T, and we've had a lot of issues...and I've thought about leaving, wondered if she's just hurting me...I flat out said this to my T a few sessions ago, and she said that relationships are all disappointing, but they can also be fulfilling, and hopefully they're more fulfilling than disappointing...and we'll work through this, and when she disappoints me again, we'll work through that, too, and she'll always be here to work it out. That made me feel a lot better. But then we had another rupture the very next session!! And now we're here. She's raising her voice at me, thinks I hate her, is talking about calling it quits...man. I don't know what I should do. I really don't. Maybe I need to consult with another T, but wow does that feel awful.

Me too, feralkittymom. That's why I like emailing better when I feel angry, honestly. I figure, at least she won't react in the heat of the moment. Unfortunately, I feel like the going has already gotten rough; I really needed her to come through this week. There's a lot going on for me right now, and I'm pretty much losing it. I don't know if I can bear to part with her, though. The thought of losing her makes me feel like the world is ending. Very melodramatic, I know. :/

Thanks, Raging Quiet. Maybe my T will realize she was experiencing some sort of countertransference, too, and we'll work through it. Do you mean that it seems like she yelled because she cares?

I was angry about something specific she'd done--a comment she made, which she admitted was a mistake, and she apologized for it, and I accepted her apology...but the thing is, the comment triggered a whole avalanche of feelings in me, transference like you say, and I was a total roller-coaster all week. I tried expressing how I was feeling, and it clearly wasn't a smashing success. :/ Thanks for the support and hugs.

I guess you're right, ThisWayOut...I have reservations, I've had them for a couple of months now, but I do still stick around to defend it. That's not unusual for me; that's pretty much what I do in bad relationships. But I don't feel ready to call this relationship "bad." I guess because it means so much to me. My T can be so loving and warm and generous, and there have been times when I've felt like we were really close...when she's felt like a mom...part of me hopes that maybe we're just in a rough patch, and we can get through it and go back to how things used to be between us. I've thought about consulting with another T, but, absurdly, it feels like I'd be betraying her. I think she'd feel hurt. I did finally open up to a close friend about all this, and she doesn't like my T, so...there's that. :/

Thanks, Jane. I really don't know if it's worth paying for...I think I place a lot of stock in how things end. If this all ENDS in a good place, if it ends with me healthier and with a solid relationship with my T, then I'll have felt like whatever bumps along the road were worth it to get to that place. But I'm not much of a fortune-teller. Maybe people get better at predicting how a relationship is likely to end up as they get older...I'm still young, in my early twenties. And I have trouble trusting my perceptions, so I keep going back and forth on this.

Consulting with another t might be a good idea. There's no betrayal in that, just looking for another perspective...

A competent T manages transference--and any possible counter transference. They don't impulsively react to it. And people who care about you, don't yell at you in anger--especially when they see it upsets you.

I grew up with parents who exhibited a lot of rage. And threats of rage. I once told my T that I felt like he was angry with me (clearly transference on my part). His response was to say in a normal tone of voice that I had never seen him angry. For just a split second, I flinched. I knew he didn't mean it the way I heard it. He immediately apologized, saying his words sounded like a threat, and he hadn't meant it that way. A good T should never be out of touch with the effects of their words.

I don't know if your T is incompetent or emotionally unsound or inexperienced or poorly trained. But the more you talk, the more it doesn't appear that her responses support a healthy therapeutic relationship.

You're right. I have an appt scheduled with this T for Monday...if it goes badly, I will consult with another T. Publicly stating this to hold myself accountable, lol.

Thank you for your help, feralkittymom. My mom was (and is--still living at home unfortunately) a total "rageaholic." I would have flinched at a comment like that, too, and I'm glad your T handled it so well. My T knows about my mom, knows how I always fear that I'll turn her into my mom, and has talked about the "different mothering" I'll get from her, my T. But you know...in that last session, she really just felt like my mother. Yelling at me while I cry, tired of dealing with my feelings, denying that she's yelling, guilting me with "you hate me!" type comments...do I just MAKE people treat me like this? I know that's totally irrational...but it just can't be true that she doesn't care about me, it can't. She's said so many nice things, and she's looked at me with tears in her eyes, and she's held me while I cried, and given me a lot of her personal time, and even gave me a birthday present. How could she do all of that if she doesn't care? Maybe I made her stop caring...

But maybe Monday will be better. I know I sound like a total basketcase with zero self-respect. Anyway, thanks for listening to me everyone. It helps.