How considerate should we be of T's feelings?

Therapy makes me feel rude and selfish. I talk about myself 100% of the time, say whatever I want, and even express negative feelings towards T.

In real life I listen more than talk, and rarely directly express negative feelings.

For example, I told T I was mad at her for being late. T said she was glad to hear my real feelings. She didn't seem upset, but I wondered if she was just acting professional. What if she secretly felt accused and blamed?

In real life I would have been more empathetic of others' points of view, and more tactful and considerate in the way I expressed negative feelings.

I think it has been mentioned elsewhere that is why we pay T's to keep their own feelings out of the room.

I am very considerate of my T's feelings. Therapy is an effort on both the therapist and client after all. At least it is in my opinion.

First, expressing negative feelings isn't necessarily rude; it's all in the delivery. I suspect if you are worrying about this, you probably aren't terribly guilty of serious rudeness.

I don't think we have to take care of a T's feelings. Hopefully, if they are in the profession of helping us with our own, they have a decent handle on their own emotional life and have healthy boundaries about such things. It sounds like your therapist has had no problem with you communicating your feelings.

That said, I have no problem being direct with my therapist and my pdoc, but I am not rude. That is just not in my nature. I would, personally, see no reason to treat my therapist with meanness or rudeness when I would never treat another human being that way. That doesn't mean I am not direct with him, but I can do that with clear communication rather than rudeness.

Would he care if I was rude to him? I have no idea as I haven't done it. My guess is that he has healthy boundaries about what he will and will not accept from people, including his clients. He probably would have no problem with a client venting angrily, but if he actually felt it reached a point of being verbally abusive, he would draw the line. Personally, I can't imagine doing that to anyone including a therapist, but I am sure it happens and I am sure some T's don't have a problem with it (I'm not sure that is modeling good personally boundaries though, but that's a whole other discussion.)

Your T is professionally trained to cope with negative states of mind.

It is in my estimation better to say I feel ______ when you ______

rather than

You make me get mad when you ____________

Stating and owning your feelings is part of the therapeutic process.

Your T if she is secretly feeling hurt by your statement or accused or blamed, has violated the basic rule of a therapist, do not react to the patient. Hear and acknowledge.

In real life we are protected, but somewhere we need to bare our souls so we can work through the emotional baggage we collect through life.

I could have written this post almost word-for-word!

My T often talks about how 'courteous' I am. Heh.

I show a lot of consideration for T's feelings--but I do so by editing my tone more than my content. I won't avoid bringing up something about T that's irritated me for fear of upsetting him, but I will express the thing in 'I' statements, not 'you' statements, try my best to be reflective and rational, and own my own feelings as something within my power to control, not as something he created.

Mostly, I try my best not to assume he feels anything 'secretly,' and just trust that if he feels something and it's relevant, he will bring it up.

I won't say I haven't at times been tempted to say everything and anything without filter or consideration--it would be cathartic and T would absorb it without lashing back at me--but would it really be helpful practice of interpersonal skills? I don't think so.

Consideration has had its downsides for me, though. I'm pretty much convinced that it's because I'm so 'courteous' that T is so often late. I would bet ten bucks he doesn't do that to people who've screamed at him for it.

It's also made it difficult to bring up traumatic material because it seems unfair--discourteous--to subject T to that.

I got mad at my T and it went something like this ... I told her that when she said that all 13-yo girls think it's the worst year of their life, I felt unheard because I was talking about WHY it was so painful. I didn't care that all 13 yo's feel that way, I cared that I felt that way.

She beamed with pride. It was the first time I had ever expressed anything like that to her. She was my everything. If I "made her mad" and she left me, I'd be destroyed.

With exasperation I said, "you can't be happy that I'm angry at you! that ruins everything

I don't worry about therapists. I believe they can take care of themselves or they can seek their own therapy. I have never seen evidence that the woman cares what I think her or her profession. I would not see one I thought was overly sensitive. Or sensitive at all for that matter. I can't hurt a therapist.

I am very considerate of my therapists feelings. She is very tough but i am not mean to her, i dont like to hurt her feelings, she is still a person.

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As long as my T is considerate and respectful of MY feelings, then I will be considerate and respectful of theirs.

I feel that I am pretty considerate of my T. Last week she was a bit under the weather and she kept on apologizing for not having her voice fully. I told her not to worry about because everybody gets sick. I think the nice thing about therapy is that we can be ourselves. For example, in a friendship you might not always want to tell your friend that you are mad at them for being late, but it's ok to tell your T.

I'm sure that therapists feel hurt sometimes. And I'm sure like anyone, they have their bad days. They are only human. But part of their job is knowing their role in the therapeutic relationship. They understand that therapy is about the client and that their job is to listen. They have become quite adept at being able to separate their own emotional reactions from their professional work and then deal with them later on their own time.

You're applying 50/50 relationship expectations to a paid professional relationship.

I think it is ok to express our feelings towards them as long as we use I statements and are respectful. After all, they are human too and deserve nonviolent communication.

there's no good way to tell anyone anything they do not wish to hear. that is the thing my therapist has taught me. he said obsessing about how to say things "in a nice way" is what women get taught and a trap they are caught in because of the "there's no good way to tell anyone anything they don't want to her thing" (another reason I find female Ts useless. they want everyone to be nice and say hateful things in nice voices and terribly passive aggressive) my therapist who is AWESOME said, "I'm not helping you learn to make the world a nicer place for other people I'm helping you make the world a nicer place for you. let others do the same" there is nothing so basic and annoying and some high pitched passive aggressive female asserting what she thinks is a boundary but really is just someone being rude in a "nice voice". like what kind of craziness is that.

i am not a rude though I'm sure some experience me that way. but their reactions to me are theirs to fix and I am under no requirement to alter myself to make another person's day easier.

I could have written your post too, except I haven't yet expressed any negative feelings, but I think it's important to do so, I see it as standing up for ourselves and also that is the sometimes the only way to get a shared understanding and be close to someone, with hindsight there are many things that I would have said to friends and family over the years to give them feedback that things they did weren't very nice and hurt me, but I didn't stand up for myself or trust them enough to state my views.

There was a point early on when I worried about No. 1's feelings. She bluntly told me to stop. I did.

That was before I started with No. 2, so I've never worried about her feelings at all. Seemed to work out fine.

Not worrying about their feelings isn't rude; I'm still polite, but that's because I usually am.

I treat my therapist with the same respect that I would anybody else.

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Therapy is the only place anyone can be 'real' in the moment, ams have that 'realness' understood ams not reacted to.
In life outside of therapy, we often are restrained by social niceties.
Some are more able to be 'real' than others in all areas.

However, the T's feelings can lend insight into a client's treatment issues, if they are handled appropriately.

For example, I told T I was mad at her for being late. T said she was glad to hear my real feelings. She didn't seem upset... - I like your T, she sounds a treasure, could be she could help you a lot.

i feel my T is human so deserves the same respect consideration i would afford any human. i do not follow the belief that because she is paid she gets to be my whipping boy . her job is to help me not be the brunt of my misplaced anger . i feel horrible when i feel i have disrespected her

I try to live by the saying, "Do unto others as you would like done unto yourself."

I don't really think about my T's feelings. I think she very capable to take care of herself. She looks confident and secure, so I don't worry about hurting her. Not that I would hurt her or something. I respect her.
A few weeks ago I did talk to her about her being late and how I felt about that. I wonder how she felt about that. If she felt blamed or something. But if she felt anything about it, as a T she should be able to deal with that.

Agree 100%
It bothers me when people make out that because the T is paid we are in control and can be rude and they have to take it. It also bothers me when people are rude to their waiter etc because they also have to take it because we have they upper hand. Unfortunately I see this all the time and it makes me very uncomfortable.
In saying all of this, my T does not cause me unnecessary stress by being late or unreliable. She keeps her stuff out of my therapy and has never given me a reason to give her negative feedback. I see this as even more of a reason to treat her with the same respect she shows me and to be considerate if she ever does have an off day.
And to the OP - I don't think there's anything wrong with feeling the way you do. I think it's a good thing to not want to go around stamping all over other people's feelings (whether you pay them or not) as long as it's not getting in the way of you saying what you need to say. You sound like a considerate person to me and if it were up to me I would not change that.