A little encouragement? Minor conflict with T

Hi all, I think I just need a little encouragement. My therapist and I had a little bit of conflict today and I'm feeling out of sorts about it. He and I usually get on great and he has been so helpful to me. I was angry about something (not him) last week but I think I expressed myself badly and something about it it seemed to make him defensive. I didn't respond well to this and now I feel much less trusting of him. Though I know how helpful he has been and has always tried to be, and I understand that the power of my unease really has nothing to do with him but much more to do with scary things from my past.

I'm just still left with a feeling of unease. Everything that I actually know about our relationship tells me I'll be fine, he'll be fine, and we'll work it out. (He has gotten mildly defensive a couple of times before, but always seemed to resolve it by our next session). But right now I *feel* like the whole structure for our work together is under threat, and I worry that my anxiety about it all is going to do more damage and make things messier.

I guess I'm just looking for a little bit of support- I would usually just send him an email working it through for myself and sharing it with him, but I feel like I'm really not on top of this enough yet to do that. I'm still a little too raw for that to be helpful yet, and that is really unusual for me.

I always found it helpful when my T would remind me that there was no timetable for our relationship. In other words, whatever the unease is, it was never the only driver of the relationship, and there was no optimal time interval in which to address it. If I continued to be there, he would continue to be there. The relationship would continue, and maybe the discomfort would assert itself to be addressed, and maybe it would resolve without being addressed. One result wasn't better than the other. It helped me by relieving the anxiety of feeling like I'd ruined something, or fearing a loss. Ruptures were ultimatums in my family and were never forgotten and could never be repaired. He showed me that our relationship would not be like that.

Thank you - that's very helpful to me. It resonates with me and helps me to remember how many times he has reminded me that he is committed to our work together. And I had been feeling rushed to fix it - but that's true that there is no timetable. We'll just keep working and he's going to continue to keep on working to help me like he always has.

I've just had something a little similar with my T. I realised it was being powered by the patterns from other people / scary things from the past and was not really my T. I got really unsettled and uneasy as well. I booked an earlier appointment to talk about it and it went well. I'm glad I did it or it might have festered. I hope this goes well for you Pennster so I'm sending you encouragement and big hugs.

Your post is so close to how I felt last week it's uncanny! For me, therapy is, in some ways, my most stable and unwavering relationship, so when my trust in that relationship was shaken, it had a knock on effect for my perception of every other aspect of my life. ("If this can go wrong then nothing is stable".) So it makes sense you would find it very unsettling.
It's a really good sign that you trust that this can be overcome; I'm a big believer in trusting your instincts in this kind of situation and it seems you've enjoyed a good therapeutic relationship in the past.
I wish you the best of luck in resolving it. These can be relationship strengthening experiences when dealt with appropriately.

Thanks very much for the encouragement! It helps. And I had actually thought myself about booking an earlier appointment, though I think I'm coming around to being ok. It's good to remember that these things can often work out fine.

And thanks to everyone for all the hugs! I appreciate the kind thoughts.

Thank you for your thoughts! I really relate to the knock-on effect! Yesterday I did have a few odd little thoughts about a few little rough spots with other people, and they were definitely feeling magnified. I am glad your own situation sounds like its resolving as well.

Therapy is so hard sometimes! I really do appreciate this forum - I have learned so much here and reading about the experiences of other people makes it so much easier to understand and accept my own.

I’m so sorry about your therapist’s defensiveness Pennster! I also feel like I could have written your original post.

I have had the benefit of working with a few different therapists over the years and found my experiences with each to be so very different around how they manage anger and conflict.

My current therapist sounds a lot like yours. She is helpful, supportive and works very hard to understand me. Unfortunately she doesn’t handle negativity in therapy as well as other therapists I’ve seen. I too feel lots of emotional distress when she doesn’t validate my feelings in favor of self-defensiveness and being right. It creates a painful cycle of hurt, anger, defensiveness, hurt and more anger. I think your unease is very understandable and agree that scary events in the past make therapist lapses in empathy that much more intense. At times, mine seems oblivious to the power of her words and to how damaging therapist anger and subtle passive aggressiveness can be. In spite of this, my therapist and I have always been able to work things out. We have a strong connection because of all the things she is doing right, so I feel very lucky.

A few therapists ago, I worked with a much older woman who was really aloof about anger. She was virtually unshakable. I asked her once why she wasn’t angry with me after I vented at her and she attributed it to a lot of work in her own therapy. She also said that early in her career she was much more reactive to client anger and responded in ways that were damaging. She said she often wishes she could go back in time and do things differently with the clients she hurt. The part that stuck with me is that therapists are people that make mistakes like the rest of us, whether or not they realize it in the moment. Reflecting on this makes me a bit more compassionate when I feel my current therapist is dead wrong about something and won’t admit it.

Hoping you can get a positive resolution soon Pennster!

Thank you so much, FallingFreely. That is a great point about being compassionate about my therapist's little failings! I have thought before that dealing with anger is probably his weakest spot, though this has very rarely caused trouble in our three years of working together. He really uses compassion very actively in our work, so it's an interesting idea to me that I can choose to really put it into play as well to help me deal with a tricky spot.

Thanks- you gave me a lot to think about!!