When a therapist shows anger on your behalf

I had another bad week before this session. I've been treated very badly by someone close to me. I've talked with my therapist before about this person and it feels like this subject dominates most of my sessions these days. I want to change this in the future but right now I'm just coping.

So I came in and told T the most recent bad stuff as best I could. Because the whole incident - past few days even— have been traumatic I could only get it out in bits and pieces. I was verbally abused and emotionally manipulated.

My therapist was immediately angry at this person for me. She was even cursing. Despite myself I had to smile because it was a little out of character for her.

I guess, I want to be flattered but it felt a bit odd. It felt more like a canned response. Later I found myself questioning if this was real emotion or just a method. It felt more in part to show me this is an appropriate response while I'm in a state of post-traumatic shock and able to get there myself.

I can and really do appreciate the sentiment, (You should be and are allow be angry about this!) but I just wonder why I'm questioning the 'realness' of her emotion.

Or Maybe it just feels odd because I can't quite feel that myself right now? I've always had a problem getting in touch with anger when I need it.

Does you t ever get angry * for * you?

I find that sort of thing odd for me as well, when a therapist is angry at someone on my behalf. Something about the degree of agency involved -- because of all the many people I have known in my life, from all walks of life, even those people who are closest to me don't ever do that. I mean, there was probably a boyfriend way back in high school who had that type of attitude, but it would have been one of the qualities that made me shy away from him. My friends are more than likely to offer support, or to help me think certain things through, like saying "what are you thinking of doing about X", but angry on my behalf? Not so much.

On the other hand, it must work for some people, that so many therapists express that sort of thing. I would agree it sounds canned, in my experience anyway.

I think they may be trying to encourage mirroring, something like showing what angry looks like if they think you're not accessing enough. Whether that's effective I couldn't say.

I had one therapist do that. It was odd. It does let me know there are alternative reactions to the situation though.

I believe it is a method they learn and use. It does not impress me at all especially since the only get one side of the story.

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I only really experienced it one time, and in actuality, he wasn't angry "for" me. He was directly angry at one of my abusers who he actually met with. This particular person had taken it upon himself to invite himself up to see me, and my therapist had him meet me at his office where he could be sure police were nearby (at 2AM) rather than risk this person showing up on my doorstep without someone to intervene for my safety. I don't actually remember that much about that meeting: I was in a severely depressive daze. But I do remember the abuser trying to make me responsible for not protecting myself. My therapist stopped him right then and there, asked me to step out of the room, and spent a good half hour alone with him. His quiet fury was clearly apparent when I left that room. I don't know what was said, but that man never bothered me again.

Wow. I'm impressed with this T.

He was an amazing, centered, kind, man who was my greatest advocate and support during my college years when I was first wrestling with consciously facing the abuse I had gone through and the trauma and depression that had resulted.

I've had a couple Ts do that. At the time it was very helpful because I was in a state of being unable to feel emotions and denial that the abuse was real. The first time it happened was startling, that someone would care enough to feel angry for me! It also helped me see that anger was a valid emotion...that I as a woman had a right to be angry.

My T kind of had a reaction like that once and I felt like she was truly frustrated with what my mom said to me. In that instance, it helped me because I was frustrated about it to but I didn't know if that frustration was completely warranted. I felt like my T was really looking out for me and cared realized how unhelpful my mom was when she said that.

My T generally doesn't show her opinions or feelings about stuff like that so I felt like her reaction was very honest and sincere.

yes quite often, she does this,and it is very helpful for me to see that it is ok to get mad.

My last T would get angry for me a lot. It was validating in the beginning and later I was annoyed by it more than I was helped. I felt that he would've helped me much better if he worked with me on my reactions to what other people did as opposed to being angry for me. I would've much preferred for him to help me develop enough confidence in myself not to let others get under my skin. We have little control over other people's behavior anyway, so it's more productive to work on managing our emotions about their behavior than spending time and energy on *****ing about who did what to us, especially in therapy. That is not to say that anger, pain and sadness shouldn't be validated. Of course, they should. But focusing on the wrongdoings of others all the time is futile as it does very little for our healing and improving the quality of our lives.

So yeah, at some point, when my T would get angry for me once again, I told him that I'd rather understand my own buttons that are being pushed as opposed to understanding why So-and-So did this or that and how dare they. He never satisfied my request.

The couple of times the woman tried it - it just seemed goofy and somewhat manipulative.

I, like you, have had traumatic experiences that I come to most sessions these days about to deal with. My T1 has on a few occasions expressed that he was upset and angry for me or what I'm going through. It felt good for that anger to be acknowledged by someone other than myself. It felt like he was giving me the okay to be upset about it, and I really felt that his emotions were genuine.

Yes, she has expressed anger on my behalf regarding some painful memories involving family violence.

Thanks for the replies.

I have to say again. I appreciated the sentiment she was trying to get across. I am someone who has a problem getting in touch with my anger. I should be angry but it's hard to carry anger for long when you living with the person who continues to hurt you. It gets exhausting.

I agree with the idea that just reporting all the stuff that happened isn't always helpful but I think in my case I need to "report" it all, because she's the only one I feel like I can say this too. I haven't had the nerve to talk to my friends or family about it all yet. Hence the depression and shame, etc. So I go, and I report, so I know it's real, it happened, and it's not right. She's my only witness to this pain. That is something I need to work on changing.

So yeah, I think it felt good to hear T get angry on my behalf. I can't think of anyone else in my life that would express that for me and I guess I need it, for this step anyway.

In the meantime I have to work hard on loving me. Taking care of myself and getting in touch with my own loves and passions, etc.

It's not exactly getting angry.. but my EMDR T once described in detail what she'd like to do to the people that tortured me.

I liked it.

Yes my T did get angry for me. When I would talk about my parents and childhood she would get very angry at them for how they treated me and even cursed a couple of times which is out of character for her. It felt good that she was expressing that and showing me that anger as long as its expressed in a healthy way is ok to feel and express.

I need to be angry and I'm just ****ing sad. Now I wish I could remember exactly what my T said.