Do you lash out at your therapist

I have this uncontrollable rage inside me lately. I am being triggered by everything and everyone. I really felt like running away from my new t but instead I lashed our and dumped a load of anger at her. I sent her a text right after my session last week. She didn't write back but during my session this week she said that it had a huge impact on her and that it's unacceptable to make her feel like that. She said no more texting and if I could try and contain it until our next session. In a way, maybe I did want to hurt her and it was acting impulsively but I thought that therapists can and should hear everything we have to say even if it's not positive. Yes, it had an impact on her but she also had an impact on me that's why I was so angry.

1. Your anger should NOT have a huge impact on your T if her boundaries and self care are in order.
2. Yup. All the time. Not as much as i used to. But i still do it. My T just lets all that anger break against her own self containment. I'm like a toddler. I rage, and then I cry and want forgiveness and snuggles.

You have a very strong point. She, as a T should be understanding enough to console you and help you come with ways with coping with anger.

No more texts, she said?
How about if it's an emergency?
God forbid if your going through an emotional crisis, how can she help you out?

The fact that she's a new T, I dislike it because it is not easy being able to open up to a complete stranger about your problems, regardless who they are and how many degrees they can prove to have.

I believe that it is hard to establish empathy with anyone in the field of mental health. Or empathy with anybody in general.
Therefore, I try not to switch therapist if I have the control not to.

Where I reside in South America, Colombia, having the health insurance that I am fortunate to aquire, even having health insurance is a let down.

Why?

Because after I had built enough trust (empathy) with a former psychologist that I was able to let my hair down and discuss anything, my health insurance switched her out for another T.
That was totally devastating for me.
I cried the entire day that unfortunate Tuesday and was angry for weeks.
I can't do anything about it. Still cant.

Such a welcoming comfort in a land where corruption and money buys your way out of crime.

My friend, I wish you the best!

Yes, I've lashed out at my Ts and they haven't liked it either. You'd think they would be trained to accept that kind of behavior. Did you learn anything about that in school? They should know it's not personal but my T likes to say "I'm human." When I lashed out at her about her skinniness, she told me she felt hurt. I admit what I said was horrible and I apologized more than once.

I lashed out at my first T too. I said I wanted to choke her with her necklace! I was new to therapy and discovering transference. She told me I couldn't say things like that. They made her crazy! She was young and inexperienced, and got help from her supervisor. She later apologized and said she should have handled " that material" better.

I saw her more than 30 years ago and found her recently on Psychology Today. She was a good T and is still practicing so she apparently learned more skills.

I assume you haven't asked your T about your thinking she's an alcoholic. Is that still bothering you? I also think anger and rage should be expressed in therapy and I think it's a good sign that you are feeling those feelings. T's like us to wait for the session so they can redirect the rage and anger to those in our lives who make us feel that way. Hang in there, Mona. Lots of hugs to you!

Exactly!

I try not to lash out at people. It really never has a positive outcome for either party.

My therapist had a definite boundary about that; he didn't accept abuse from clients, verbal or otherwise. He had no problem discussing differences, talking about what might be upsetting me, letting him know how I was feeling very frankly, but he did expect that I would not use him as a verbal punching bag. I actually appreciated that boundary as it forced me to actually think through and express what was going on instead of just ranting at him which really didn't get me anywhere. It also taught me how to set that same boundary with other people in my life; I don't accept verbal lashings from others in my life anymore either. It was one of the healthier boundary models that was able to take with me out of my own therapy and utilize in my life.

That reminds do me of my loving and dear friend. I had moved in with him.
Me doing so, was it a mistake?
But it sure was the beginning of many headaches as he grew closely attached to me. Where he admitted he had fallen in love with me but I didn't feel the same for him.
Then, I became his punching bag.
Since I never had experienced this issue before, I found myself growing more depressed and no where or no one to turn to.
I swore he'd say certain things and acted the way he did in defiance because I didn't feel the same way for him.
Everyday for 2 years was argument followed with his tears of endless apologies.
He even beat me a couple of times and I hated that.
I hate fighting with any of my friends.
Until one day, he pushed me to defend myself.
I punched the crap out of him on both eyes and pinned him down to stop fighting me.
I hated myself for doing that.
But it was a couple of years of abuse I put up with until the day came when I exploded.
We are still friends to this day

I do think anger and rage should definitely be expressed and explored in therapy but not lashing out at the therapist. It sounds like you have a lot to talk to her about. I'm not sure I agree with some of the posters that T's should have to accept and be able to handle angry text messages from clients. I have to agree with LolaGrace on this one.

Is there anyway that you could maybe write down your anger in a journal to help give you some release. If that doesn't work maybe you could write a letter to your T and then either just keep it to yourself or else give it to her to read at the start of the next session so that you can continue to discuss the feelings.

Not without just cause. I don't believe a client can abuse a therapist.

I have yet to completely lash out at my T in the moment. Often I let her know I've written some that was a lash out. I or we process it out a fair amount before I feel safe sharing the raw emotions that was written out. I am afraid that I would hurt her if I let it out on her directly. I do think I might have hurt her a time or two; however, she has never said anything about it hurting her and when I've come back with an... are you ok, are we ok? she's always said we are.

I don't think she should have taken away texting nor address it in such a way that makes it about her. The few times that I have brought stuff to my T about this, she's always let it stay about me... why did I feel this, what did it mean for me to write it out, how did it help, what caused it to dissipate. I am sorry to hear that this is the way your T handled it. If anything she should have felt something around the concept of... finally I'm seeing the Mona, I've been waiting to see. Here is some gooey stuff to work with. I was actually taken back one day when I came in and said I was mad at my T. She got almost gleeful to talk about it.

I agree. Lashing out at anyone is inappropriate. Expressing your feelings, even anger and rage, should be allowed in therapy, but abuse is never okay.

I guess I misunderstood, monalisasmile, I'm not attacking you or taking sides but were you being verbally abusive at your T?
It's okay whatever happened.
We are bound to commit errors.

I definitely think it's fine and even good to tell your T that you're angry with her and why. IIRC you had a traumatic relationship with a previous T so for that reason especially I think it's best to get those issues on the table right away. That said, I'm not sure sending an angry text is a healthy way to do it, because you can't really talk things out that way.

I think that was probably the reason your T asked you not to text. If you had called her and had a conversation with her, if you had written it out and showed it to her in session where you could talk, if you had saved it for session and let her have it there so she could respond, she probably wouldn't have minded, but lashing out by text cuts out the true dialogue and cuts off the therapy dynamic.

I just want to be clear here, the text was in no way abusive or disrespectful towards her. I just asked her to cancel all future sessions and that I was never coming back because she doesn't understand me and failed to have any empathy when I was explaining something to her. She said it came out of nowhere and she felt side swiped. I think myself, she took it too personally. I agree with Lola, I should have wrote it down and brought it to her next session so we could process it, that would have been a healthy thing to do.
I did tell her that my ways of communicating are not always healthy, that I am learning and I am not perfect. I did apologise.

We didn't have much training around this and in all of my different training they said Boundaries, boundaries, boundaries and would encourage no contact between sessions. The only person who ever said what I liked and agreed with was janina fisher, she often gets angry texts and voicemails blaming her for everything, she said it's not personal and to try not to take it personally, people with severe trauma have trouble regulating their emotions and it's normal for them to lash out and she would be more interested in her empathic failure than my lashing out.

This sounds like a very helpful way of dealing with it from your t and also for helping you set that boundary with others. We learn by experiencing and being shown healthier ways. I really don't think this way that t is working is very helpful to me. It wasn't really a rant and for me it was very helpful because I never get angry, she doesn't know me that well so by banning my anger is not a good idea, I have spent my whole life suppressing it and then it squelches out at the wrong people but this time it was appropriate I think. I think her response was inappropriate.

She said that even if I had of text her just to say that I was struggling and could we talk or to say that I had been hurt by her response that would have been ok! I don't agree, I am not supposed to be looking after her feelings. I did that with every other t and I am not doing it with her, yes my t is human and has feelings but they are her responsibility. She got hurt but so did I. I ended up apologising to her and trying to look after her again.
I can see what you are saying Lola and it doesn't help sending by text but sometimes we are doing the best we can do in any given moment.

No, I wasn't abusive at all. I guess lashing out sounds abusive but that was her term not mine. She also said I threw all of the toys out of the Oran which was really shaming to me.

This is what I thought but if she is going through some personal issues, I suspected she was an alcoholic maybe this is affecting my view of her.
She has been a t for a very long time and I expected her to be able to take my criticism.

Thanks Rainbow
I haven't confronted her or asked her because I feel it's none of my business unless it affects my therapy with her, so far it hasn't and she is doing a good job bar this empathic failure. I am starting to think that I am not made for therapy. I seen to drive therapists crazy after a while, even the competent ones.
I felt bad for her afterwards because she is a nice lady and yes she missed this one time and there were so many times she did have empathy and understanding, so much and perhaps because I am so used to her hearing all of me that I was shocked by this one time she didn't hear me.
I agree our ts are human but they should be able to put their own feelings aside enough so as they don't get in the way of their clients feelings. I have often felt like choking my last t and I wish I could have told her like you did. I think there is a lot of learning here for me and t in this going forward.
That was young and inexperienced but I am sure now that can look back on your experience together and take a lot from it.
I remember one of my clients telling me she wanted to punch me in the nose, I could feel my own feelings rising and my natural reaction was to laugh and of course this made her even angrier. I apologised and asked why she wanted to punch me in the nose, it turned out that that I had missed something very important to her, it wasn't intentional it's just I went down the wrong route, I missed her in that moment. Had she not of wanted to punch me in the nose I never would have known what she was really telling me, she found it really hard to express herself and often said things in a long incoherent sentence and I went with the wrong thing. We still laugh about it because it was the first time someone hadn't reacting defensively or gotten aggressive back at her. I think my t got defensive here and reacted from that place within. I know that she cares though or else it wouldn't have bothered her that much, maybe this is me testing her!

Maybe it is a bit of testing - maybe we do it unconsciously. I don't know what to make of this , but your own response to your own client is how I feel a T should be and what I would hope for. I feel like lashing out sometimes and I've been in a " I hate the world " mood lately so I can understand the feelings. I talked to my T this week about Janina Fisher. Trauma is so tricky to deal with. Do you have another session booked ? I hope you can sort this out.

I have another session next week. Trauma is so tricky and there is not one rule for everyone and everyone reacts differently to it. Maybe I expected too much from her or she from me or perhaps I projected ex t onto her!
Do you like the work of Janina Fisher too OutThere?
I too recognise those feelings of "I hate the world and the world hates me". They are very hard to manage, I thought I releasing them in a healthy way by telling her rather than holding them in but maybe she was having a day like me too and just reacted in that moment. She is not like my ex t so I was surprised by her reaction and wanted to see what other people thought.
My lashing out never really works the way I want it to and I really have to learn when it's appropriate and when not

My rage was in a dissociated part. I had learned as a child to control it by not feeling it, cutting it off, and perhaps by directing it against myself.

I am not impacted by other people's rage against me. Maybe because of the dissociation(?), which I may have learned/developed in response to dealing with my mother's rage toward me?

I AM impacted by other people's shaming, blaming, rejecting, condescending, etc. attitudes toward me. I would much prefer that a therapist lash out at me in response, if she/he feels a need to do something -- I would at least have a chance at understanding that. The other stuff just shuts me down, and I learn/understand nothing, except that the therapist is not to be trusted.

I think where Ts and people in general who don't have enough understanding of trauma fail is that it's nearly impossible to regulate dangerous feelings when you view the world as inherently unsafe and people as inherently unsafe. When I am angry at my T I already feel like she wants me dead just like my mother did. There IS no response that feels safe. For me thats the challenge. When I truly believe no one around me cares if I live, I go into survival mode. Relationships and the rules around them take a big back seat. I have often told my T that in those moments I feel like a cornered wild animal. I'll do whatever it takes to get somewhere safe, i.e. where no one is in relationship to me. But bc early abuse and all that, having no one doesn't feel safe either...

I do like Janina Fisher's work , Yes. In my own session we were working on conflict with the child and critical parent parts which were showing up in a dream. I was raging , very angry , and still feel it sometimes and I was using a punch bag. But I took up Tai chi and learned that punching the crap out of something just exhausts us and then the agression comes back , it's getting it out of the system which Tai chi and Qui gong are really helpful with ( they're like trauma release exercises ). Explosive rage will of course get us into bother with people , and I've come to not accept it from others , rationally it can be understood that people with trauma do this , I think both my T's have been good with my stuff. I don't know Mona , you don't seem to have been lucky with good T's to help with this.