Not understanding - please don't attack me!!

I think it can be more complicated than that. Hatred can be a deep buried feeling surfacing in the transference. In this situation, it is good to hate one's therapist while trying to understand what is it about. It would be counterproductive in this situation to go and try to find someone else.

Of course, there need to be an understanding at some level that the hatred is really a transferencial feeling (although it feels as real as ever) and not realistically caused by the therapist abuse. In the latter case it would be clearly better to leave.

I agree with fealican that these things can be complicated.

For many people, the act of asking for help - the mere fact of needing help - is suffused with shame. If one feels that way, then sitting in a tiny room with a therapist (no matter how competent, kind, or well-intentioned) is bound to feel like stewing in one's own defectiveness.

I know I've felt that way before. And there's really only so much of that a person can take. You eventually hit a saturation point for self-loathing, at which point it spills out into the room. I know those have been the moments when I hated my T for even existing. There was no 'finding someone better' at that point, because anyone - even the best therapist in the world - would still have been sitting there, witnessing what I hated most about myself, and I would have hated him/her for it.

So, yes, hating people who are genuinely trying to help - who actually are helping - is totally a thing. It might not be a pretty or noble thing, but I think it's very human.

I also think it's by no means limited to therapy. I saw a little kid smack his mom just last week when she tried to help him read because he was that frustrated with himself. When my mom was in the hospital, she wasn't overwhelmed with gratitude for the nurses who helped her pee, she was humiliated to need assistance in this very private affair.

And, jesus, if this isn't something you can try and address in therapy, where the hell else are you supposed to do it?

ETA: I'm glad you asked this question, OP and others. It's a good one with a lot of possible answers, not all of which are so very evident to one who's never personally experienced it. Definitely worth exploring.

Thank you for posting this.

It opened my mind, and heart, for understanding other things also.

To be totally honest, I really don't understand how people can do therapy while having only positive, loving feelings towards their therapist.

From my perspective, that looks really superficial and / or smacking of any real insight on the part of both client and therapist along with some serious colluding thrown in to not tackle any of the hard stuff.

Unless someone is, I dunno, going in to tackle gardening problems or something, I am entirely uncertain how strong negative feelings towards the therapist don't come up.

But, then again, clearly some folks seem to do therapy like that -- I can't ever understand but I also feel no need to question or judge the validity of their therapy (or whether that can even be called therapy).

To each their own etc.

I've been annoyed with mine... but hate? No. I don't anyone but terrorists and animal/child abusers.... even then, I still believe somewhere within is some good. I try to see good in all people...

I was more or less referring to the posts I've been reading of people constantly complaining and unhappy with theirs. I just don't get why you would keep paying to see someone you are unhappy with? I sure wouldn't. I would not keep the same MD either if I wasn't happy with them, and if I had kids and they were unhappy with a teacher, I'd try to get them changed. No reason in constantly sitting in that negativing while trying to better yourself , especially when you are paying for their time.

I may be weird I guess but I just makes no sense to me. I'm happy with my T but if I wasn't, I'd either quit therapy all together or find a new one.

I understand frustration, anger etc for a few sessions but constantly? No. I just don't get it.

I think there are different levels and you are addressing one of them. This is the rational adult level and when viewing things from that level only then I agree with you.

At the same time I can honestly say that I hate my T and it has been going on constantly for months. This is not the adult level hate. It has nothing to do whether there is something good within him or not (obviously there is, otherwise I wouldn't be seeing him).

For me it is actually different. When I talk about him with other persons (for instance here or with my H) then I don't hate him because I'm in the adult mode but when I go to my sessions, this immediately changes.



At the same time I (the adult me) know that it is not his person that I hate. I hate what he symbolises to me in my sessions and that goes back to my mother whom I despise so much that it would feel humiliating hating her. Intellectually I still know that this hatred should be directed to my mother but I just can't feel this way (yet). I only feel contempt and indifference towards her.

There are a good number of things I don't understand about what others do either. Luckily, one need not understand in order to accept that people can be different and it is still all okay.

I still don't get it but we could just be seeing very different people for very different things. I don't go into session with anything but sometimes nerves, otherwise, once I see him, I'm calm and I feel safe. He has said since day 1, it's important for me to feel safe in that room and I do. I think venting about T's online if you have to though, is fine.... its a good outlet. To each their own.

I think that's great if it's that way for you. I recognise that it is important to feel safe in that room. However, I haven't ever really felt safe with the presence of any other person, I can only truly feel safe when I'm alone. So no wonder I just can't magically start feeling safe and calm with my T (even though I intellectually know that he is safe) - this experience of feeling safe with another person is just missing from my system.

I have Medicare. Specialists in OCD here don't take Medicare. I've had a therapist laugh at me for managing to take a train ride by making myself feel safe by telling myself that they would stop if I had a panic attack. I've had a therapist tell me I should get a hysterectomy because I didn't want children in my 20s, that she'd done it and it was no big deal. I've had bad therapists. Unlike you, I don't think everyone has good in them. I think you live in fairy tales. I don't mean that in a mean way, but I mean you're unrealistic. You want to believe there's good in everybody, and there's not. I've seen evil. Therapists aren't God. They're not all experts. Therapists aren't for all patients. Some therapists work better with some patients than with others. Your therapist may be great for you but not for others. Your therapist isn't right in everything he says and does. Different people need different things.