Do you think it’s possible to hurt your T?

Do you think it’s possible that something you say might hurt your T? My T is psychodynamic and I think I’m supposed to be able to say anything without worrying how he’ll respond. So far that has been true. In real life I am responsible and considerate, but I’ve sent a couple of mean emails to him. After the first one he said he felt my anger and disappointment with him and that he’d work on where that was coming from (on his own time, with himself). Most recently I sent and abrupt, angry quit email, although I also sent an apology email. Since he is kind of blank slate, I just wonder if it’s possible to feel hurt by me at all? I think I might need that in order for our relationship to feel less artificial.

I have hurt my T. He owns that when it happens and says I don't need to take care of his feelings. It's important to me that he emphasises that I can say what I like and his stuff is his to manage.
I think anyone can be hurt by anyone. Some Ts might just not choose to express it.

Yes- they're human after all. I said something that he said made him feel sad.

When I'm angry at him and acting out, I know I also I skip sessions because I also want to to hurt him financially....

Oh yes, I definitely think it is possible to hurt T's feelings. After all, they are only human. I think its important for the T to take care of his or her own feelings and not make the person in therapy responsible for taking care of them, but I also think that T's are like everyone else in that they have good days and bad days and vulnerable days and superhuman days. Once my T got mad at me. And I asked her (this was my former T) if she was mad at me and she said yes, and I was so shocked. She talked about it for a couple of minutes and then she was over it. I don't even remember why she was mad at me, I just remember the feeling of T is mad. I don't know if I ever hurt T's feelings, but I could have. When it is important to be safe enough to say whatever needs to be said then that could lead to some hurt places and sometimes hurt places lash out. Good T's will take that in stride and their feelings might be hurt but they won't lash back. Some not so good T's might lash back though. I suppose even a good T could have an off moment and lash back but then I think they would work extra hard to repair the rupture that happened.

"If you prick them, do they not bleed?"

Why would you talk to ANYONE as if what you said didnt matter, or as if they didnt matter?

Maybe think of it as, you have someone to talk to about even your most difficult feelings and they wont hold it against you, and would want to help you deal with those feelings, not just be an inanimate wailing wall. Why would you hate or disrespect such a person?

I know I still deliberately try to push him away just after I've felt very connected to him.

I know I've hurt my T once. I was angry with her and told her I didn't like her. She said that hurt, and it makes it hard for her to want to help me. That was way early in our relationship. I don't think I've ever hurt her since.

Of course, it's possible. Therapists have feelings just like anyone else, and just because they are "not supposed" to take things personally doesn't mean they don't take things personally. Of course, they do. I am saying this as a therapist.

However, your ability, as a client, to hurt your therapist is not even close to the ability of your therapist to hurt you because of the power inequity between you two.

Whatever my clients had ever said to me that was offensive or otherwise hurtful to some extend was not even remotely as hurtful and devastating as what my therapists said and did to me. Not because the things that my therapists said were objectively worse than what my clients said, but because a therapist, as a person, is enormously significant to a client while a client, as a person, is not enormously significant to a therapist. Therefore, the same thing said by the therapist will be perceived as much more important than if it was said by the client.

We have seen ample evidence of that on this board. People get obsessed about every remark their therapists make, any small behavioral act the therapist commit however insignificant they might be if they were committed by someone else.

Therapists, on the other hand, don't get obsessed and don't suffer much because of something a client said or did. I was able to get over whatever my clients said to me quite fast and quite easily. The fact that I was in a more powerful position certainly helped a lot.

I am sorry if my post upsets those who want to believe that they are just as important to their therapists as their therapists are to them. This is not the case at all. That doesn't mean that your therapists don't care about you. They do care in a general human sense meaning that they have compassion for your sufferings and that they want to be helpful to you. But you definitely don't hold the same significance to them as they do to you. Therefore, you don't have the power to hurt them profoundly.

So, to summarize, yeah, you do have the ability to hurt your therapist but you don't have the ability to traumatize them. They, on the other hand, are in a good position to traumatize you.

Wow that made a lot of sense. My new T who I have seen a total of three times asked me if I was ever diagnosed as (x) I don't want to say what (x) is. I said no because I haven't been but I was terribly upset about it because she doesn't even know me and hasn't even asked me what my symptoms are, whereas if some random person or even a friend would have asked me that I would have just blown it off. But instead I'm obsessing about it for days.

I don’t want to hate or disrespect my T, but sometimes I just want to poke him a little to see if he’s real.

I do this all the time and wish I could make it stop. It’s getting old!

Thanks for your response. I get that there’s an imbalance in the relationship, but I still have a hard time with that. It may be that I have a hard time depending on someone in that way.

I hope so.

of course, they are humans....

LOL That sounds reasonable!

I do not believe a client can hurt a therapist. I doubt they pay that much attention and they do not have a stake in the client. If the therapist does get hurt somehow - it is their problem not that of the client. The ones I know of say they don't take clients personally and I took them at their word. They are not real as therapists - they are acting a part.

I see it as: how do you drive a rental car? I have heard some people say it is okay to mistreat a rental car, drive it "hard", whatever that means . Hey, rent a truck to do your heavy lifting, nothing wrong with that, or a luxe car for a trip. A t is like a rental person, imo. But if you want to beat it up, enter one of those beat up car derbies.

I don't think my therapist cared enough to be hurt by anything I said. My wellbeing, thoughts, happiness, etc. have zero bearing on her life. But I probably said a few things that took her aback and that might have offended her a little if I were a person in her "real life" whose opinion she actually cared about.

I’ve found therapists too often need to see themselves as shamans and rescuers with a fragility that accompanies their self deception. A therapist I unfortunately know in a non-professional context is one of the most narcissistic humans I’ve encountered. She declares herself brilliant, lies about her accomplishments and seemingly needs everyone fawning to her.

I don't know her well enough to hurt her.

I don't agree. It is possible both to slip under their guard and to overwhelm their defenses.

Ts can be triggered (who can be certain that all their triggers have been healed?), and I'm sure most Ts can recall instances where they feared a physical assault was imminent.

I think the reason I’m asking the question is because when I apologize for being dramatic he says he doesn’t perceive me as being dramatic and when I feel ashamed for saying something he has always normalized it. So I wonder if I say something that might be hurtful in another context, would it not be perceived as hurtful by him? I don’t actually want to hurt him, but because he is blank slate-ish, it can make the whole relationship feel a little inauthentic at least as compared to normal relationships. Sometimes I’d like to know that something I say or do affects him.

I had a number of sessions where I was very mad at my therapist and said immature, mean spirited things to her and about her. When we’d discuss it, she’d say, “You have a lot of things to be angry about & pent up anger that needs to get out, and I’m happy to be your punching bag if it means you get this stuff out of your head.” She also told me she has several emotional tricks to “shield” herself from too many sad, bad, negative emotions so she doesn’t take it all home with her.

So I imagine that things that might be hurtful in another context could slide off your therapist more easily than it might within someone else. Therapists compartmentalize. They don’t take things personally.

"...but because a therapist, as a person, is enormously significant to a client while a client, as a person, is not enormously significant to a therapist."
I believe that you are speaking in very general terms. "They" and "them"...a therapist is an individual, and all therapeutic situations are not the same. Just as an example, the therapeutic environment in the VA is much different than the therapeutic environment between a private therapist and client.

Right. I was talking specifically about the private practice settings, but this is what most people on this forum usually talk about.