[Elefant 2017]

I'm currently undergoing part 2 of 3 different psychotherapy's to work through BPD and cPTSD The first was Cognitive Analytical Therapy (with a male therapist) it was tough but we did it.
This is lifespan integration (with a female therapist) and here is where I'm coming unstuck.

I'm 8/20 sessions and 2 of them have had nothing to do with the therapy because she felt that I was too distressed at the time to go through with it. We spent an hour talking about nothing and everything. But in the last 3 sessions she has said to me, I just feel sick, I wish I could give you a big hug, I just want you to have one normal day. One day she cried and I ended up stopping talking.
Now I feel like every time I go I need to hold back to keep from upsetting her.

Not quite what I had in mind when I started this therapy and keeps bringing me back to why I prefer working with male therapists.

So my questions are; is it normal for my therapist to be upset on my behalf and should she share this?
Should I pull back from sharing the worst and just deal with that in the next therapy (EMDR) which is with a male therapist?
Or should I just pull out now and start the EMDR sooner rather than later?
Thanks

[SlumberKitty]

Hi welcome to PC. My Former T was upset for me a few times, and occasionally the strength of her upset feelings were troubling to me. I do think it's unusual for a T to be overly upset. They are usually trained to be kind of neutral. I don't know if you should just start the next therapy or continue with this one but my suggestion would be to tell the T that you feel x,y,z when T is upset and it makes you not want to share. Then have a discussion about it.

[Favorite Jeans]

No, that's not normal. Her response is not a gender phenomenon common to women therapists, it's just terrible therapy.

[healinginprogress]

My T at times will express that she is upset or sad for me. But never to the point that it's interfered with me sharing. I would say you should express this to your T and maybe she'll time it down or work through her countertransference issues in her own therapy.

[koru_kiwi]

Originally Posted by Favorite Jeans

Her response is not a gender phenomenon common to women therapists...

agree, i had a male therapist and he teared up and shared that he was upset or sad for me on many occasions when i shared some difficult aspects of my abuse. and i never felt uncomfortable with it, because it demonstrated that somewhere under all those formal therapist sweaters that an actual and possibly compasionate human being resided.

Originally Posted by Elefant 2017

So my questions are; is it normal for my therapist to be upset on my behalf and should she share this?
Should I pull back from sharing the worst and just deal with that in the next therapy (EMDR) which is with a male therapist?
Or should I just pull out now and start the EMDR sooner rather than later?

question 1: yes it is normal for Ts to be upset for their clients and to share it openly with their clients.

question 2: only do what you feel comfortable sharing and addressing in your therapy with your T at any given time. probably not in your best interest, especially since you are the expert on you, to place the decisions to your healing and therapy into the hands of complete strangers on the internet.

question 3: refer to answer to question #2

as everyone has already mentioned, best to talk to your T and let her know how her expressing her feelings when you share your stories is hindering your ability to fully open up in therapy for fear of her reactions.

[LabRat27]

Originally Posted by Favorite Jeans

No, that's not normal. Her response is not a gender phenomenon common to women therapists, it's just terrible therapy.

I very much agree with this.
And, at the same time, I do much better working with men as therapists because I feel the need to protect women therapists and not upset them. It’s not rational, it comes from past experiences with my mom and a few previous therapists who were women.
I know it’s not rational, but I also know I need to make the choice that will allow me to use therapy the most effectively, even if I feel like I “shouldn’t” feel that way.
So if you do end up finding that you do better working with therapists of a certain gender that’s okay.

Edit to add: as others have said, it’s a good thing to discuss with your therapist. I told my T pretty much from the beginning that this has been an issue in the past and that it’s important for me to feel like he’s able to be responsible for and handle his own stuff so that I don’t feel the need to protect him. Expressing that early on helped I think.
I can’t speak for you, but if it were me I would need to start over with a new therapist after that kind of emotional response, because it would be like the damage was already done.

[ChickenNoodleSoup]

I'd not say it's unnormal in every single situation for a T to be upset in a session. But I'd be cautious if it happened after only a couple of sessions. If you've known each other for years and you are sharing some huge thing that you've never talked about before, I can see a therapist be mildly upset, maybe shed a tear or two (not full on crying though).

It might be a good idea to discuss it with the T, I agree. If after talking about it you don't feel you can open up, I'm not sure how much sense there'd be in continuing to go, then I'd probably just go search for a new T or your next therapy.