Does your therapist get frustrated with a lack of progress?

I’ve been in therapy for some time. A few different therapists over the years and no one seems to be able to crack the wall. Not yet anyway.

I’ve been with my current T for maybe 9 months and it’s going well for the most part. I try pretty hard to remind myself that she is a T and that she is a safe space etc. But we don’t seems to get too far. I understand it all takes time, and I am not one for putting a time limit on these things as talking does not come easy to me. I sense my therapist getting frustrated sometimes. I think she believes in a more short term arrangement. I think she gets frustrated when her efforts do not prove so rewarding.

I donno. I like going to see T because as I said, it is a safe space. It is the only safe space that I have to explore emotions and stuff - when I feel comfortable enough to expose little pieces. I understand more about myself every week and maybe I should communicate this with her.

Does anyone else’s therapist get frustrated when you don’t seem to be making much progress?

Only a couple of times has he shown frustration about his feelings of stuckness. Once, he said that what we were talking about was a "cul de sac" and the other time he said he felt like we were "wading through treacle".

Both times I reminded him that those were his feelings and not mine, and this is my therapy. Especially the second time, when I said "I pay you £x per hour to wade through as much treacle as I f***ing well need to". Both times he has recognised those feelings originate in him and he's allowed me to take the therapy where I want to take it.

I wouldn't do well with a therapist who believed more in short term therapy. To be honest I wouldn't do well with a therapist who thought they knew what I need better than I do, at all.

Not with my current T, he seemed to catch on to me pretty quickly and interact in ways that really helped me to trust and open up quickly... although he would still like to see me more open. But I have with past T’s. The last T I worked with eventually just gave up on me but kept seeing me so that I could see Pdoc. It’s kinda awkward because net T and last T know eachother and he thinks very highly of last T. Another T told me that reducing the symptoms of my PTSD was the best I could hope for, I was too damaged to heal to the degree I sought after. It sucks and is really discouraging. But I would ask if that is really how they are feeling. For the past two days I have felt that T is disappointed with me but have no justification for it. So I know he would have me journal the thought, where did it come from and what is it trying to tell me.

My ex-T got frustrated with me, and it was part of what led to my leaving. Because I thought I'd made a fair amount of progress. While she was saying I still had so many issues with anxiety and depression, after 6 years. It felt like she thought I was a failure. Even though at some point she said she was afraid she wasn't helping enough (so more about her than me). But it was still very difficult to feel that frustration.

With current T, I've asked a few times about whether he's frustrated. Recently, I said something like, "I'm sorry, I must be really frustrating to work with, that I seem to be doing better then react really strongly to something." T assured me that he wasn't frustrated, how it's all part of the process. And that meant a lot to me. I told him I think it's that I'm frustrated with myself, so I'm projecting that onto him. As I told him before, I need someone who can bear with me, and he's said he would do that.

Sometimes i feel he get fustrated with me especially now that he is retiring and that I have to tell him why im not ready to go out on my own is making him fustrated unwilling to keep my file open so another therapist can take over. However it is my therapy and my journey and i should be allowed to see another therapist.

I keep on expecting him to be frustrated! But he doesn't get frustrated. He once said he finds my therapy 'satisfyingly challenging'
I think some therapists are more oriented towards short term therapy focussing on reaching specific goals, while others enjoy rolling up their sleeves and working for the long haul. It is probably all part of finding a good fit between client and therapist.

I never met a therapist who could tell if a client was progressing or not. I don't believe it is their place to become frustrated with clients. It is the client's life, not that of the therapist. If the therapist wants to feel good about themselves, they should look elsewhere than at me.

Not frustrated about lack of progress. More a concern that this problems I was having weren't seeming to move at one point (dangerously stuck for a lengthy period of time), and wanting to be sure I was not perhaps needing a different type of care. Options were discussed, offered, and even somewhat pursued, but ultimately I chose to stay with both my pdoc and my therapist because I didn't feel the lack of forward progress was due to any shortcoming or mismatched. I knew I was just at that stuck place and things would eventually start progressing, which they did.

Frustration hasn't been an issue between me and my Ts. Ive had 3. One I saw 3x, another 4 years, and the current one is going on 10 years. I would have no problem leaving a T who frustrated me or one that I visibly frustrated.

To me he seems pretty patient when I recircle the same issue. Much more patient than I am.

One T I saw in the Summer for four sessions seemed very frustrated at where I was at considering I had spent 10 years previous in therapy. It didn't make for a good start, and ultimately it didn't end well. HUGS Kit

This is something I frequently worry about. I never worried bout it until I started coming to PC as I trusted that if my T had issues with it she would say so. She always said I was making huge progress but I didnt really see it.

I 2orry about it a lit I don't know if it is because of the difference in Ts or because of PC. I worry she will be frustrated because I feel like it is one good deep appointment then 2 or 3 where we "recover" from the good. I am frustrated and worry she us too. The recovery is spent trying to process what happened, what we learned from it. She often seems frustrated but says that we are making progress and I recognize that I am impatient

Are you sure that she is frustrated? Has she actually said she thinks therapy should be short term or that your progress should be faster? From your post it sounds more like you yourself are frustrated with your difficulty in opening up.

What if there is no progress to be made and you just can't be fixed? Some things are just to broken to be fixed.

When my T and I have had a particularly deep session T tries to keep the next session or two lighter which frustrates me. I can see where we are still moving and working towards my goals, especially my goal for today, but he won’t allow it to go deep. So it may not be you.

So sorry it was so difficult for you. I think Emdr T had a similar reaction initially. Because I have so much insight (between 10 years of therapy and working in mental health for 12 years) intellectually I knew so much and knew the right things to say. Plus she had a different interpretation of what I was seeing her for. In hindsight she realized she started to quickly and pushed to hard.

It was after a couple of very intense appointments she reached out T to get her input. She realized she had made some assumptions about where I was emotionally. She was frustrated but at herself for assuming things and not asking more queations.

Yes. I mean, yes, it seems like all of them have been frustrated at me for not being able to go faster. But, then the way they act makes it even harder for me to be open/trust them, so their frustration just slows things down more. It's terrible.

Last T - I'm sure she was. I'm sure that's part of what led to the ending... she thought we needed to set goals with a timeline, so she could refer me out if "we" (*cough* *me* *cough*) didn't meet the goals.

That tells me she was frustrated and wanted to see specific outcomes faster. Which, yippee for her. That's not helpful to me though. It very much felt like, "hey, if you don't stop being depressed in the next 3 months, I'll kick you out."

So, yup.

My T doesn't judge me on progress. She says there's many definitions of progress. She does like to push me to keep growing, but she isn't ever going to tell me that I'm not progressing. She knows I have a fear that if I get better then she'll leave me. She tells me that's not the case. But we do taper down sessions when I don't need her as much.

I feel like my T expects that if I talk about something once it should be fixed. Sometimes he'll say things like "we just talked about this last week". It frustrates the hell out of me.

I don't think I can be fixed. I feel like his job is just to help make my life livable. He wants constant, ongoing progress. I told him a couple weeks ago that sometimes my idea of progress is not going backwards. Sometimes progress is I didn't kill myself that day. It's not what he wants to hear...and pretty much every week I go in expecting to be fired because I'm not making enough progress.

She hasn’t said that therapy should be short term as such, but has made comment on the idea that I don’t want to be in therapy forever.. I am definitely frustrated with my difficulty in opening up, but I do sense that T does get frustrated at times - I guess it all depends on the session.

I wonder if it's something a bit different than not enough progress. When I used to work with young people on their first legal jobs (as a mentor), I could identify the difference between those who were stuck in their ways of being and those who might also be stuck or struggling with something, but they had potential. Seeing those who had potential but weren't able to improve and trying to work with them-- I was always pushing them. The ones that didn't seem to have much potential, I just really didn't try that hard. I was accepting of the ones, sometimes more affirming, than those who I thought could do better. My most contentious relationships were with those I perceived could do much better and become better professionals. Maybe I was wrong about those judgements, although after doing it for 25 years, I think I was pretty spot on.

So if there's a parallel to T's, I think it may not be frustration with a lack of progress as much as the difficulty of seeing those with potential not living up to it. And/or maybe it is about how he wants to work. I don't think it's unreasonable for a therapist to decide to end therapy if there isn't adequate progress made; some would say that's the only ethical thing to do. Then maybe it's a fit issue, although I think you've said before you're unwilling to try another therapist, but if you have goals that are in conflict with his idea of progress, it seems like you are setting yourself up for frustration, which you clearly feel. If you're not willing to see someone else and he's insisting on the traditional kind of progress, then it makes sense to me that there's a lot of frustration that you'd feel.

My T is a trauma specialist so he does not focus primarily on short term therapy but he has said if he is still seeing someone in ten years then he is not doing his job.

I had a difficult session a week ago and I actually asked him yesterday if he was frustrated with me. He repaired the rupture but he did say he was a little bit frustrated because he would rather work on me getting better over the relationship. He said the relationship is important too so it needed to be addressed.

My T has said many times that it is his ethical duty to refer me if I have not made any progress each year. He said not me, but many people go to therapy just to chit chat each week and lean on the T for support without making any improvements. He says that some therapists will continue to take their money each week, but it is not ethical and he will not do that because he wants to see people get better. He is very goal oriented and although I don't always like him pushing me, I know he has the best intentions and I have made a lot of progress.

Even in the best of situations, with my issues he has said I will probably need 5-10 years of therapy. I don't know if I will last that long but I continue to try to work hard and know that he will refer me if I do not make any progress.

My T gives six months and if no progress you get the boot. I’m going on two years with him so I must be making some progress, but it just feels like it’s never enough and I feel like I have to explain what I see as progress, and then he tells me I’m overstating it. No matter what, I can’t win, so most days I don’t even try.

There can be several types of frustration.

One type stems from the therapist own needs to be useful and when he does not feel that he is useful and accomplishing anything then he might feel frustrated. I would basically call it counter-transference and if not kept under check can be harmful to the therapy.

Another type of frustration can be symptomatic, indicating that the patient is ready to take a next step but is not doing that for some reason. This can be also called counter-transference but is basically something that comes from the patient and that can be used to further the therapy.

My own T has been few times frustrated with me because he has felt that I am ready for doing something new or more. In this case expressing the frustration in a genuine way can actually be quite helpful.

I often get frustrated with my lack of progress.

T always seems to come up with points that (at least to her) indicate progress.