[SoAn]

Hey all,

Over the past months, since the last session with my ex T, I have reflected on the therapy I had with him. My feelings for him change - anger and loving feelings alternate. After the last session with him, I only felt anger, because of the way he dealt with me telling him I was leaving him. (He told me I had been 'holding him at gunpoint' for the past year, constantly reminding him of the fact that 'I could leave any moment'. During that year, he also repeatedly encouraged me to talk about my doubts.)

It is about this topic that I currently feel a lot of anger. Whenever I brought up my doubts about staying or leaving therapy with him, his response was to come up with a way in which my doubts were related to my own psychological problems. The way to go according to him lay in exploring those, with him.

I stayed with him because 1) his responses sometimes made sense to me. 2) I had a lot of difficulty quitting, because I was afraid he would feel hurt, or otherwise be negatively affected (e.g. financially. Of course it's not my role to think about that at all, but it goes to show that part of my problem is putting others' needs before my own. I am sure he was well aware of this, I even mentioned how difficult I found it to decide to really leave him although I felt it was the right thing). 3) I had loving feelings for him and being with him also made me feel good in a sense, just not in a therapeutic sense.

What is bothering me now is that he has never given me the feeling that it would be OK if I left. It would have been very helpful for me to hear words like 'you can leave whenever you want, for whatever reason, there will be no hard feelings'. Instead of lowering the bar for me so that it would be easier for me to leave, I felt that he made it harder for me.

When I told him that I thought the mere fact I had doubts so often was already a reason to leave in itself, he said that instead I should talk it through more with him. I have also repeatedly expressed doubt at these kinds or responses.

During the last session, when I told him I wanted to leave, he said the words that I quoted in the first paragraph. Hence it became apparent that indeed there were hard feelings, and there had been all along, I think.

I am very angry at his not making it easy for me to leave by making me feel/know that was ok, because 1) every therapist should do that, 2) one of my main problems is taking care of others' needs before my own and avoiding conflict, and he knew that.

I feel that he manipulated me into staying longer (maybe that's too strongly put, but in a sense, I feel that is what he did). I find his way of dealing with my doubts egoistic and not at all with my best interest in mind. I stayed much longer than I actually wanted to (therapeutically).

How do you view this?
I am also very open to other perspectives, that would be more lenient on him - that would make things easier for me.
Otherwise, my question is: how do I deal with this anger? I can tell my current T who I think is really good, but they're from the same practice. I want to stay with her though.

What I am afraid of, if I ever were to discuss this with him personally (perhaps with another T to mediate the conversation), that he would relate my anger to my romantic feelings for him which could not be answered, or something of the like. He is verbally very strong. I feel he would outdo me and I would look like someone accusing him of things whereas my own issues are what are the problem.

[SoAn]

As a short illustration of the impression I had of our dynamics: when I went to talk to his supervisor, intending to ask him if I could leave my then current T and go back to therapy with the supervisor, I anticipated having to convince the supervisor with some kind of verbal fireworks that this was the right thing to do. That was not at all what happened: as soon as I indicated my preference, that was it, with some further questions on his part, but in an interested way, not in a convince-me-why-you-think-that's-right kind of way. I think that my ex T was far too focused on clever explanations and not enough on my feelings.

We also had a discussion at some point where I said that I felt that now that he had told me he had feelings for me, he could not attend to me 'objectively' anymore (in sofar as that exists, of course). He retorted that therapists are influenced by so many things. I said that I felt this was different, because maybe you see someone in a different light, or something. He replied 'why would this be any different than any other influence?' and I said that seemed so obvious to me, at which he said: 'You find it so obvious, but you're not able to explain it?'. I think those dynamics are not helpful at all. Again, I'm totally open to criticism. Please tell me where you think he is just doing fine and maybe I am having my own issues. How it feels to me is that he was trying to outsmart me in a way that I think is suitable to certain friendships for instance, but not suitable to a therapeutic relationship [insert swear word, in hindsight it makes me so angry].

[here today]

I read recently, but have seen it before, that anger is usually a secondary emotion, a defensive response to hurt or fear. It certainly sounds like he did a lot for you to feel hurt by -- but I know, for me, my anger and other defenses kept me from feeling hurts for a very long time. And fear? Is there anything like that there, too?

I've also heard that anger is a response to violated expectations. And your ex T certainly seems to have violated a lot of reasonable ones from your side! In that case, anger might have led you to leave him long before you did. That, or change expectations. So, OK the dynamics between you were terrible. NOW you know. In hindsight, as you said. For me, in this kind of situation, once I fully feel the anger, I am VERY unlikely to make the same mistake again! I'm sorry it's so painful right now.

[maybeblue]

I think that anger is understandable and maybe what you need to feel right now to keep you safe...to keep you from going back to him or feeling bad about yourself. It's unfortunate that he wasn't able to give you what you needed as far as termination. He wasn't able to accept his part of the failed relationship, because that's what it was. Therapy is an incredibly intimate relationship and so it makes perfect sense that when that relationship isn't working for whatever reason it hurts. And somewhat unfortunately, therapy relationships like every other relationship, are not all good or all bad. I say unfortunately because if a relationship is all bad, it is much easier to decide to leave.

I don't think that there is anything wrong with having anger toward him and I think it is perfectly reasonable that you should be able to talk to your current therapist about it. She should be able to handle your feelings even if she knows him in a completely different context (as a colleague), and she should keep what you say confidential unless you want her to talk to him for you. When you are ready to move beyond the anger, I think it helps to try to look at the problems in the relationship as more of a compatibility issue, rather than a problem with either person. For me when I have had problems with therapists, I find it helpful to try to look at it from their perspective too...to try to empathize with them. What made them decide to say that? What in their life might have caused them to respond to me that way? I don't think that this is necessary for a client to do at all. The relationship is about the client's wellbeing. You don't need to take care of the therapist. I do it for me...to get past my feelings of anger and bitterness.