It does not sound like domestic violence to me. And it sounds quite odd to have the next client knocking on the door and standing in the doorway as you leave. That would feel not good to me. I would think they were used to people getting angry and stomping out or even throwing pillows around (although perhaps not at them). It sounds to me like she has trouble handling anger from her clients.

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But to my surprise, my T insisted she had never slammed a door, nor had anyone in her family.

I'm sorry, but I call BS on that one! I find it nearly impossible to believe that she has never slammed a door nor has anyone in her family? Really?

Here is what I think. Do I think that slamming the door was an appropriate show of anger? Probably not. Was it excusable? Yes. Domestic violence? That is a huge stretch. You didn't physically touch anyone (unless you actually did push the bozo in the door) so I'm not sure how that would work, but I'm no lawyer. Would it have been healthier for you to tell T, "well we started ten minutes late and I feel that was your doing." Sure, but you're in therapy to learn how to do things better, right?

As far as it being impossible to do therapy with the next client? Maybe. I've had clients leave my T's office clearly angry or agitated and slam her waiting room door and I will admit that it has thrown me off and been jarring. However, it was not impossible to do therapy. It is up to your T to handle that situation.

My biggest issue with all of this continues to be that I feel like your T has her own issues and it doesn't sound like they are resolved. It sounds like she is reacting out of fear the vast majority of the time and that isn't good.

One other thing, I think your T needs a different system for greeting the next client. I don't think it should be up to the next client to knock on the door. I know as a client I would feel incredibly uncomfortable doing that for fear that I would be interrupting and as the client in the room I would find it very disturbing as well.

Yes, exactly as Stoppers and STRM say. Exactly.

It's nice to meet you, Stoppers. Thanks for chiming in.

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It sounds to me like she has trouble handling anger from her clients.

I think you are right, only you picked up on it a lot sooner than I have. Increasingly I feel that I cannot express anger -- especially not if it is anger directed at her. Every time I do, she dismisses it by calling it projection and then withdraws.

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I'm sorry, but I call BS on that one! I find it nearly impossible to believe that she has never slammed a door nor has anyone in her family? Really?

Hi STRM, I liked your straightforward response. These were my doubts as well. If it is true, then I wonder if no one in her family was/is allowed to express anger either, not just me.

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One other thing, I think your T needs a different system for greeting the next client. I don't think it should be up to the next client to knock on the door. I know as a client I would feel incredibly uncomfortable doing that for fear that I would be interrupting and as the client in the room I would find it very disturbing as well.

I agree, the system sucks. And yes, I myself have always hated to knock because it seems intrusive on the client who is in session. That is why our session started 10 minutes late, because I refused to knock. Usually I just wait either for a client to come out the door or for my T to open the door and motion me in. The problem this time was that T didn't have a client right before me (because whoever it was had cancelled) and so I was waiting for something that never materialized. My T claims she cracked opened the door a few times and looked for me but didn't see me. Well, finally I walked over near the door and contemplated knocking, when I heard her voice talking. So I assumed she was still in session and started walking away. Then T opened the door and asked, "Aren't you coming?" She had been talking on her phone, not to a client.

My T actually has 1 main office and 2 more satellite offices in different towns. Her main office has a very nice set-up, but since it is farther away I sometimes go to sessions at the satellite office nearest to me. This problem with the clients knocking on the door only happens at her satellite office because there is no foyer and no receptionist there. It's just a room she rents in the back of a building, and the entryway to the room is actually an outside door. So the parking lot becomes the waiting room. In the wintertime, naturally she doesn't like to keep the door cracked open. So its a guessing game if she is ready for me or not.

I expressed my loathing of this system to my T again today. She said it wouldn't be a problem if she only did 50-min sessions, but because she does 60-min sessions (at the 50-min price, for our benefit), then clients often end up crossing paths coming and going. That's the trade-off. I asked why she couldn't hang up a "Do Not Disturb" sign. She has one but she never uses it. She said she is too scatterbrained to remember to use it consistently. So I asked if we could at least use it for MY sessions, and I would be the one to remember to hang it up and take it down. She had no problem with that. So hopefully any potentially-knocking clients will notice the sign and leave me alone towards the conclusion of my session. But since I cannot control whether other clients will use the sign, it still doesn't solve the problem of how I can know T is ready to Begin my session in the first place. So I decided that from now on I will go ahead and knock on the door when I arrive if there is no sign hanging up. And if other clients don't like me knocking either, then they can learn to use the sign just like me. So I am ridding myself of guilt over knocking since T will give them that option. Long explanation...sorry.

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Yes, exactly as Stoppers and STRM say. Exactly.

Thanks for your two cents, Jones. I'm glad to see the support numbers creeping up.

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You may want to ask your T sometime how SHE expresses anger. My T has let me know the healthy things she does when she's angry and it does involve diffusing some physical energy. It sounds like your T is really repressed or something...

I have asked her this before. Her answer was that she doesn't get mad. Like ever. I have a hard time believing that one too. She will admit to occasional annoyance, but that's it. She says anger is a secondary emotion, and she prefers to deal with the primary emotions that underlie and precede it.

One time she told me in session that she was angry at me for lying to her about SI. Her word, not mine. Fast forward to months later when I asked her one day if she was mad at me. She said No, and that she had never been mad at me. So I corrected her and reminded her what she had once said about being angry re: the SI. She tried to cover it by saying, "I don't hold on to anger like you do." So I think she does experience anger and just won't admit it.

Domestic violence? That's a stretch - it was more like assault with a stuffed pillow

My T has a soft bell that chimes once an hour (at 15 minutes til the hour) signifying the end of a 45-minute session.

It is not "Domestic Violence" in legal terms and you would not have been charged with domestic violence had she called the cops. You would have gotten charged with "harassment", but not domestic violence and the charges would likely have been dropped.

Nevertheless, your T is telling you that in her eyes, this is unacceptable behavior. I can't imagine that this is the biggest temper tantrum that she has ever seen though.

I haven't had a temper tantrum with T yet, but I certainly had plenty with my husband when I was married. Slammed lots of doors, even broke a few picture frames once. I am a lot better at controlling my anger now.

MH... so sorry you are struggling. I have a really hard time accessing my anger but towards the end of my relationship with oldT I got really angry at the way he treated me and so when I left his office I slammed the door ... the outside door from reception to the street. He definitely heard it LOL because the next time I got angry he followed me out and held the door and said he didn't want me to slam it. I had not been planning to... I was not even thinking of it as that time I was quite dissociative and had no idea what I was doing.

When speaking with my current T he asked me if I had ever "acted out" with old T and perhaps scared him in some way and I thought and thought and said no I didn't. Then a week later I remembered the slamming of the door and I went back to my new T and told him this. I said I needed to confess that I did act out and once I slammed the door. He was so funny... he had this look of mock shock and horror on his face and said "ooohhh you slammed the door? Oh my how frightening" and he smiled at me and told me that is the least he would expect a client to do at times. He then showed me a bowl on the table in his office and under the bowl the table was damaged. Told me the bowl was a gift from a client as she had angrily smashed the one that used to be there and damaged his table. I looked shocked and asked what happened. He said ... oh we just talked it over and she apologized and replaced the bowl even though I didn't ask her to. He was totally NOT upset at all, in the way that he would hold it against someone, he just felt that her anger needed to be discussed and addressed, understood and put into context but he did not punish her for it. That certainly made me feel a lot better. Of course, I don't plan to break anything in there LOL... but one never knows...

I think your T was way off in saying that was domestic violence. And I wonder if she has her own repressed anger that she is unaware of and needs to deal with.

And about the door knocking and her office arrangement and the sign... my view is that she is making her clients responsible for something that SHE should be taking care of for them. The right to privacy and not being interrupted during session (however long it is) is something that a client deserves. SHE needs to get herself "un-scatter-brained" enough to take charge of the sign. And if she is THAT scatter-brained, then she should find another profession. Sorry... I just get so mad (getting in touch with my anger here) these days when Ts dump things on the client that is their job to take care of.

Hugs to you MH and I hope things settle down for you but I am worried for you with this T. I think she is dealing with a lot of her own personal issues that are spilling over into your therapy.

TN

MH,
Domestic violence, my @$$! Seriously?!!?!! I wish you could have seen me reading your post. I was literally exclaiming out loud what? what?!? WHAT?!? WTF?!

I cannot believe your T says she never gets angry, that makes her one of two things, a liar or way deeper in denial than a T should EVER allow themselves to be. I'm going with denial or she would not have had such an overreaction to you slamming a door. I agree that it probably wasn't the best or healthiest way to express your anger, but it's also was not an act of violence directed at her. I believe she is highly uncomfortable around anger so she moved very strongly to cut yours off, by resorting to threatening you.

Anger was something I spent a lot of time working on during my therapy. I never slammed a door, but I definitely raised my voice at times and there were a number of times I told my T I wanted to throw things at him, or hit him over the head with a statue on his table. I remember him telling me that those feelings were anger. That everyone gets angry, and anger is no different from any other emotion and that there is room for it in a relationship. That I didn't need to be scared of it. I needed to learn how to express it in a healthy manner. Because my father was often violent when he was angry, I didn't understand the difference between anger and violence so I was terrified of getting angry. When my husband and I first started doing couples' work, anger came up because during one session I got pretty upset and at the next one, my husband characterized me as being in a rage, which I agree with. Our T heard us out, but later was like "can we go back to what you said about AG being in a rage? She wasn't in a rage, she was just angry." He went on to describe my behavior, that I raised my voice and was passionate, but that people often are when something important to them is threatened. My husband was kind of incredulous that he didn't consider me to be out of control and our T said that on a scale of 1 to 10 I was a three maybe a four. That I wasn't calling him names, I wasn't threatening him, I was still trying to see both sides. On that day was born the "T's Lastname Anger Scale." My T and I used that throughout our work. The first time I actually managed to express anger at him (after his working on getting me too through most of a session), he acknowledged that I had actually looked and sounded angry before very wryly adding "it was still only about a four." A while later I actually finally managed to really let loose and at the end of the session, I told him that I had to ask, how I done on the Anger Scale, and he laughed and said "pretty good." It was a wonderful moment.

My feelings, no matter what they were, including anger, was always accepted and understood and normalized. My T wouldn't budge on the boundaries, but he was more than willing to listen to my anger about them. I got really scared of my anger at one point, actually fearing that I would hurt him if I let it out and he reassured me that it was perfectly ok for me to scream, curse, holler and even throw things if it didn't damage anything, but he would draw the line at injuring him, myself or destroying things in his offfice. But even then, it wouldn't be the end of the relationship, it would just be a boundary. That he was willing to do what he needed to in order to keep us both safe. Because he was the one holding the boundaries.

Therapy is a place where we're allowed to mess up and do it wrong, so we can learn to do it right. I think you're T is being way too punitive and making it too much about her feelings.

OK, on to the knocking on the door. I'm reading along, thinking "what a clueless man, I hate people who knock on a therapist's door." (I've had it happen twice in over 20 years of therapy. One was a clueless woman when I was with my first therapist. We were running pretty late, had started that way and the next client was new, got nervous and knocked. I would NEVER knock. The second time it ever happened was with my current T because the heat in the building was acting up and a maintainence guy knocked because he had to talk to my T.) But to my complete amazement, I read on and realized she SET IT UP THAT WAY. I was totally horrified and absolutely agree with TN that I don't care how much a T struggles in an area, it's there professional responsibility to solve the problem. My T is lousy at scheduling and getting back to people, so he has set up a really robust system around himself in order to do what he needs to do. I would find this really unacceptable. That office and your time in it is a sacred space. Part of the purpose of the boundaries is to protect and keep clear that space. As clients, we need to accept that we are limited in contact with our Ts to that time and place, but that also means that during that time and place we have their full attention. I'm not saying that the occassional interruption occurs (my T will take very short calls during sessions, but we discussed it.) But to set it up that you're going to be interrupted every time? What is the woman thinking?

Adding this up to what you've said in the accessing the internet thread, MH, I'm going to be really blunt and tell you that your therapist is really scaring me. I'm sorry if I'm coming on too strongly, but I've watched too many people be hurt by therapists who are not aware enough of their own issues and are not taking responsibility for their own stuff. It is NOT your fault that her information is available through Google. She's right, it is her information and evidently she needs to get better at guarding it. The fact that she's trying to blame you, tells me she's not taking responsibility. And as for realizing her children aren't safe, that's NOT a result of your actions, it's a result of a) a dangerous situation she knowingly entered 2) unbalanced bad people 3) her kids being alive. You know way too much about HER feelings, HER situation, HER clients, and HER treatment decisions. Can you see the problem with that sentence. My T has told me stories about other clients, but they were short, very anonymous and used to make a point he was trying to convey.

I once got concerned about how much he was working because I could tell he was keeping really long hours and we referred a friend and I found out he wasn't accepting new clients. There was one day when I left a message at 8:20 in the morning that I needed to reschedule an appointment and I didn't hear back from him until 9:30 that evening. He called from his office and I knew his first appt has been at 8:30 in the morning. So when he called I opened with "whoa, long day, you need to go home" a comment he totally ignored and moved on to reschedule the call. The call was warm, pleasant and quickly concluded. I had a TOTAL meltdown when I got off the phone, waiting all day and only getting to talk to him so briefly and having my concern ignored really rubbed my face in the boundaries. I ended up sobbing on the phone for a while with a good friend. I saw him two days later and told him there was something I knew I wasn't supposed to be concerned about but I was so I was going to talk about it. And I told him about being worried about how hard he was working. He commented on the phone call and that it would have been nice if he had responded with "yeah, it was a long day, thanks for noticing" but that wasn't what our relationship was all about. He discussed how natural my concern for him was, and that it was fine I was talking about it, but this couldn't become about me taking care of him. I didn't pick up even an iota of a hint as to whether he was feeling stressed or not about his hours. NOTHING leaked through. It was never allowed to be about him or his feelings, even when I wanted it to be. That was the boundary and he held it with consummate skill.

I'm not seeing your T holding clear boundaries. Not only does she not seem to get how you are feelings and all the attachment feelings but she seems a lot more concerned that YOU understand how SHE feels instead of her understanding how you feel.

MH, I know this is really strong, and you have every right to ignore everything I'm saying, and I would understand and accept that. I don't want you thinking for a moment that my support for depends on doing what I think you should do. It's not my life, it's not my decision and no matter how much you say here, I come nowhere near understanding the situation as well as you do. All that said, and despite the deep attachment you feel for your T, I really think you need to find someone else. I've had a front seat for what happened with TN's T and I never want to watch someone go through that pain again. Please know I would not be speaking so strongly if my concern was not so acute.

To quote Jones, I'll shut up now. But whatever you do, we're still here.

AG

Hi MH,

I have to confess that I have never slammed a door in my life. But that's why I am a doormat. Working on accessing that anger, I think. Anyway, I agree with the others that she seems to be slacking off in some ares of responsibility and making something your problem when it shouldn't be. I like the way you took charge and decided to handle it. You might set off a chain reaction but isn't that what life is all about? Take care of yourself first. Does that sound too selfish? You deserve every minute.

And, I don't buy her excuse, "i'm giving y'all 60 minutes at the 50 mintues price so there's bound to be some criss-crossing." too whiny, not accepting responsibility.

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it was more like assault with a stuffed pillow

When you put it that way, it doesn't sound so bad what I did.

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On the plus side, your actions have at least revealed something interesting about your T, some undercurrent of her not accepting your anger which is rightfully yours to express. After all the anger has its roots elsewhere and that 'elsewhere' is why you are there, right?

I was thinking about this very thing on my way home from classes today. I thought how my T makes me feel I must censor my anger or else be punished, much like what I experienced with my parents growing up. It is like a re-enactment that way, and I am a helpless child all over again.

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Nevertheless, your T is telling you that in her eyes, this is unacceptable behavior.

Yeah, she has all the power to tell me what I can and can't express. She didn't like me slamming the door because it felt like I was the one with the power in that moment.

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he had this look of mock shock and horror on his face and said "ooohhh you slammed the door? Oh my how frightening" and he smiled at me and told me that is the least he would expect a client to do at times.

Oh, that is so much the reaction I wish my T would have. I am so glad for you, TN, to have this newT. Even though he is a guy (only bad bcuz I am afraid of developing erotic transference to any male T) I kinda wish you could share him with me. Even as a temporary consult.

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And about the door knocking and her office arrangement and the sign... my view is that she is making her clients responsible for something that SHE should be taking care of for them. The right to privacy and not being interrupted during session (however long it is) is something that a client deserves. SHE needs to get herself "un-scatter-brained" enough to take charge of the sign.

Thank you for this bit of support. I initially asked my T to take care of the sign, and she said she could try, except that she knew she would fail at it so she couldn't make promises. I didn't know what I was supposed to say to that. Isn't acknowledging her weakness and limitations a good thing? Even if she SHOULD do it, I can't make her. So I have to accept that she won't do it. I did tell her that I didn't think I wanted to see her at that office anymore because of the way it felt: not secure.

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I was totally horrified and absolutely agree with TN that I don't care how much a T struggles in an area, it's there professional responsibility to solve the problem.

Well, I just may put it that way to my T and she how she responds. She might come back with, "OK then, I will always end your sessions 5 minutes before the hour, regardless of what time we start, in order to avoid interaction with other clients." Then I would be losing time with her. But I don't think she would mind.

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I cannot believe your T says she never gets angry, that makes her one of two things, a liar or way deeper in denial than a T should EVER allow themselves to be. I'm going with denial or she would not have had such an overreaction to you slamming a door.

I am wondering how many readers here have ever witnessed their T's being angry though. AG, I don't remember you ever seeing your T show or admit to anger. I am just wondering if it is possible. Maybe some of them are that near to perfection in the emotional world. But it would not be a world I can conceive of, that's for certain.

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My feelings, no matter what they were, including anger, was always accepted and understood and normalized.... and he reassured me that it was perfectly ok for me to scream, curse, holler and even throw things if it didn't damage anything, but he would draw the line at injuring him, myself or destroying things in his offfice.

Wow. Such freedom to be angry without judgment. I would like to know what that's like. Do you think one reason my T has stricter boundaries about anger is because being female she feels physically more vulnerable to clients? I guess her boundaries are hers to make, but they don't seem conducive to helping me work through some trauma. I can't even get to the grief because I am not allowed to work through the anger that's blocking it.

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It is NOT your fault that her information is available through Google. She's right, it is her information and evidently she needs to get better at guarding it.

In fairness, nothing I found out by googling was actually posted by my T but by others. She doesn't have so much control over what others do. She has an unlisted phone and address. I found it anyway through a records search that cost me less than $2. I don't see that there is anything she could have done to entirely eradicate the information, especially because she has a very uncommon name that stands out.

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He commented on the phone call and that it would have been nice if he had responded with "yeah, it was a long day, thanks for noticing" but that wasn't what our relationship was all about. He discussed how natural my concern for him was, and that it was fine I was talking about it, but this couldn't become about me taking care of him. I didn't pick up even an iota of a hint as to whether he was feeling stressed or not about his hours. NOTHING leaked through. It was never allowed to be about him or his feelings, even when I wanted it to be. That was the boundary and he held it with consummate skill.

This story brought up several things for me. My T always insists that she is really good at holding boundaries, and that our relationship is about me and never her. And yet...I do feel torn between having to take care of her and taking care of myself. There HAVE been several times my T has admitted she did not respond to my texts because she was having a rough day. Of course, usually I am the one pushing her and wanting to know why she wasn't there for me. She has to let me know that her world outside the office doesn't revolve around me, right? But then I feel guilty for needing her. And then I get mad that I feel guilty, that I feel I have to take care of her if I want her to take care of me. But how can I get mad at her for telling me things I have sometimes demanded to know?

AG, I think I test T with my neediness way more than most people here have dreamed of doing (at least lately). Yesterday, for instance, I sent her 9 texts after our session. I did not demand a response because that is our agreement. But once in a while she will reply to a message. After 9 messages and several hours later, a reply came that Could I ask her those questions in session? So then I asked her if I had annoyed her with my texts, because I had only wanted to feel like she was listening. She responded that she had read them but it had been a hectic day and it would be too long to write the answers to my texts. So then I felt like a burden, even though she has told me I can text her. I told her though that I understood and was sorry and goodnight. And I haven't bothered her today. I do think she has a right to protect her time and space outside of the office. I need to realize she isn't superhuman and has needs of her own to take care of.

Thank u all for your support. I am typed out. Not used to these long posts. It's like mental aerobics and I'm outta shape. I see T again tomorrow afternoon. I will try to post an update after I fail my math test.

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I am wondering how many readers here have ever witnessed their T's being angry though. AG, I don't remember you ever seeing your T show or admit to anger. I am just wondering if it is possible. Maybe some of them are that near to perfection in the emotional world. But it would not be a world I can conceive of, that's for certain.

MH, no need to respond, I know you're typed out. But I did want to respond to this. I only experienced my T as angry on a very few occasions, but it was when he was being protective of me. But I remember one session when he was being a superbeing of non-defensiveness, I looked at him and said "please tell me that in your personal life you get angry or defensive." He laughed and said of course he did, because he was trying to get his needs met, but that didn't apply in our relationship. So he made it clear that of course he got angry when it was appropriate. Don't get me wrong, MH, I guarentee you that sometime in the time we worked together my T at a minimum got annoyed and I'm pretty sure there may have even been anger (I know what a pain in the ass I could be) but he never showed it to me.

And one more thing, than I promise I'll behave.

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And then I get mad that I feel guilty, that I feel I have to take care of her if I want her to take care of me. But how can I get mad at her for telling me things I have sometimes demanded to know?

That's her boundary to hold MH. I don't care what you're doing or how you're pushing or what you're demanding. Holding a boundary means not giving in. Just like a parent who can't give into a child's tantrum and give them something that's not good for them, a T should not provide information that serves their needs and not the clients, no matter how much the client wants to know it. I've joked about this but I honestly believe it. You know I had (ha! have) a very strong attraction to my therapist. I swear to you that if I walked into a session and took off all my clothes, the man wouldn't blink. He'd just tell me to get dressed, then say let's talk about why you were naked. Trust me, I have taken a run at his boundaries every way I could, stealth, frontal assault, climb over, dig under, humor, anger, pity, begging, screaming, you name it. He just calmly stopped me every time. But you see, there's one very important thing. He is very clear that what he is doing is the right thing to do so that he doesn't start to doubt himself when I push. Makes a lot of difference. I know later on in our relationship when I expressed to him how important it was for me that he held those boundaries (as painful as it could be and despite how much I hated them at times), he thanked me because he said it helped him feel confident in the way he worked.

I hope it goes well tomorrow MH.

AG

MH, Good luck on your math test!