The Importance of Being Angry at Your Therapist
Story time
25 years later my elementary school teacher, let’s call her Claire, apologized for mildly traumatizing us students. This occurred at my Elementary School reunion and that was the first thing she said, “I’m sorry!,” as she bounded over to a group of us examining the passage of two and a half decade on each others’ faces.
Claire had run a tight-ship, as in she ran her classroom as if she was the commanding officer of a US Naval destroyer. Needless to say, this dictatorial style of classroom management clashed with the constitution of many of us children who had only known that positive-reinforcing, nurturing style of pedagogy one typically receives at a hippyish California elementary school. Claire didn’t tolerate mistakes in her classroom and the last thing I expected was for her to own up to one of her own.
Later, at the buffet table, we got to talking and upon learning I was a therapist Claire told me her therapy story. She said she used to feel really angry with her therapist. Claire was sincerely struggling in her life and would ask her therapist “so what do you think I should do?” Her The therapist would, invariably, give her nothing. Not only that, and this is where Claire said she would really become enraged, sometimes the therapist had the temerity to ask her, “what do you want to do?” This continued and at one particular bitter stand-off Claire asked her therapist if she treated all her patients like this.
The therapist responded, “no, just you.” Claire described this as a pivotal moment from which she began to see her pattern of relying on others to make decisions about her own life. I didn’t get the details but she said it was related to her childhood and described insightfully things a therapist might label as “codependence” or “enmeshment.” It was understood that some serious therapeutic journeying had occurred.
What really struck me in this interaction was Claire’s description of her anger at her therapist,
being the recipient of it once I knew it’s intensity, and also the fact that she continued seeing that therapist despite that feeling. That is not easy to do and so often the impulse is to leave and protect yourself, abandon the ship. In my experience, both in my own therapy and with clients, if you are feeling intensely about therapy it often means that you are treading on vital, important ground. Of course, that is not always the case and sometimes the therapist or therapy is just not the right fit. But often, having the courage and perseverance to explore these difficult feelings, ones it would be so much easier to avoid, can lead to healing insight or even transformational Change.
Claire said she was doing great now, she had quit teaching elementary school and was now happily teaching drama to adults. This career change made a lot of sense— the one bright spot of Claire’s elementary school class was she orchestrated on a lavish, fully choreographed, medieval pageant with all the students and their parents in attendance. (We had a fully roasted boar at our class’ banquet table). This career change sounded like what would happen if Claire was making decisions for herself: less children and more dramatic art. I wondered what would have happened to Claire
If she hadn’t let herself be pissed at her therapist and worked through that anger, if she would still be frantically telling children what to do because she had no idea how to tell herself. Who’s to say, therapy is not the only way.
But out of all the changes I encountered at that reunion, lines etched into skin I remember as soft as Play-Doh, towering teachers now hunched and shrunken, kids now with kids of their own, Claire’s was the most astounding.
About The Author
Alex is an associate marriage and family therapist (AMFT134332) supervised by Jeremy Mast, MS, MDiv, LMFT, CSAT (CAMFT90961). Alex’s experience includes trauma work, psychodynamic training, crisis intervention, and providing therapy in private practice High School and correctional facility settings. In his free time, Alex enjoys surfing and writing short stories and poems.
