Therapist shouting and yelling at me...

I cannot really imagine a time when the behaviours you describe are appropriate, and more importantly I cannot imagine situations when they would be effective for helping someone, which would be the only reason for acting in that way.

It would be a good idea to query any therapist as to why they are behaving in that way.

He thinks I am resisting therapy, which whether is true or not, has nothing to do with the fact that he is YELLING at me.

He launched into a tirade where I actually had to sit back and wait for it to be over and at the end the only appropriate response was "Do you feel better now?" at which point he started yelling again.

In a very calm voice I tried to tell him that he can say whatever he wishes (even repeat every word in the tirade) and I will gladly listen but he must CALM DOWN and speak to me in a normal tone of voice or I won't listen. Those are MY "boundaries." Unfortunately, every time we reached the part where I said "calm down" he would abruptly cut me off and start screaming again. Time and time again he REFUSED to let me finish my sentence.

Personally, I consider this immature, unprofessional, and worst of all disrespectful. If I wanted therapy from my deceased father or ex-fiance I would have asked them for it.

All I wanted him to understand was that I was willing to listen to anything he had to say if he would simply say it in a normal tone of voice. Is that asking too much? Verbal abuse from the past has closed me completely off from hearing anyone who has to yell and scream, regardless of how many degrees they may have or how much money they make.

Personally, I would respect a peaceful, homeless man more than an egotistical, supposedly professional, well-trained, $250.00 per hour therapist who says "I deserve it."

He tells me that this is HIS way of therapy and because I am NOT the therapist, I have no right to tell HIM how he should conduct the therapy (yelling or not).

This just doesn't sound right to me. My gut is telling me to run for the hills even though he has made himself available to me, even on his personal vacation. No question he has gone out of his way to be there for me but if this is 'being there' perhaps he should just go be somewhere else.

Lordie, I'm confused.

Thanks for the validation.

Hi If you love to be shouted at then it may be worth $250 per hour to pay him. If you don't like it why are you seeing this therapist?

I too would resist therapy, or any other service from someone who wanted to yell at me.

He tells me that this is HIS way of therapy and because I am NOT the therapist, I have no right to tell HIM how he should conduct the therapy (yelling or not).

You are the client who is paying for the service, and you have a right to request that he provide the service in a certain way. If I do not like the service I get from someone I shop elsewhere.

Would you allow a hairdresser to cut your hair they wanted to, and ignore your wishes because they are the hairdresser and they cut hair their way?

arewethereyet wrote:Is there EVER an appropriate time or situation for a therapist to continuously and repeatedly yell, shout, argue and interrupt his patient while that patient is trying to express their thoughts?

NO. And if that was my therapist I would be filing a complaint against him.
He is behaving very unethical and is very abusive towards you. Very abusive.

He is behaving like the child and you are the adult (perhaps something repeating from your past?)

It is very important you get yourself out of this relationship. Find a new therapist to support you in this matter.

I am in the middle of filing a complaint against my ex therapist and I am in therapy again with a different therapist which is working out good. Not all therapists are like this - this is a bad one and every governing body they belong to WANTS to hear of black sheep members.

Get yourself out of this very abusive relationship.

No.

You need to terminate therapy and report him. From your description it sounds like you are providing more therapy than he is.

After reading your comments I feel like collapsing with relief. I so desperately needed some validation and was starting to let myself believe this was actually okay because of all he has done to help me thus far.

The fee I mentioned I do not actually pay. I asked him once what his flat rate was and that is what he told me. I did tell him he was overpriced but he is (compared to several others in the area) and I asked him why and he said "I deserve it." Alrighty then. He is actually a psychiatrist who has a few therapy clients and has other therapists working for him but occasionally will come across someone he decides to help himself - not sure what he bases THAT on, especially considering he determined before committing to my therapy that I was borderline w/PTSD.

It feels good to have a place to get this out so thank you. This morning (before I had read your posts) I decided I would try speaking with him once more time. He seems to justify his behavior as part of the therapy because he says I turn my anger inward (even though I was yelling and screaming right back at him as an automatic reaction) and in the recent past he has alluded to the fact that he is trying to get me to learn how to express my anger by deliberately screaming things he already knows will upset me. One of the more recent times he did this, no matter how long or loud I yelled at him he wouldn't accept it as expressing my anger. He wanted me to say "I'm angry." So screaming was not expressing my anger but calmly stating, "I'm angry." was. I don't get it. Did I mention he reminded me I wasn't the therapist, he was? Like you, I wasn't sure about that either.

What happened to spark things last night was that I would not be home (this is now phone therapy due to a change in his schedule) for the normal session Thursday so we did it yesterday. He wanted to know what I was doing Thursday and I told him I had a date (MAJOR joke) and then just said I have stuff to do. I was so excited to tell him about my weekend because it was the first time I had been out of the house in months to do anything enjoyable because of severe depression. Never bathing, house a disaster, that kind of depression. He asked what I did and I told him briefly 3 things which kept me out for over 7 hours (unheard of for me). I wanted to speak a little about my photography because he never knew about this hobby (or any hobby) and it was the first 'happy' positive thing I had ever told him but he didn't ask. After relaying my weekend his only response was "What are you doing on Thursday?" This crushed me. All of my rare joy seemingly meant NOTHING. He was fixated on Thursday and so I told him it was nothing which infuriated him. He said as the therapist HE will decide what is important and what isn't and that's when he told me I wasn't the therapist. Of course this behavior made me decide I definitely would not be telling him, although I did say he was going to feel like a fool if I did. This pretty much became the beginning of the end of the session. By the way, I have a hair appointment on Thursday about an hour away and this was the only day it could be done. He has told me we can do therapy Mondays and/or Thursdays so the change meant nothing.

Anyway, he won't let me say this (cut me off every time I tried) so I will say it to you. I want therapy and want to get well. I appreciate the many times he did go above and beyond to be there for me. I can accept he has his own methods or techniques that I would not and could not understand (he told me that was because I am not a therapist) and that is fine too. All I want is for him to speak to me in a normal tone of voice because if he truly wants me to hear him it will never happen by screaming and cutting me off from stating important thoughts and feelings that I have. As soon as the yelling starts I shut down and will not be part of the process. It's simple. Calm down and I will hear him and do everything possible to learn from what he is saying. Otherwise, we are both wasting precious time.

Why would someone purposely take on a client (known to be the most difficult type) and then go through this? It just doesn't make sense. It feels like he wants to punish me for something.

Anyway, this was a long one and a bit redundant but I've had a lot building up for awhile. Now I am going to have a good cry.

Thank you so much for your support and advice. I though I was going crazier than I already am!

jo

It is very important you print out what you wrote here and put it somewhere safe in case you chose to complaint about him. Time can erase memories...

And I would really advice you to not contact him anymore

Sluagh,

The printout is a perfect idea. Thank you.

Call me crazy but is it possible, even remotely, that he actually IS using this as a technique to get my anger out? Could he perhaps be purposely imitating my verbally abuse father just to help me get out my rage?

Has anyone ever of something like that?

arewethereyet wrote:Could he perhaps be purposely imitating my verbally abuse father just to help me get out my rage?

Has anyone ever of something like that?

Sure. Or you filter authority figures as you view your father.

Sure. Or you filter authority figures as you view your father.

In other words, if that were the case then he really would not be out of line. That would make things extremely difficult, as I would never really know one way or the other. Then again, no one ever said therapy was easy did they?

Well, you seem to have clear senses. As much as senses can be. Everyone filters their world. But in any event, the way you describe events I would say you were unlucky enough to have a father with anger issues and found a therapist who has anger issues.

Oh yah, congratulations on your progress!! I would look for a new therapist. He seems stuck.

arewethereyet wrote:Call me crazy but is it possible, even remotely, that he actually IS using this as a technique to get my anger out? Could he perhaps be purposely imitating my verbally abuse father just to help me get out my rage?

No. There is NO therapeutic approach which uses abuse of ANY kind to get the client to 'get in touch with feelings'
No approach what so ever.

Listen to me, this is a very abusive situation you are in and you need to get out of it. You already have doubts about whether it 'really is abusive' by trying to find excuses and or minimising perhaps.

You are the client and under no circumstances is the therapist allowed to abuse you in any way.

Your therapist is acting very unethically and abusive. In the long popst you wrote I heard such alarming sentneces that I really have to urge yp to find some help else wehere.

It might be very difficult for you to leave your therapist as the attachement to your therapsit seems already to be strong (which is noirmal and should happen - but it should happen and be worked with! Not used to make you conform and do what your therapist telss you)

Under no circumstances has the therapist the right to shout at you, yell at you, undermine you in any shape or form.

This is NOT therapy. This is the therapist ACTING OUT and punishing you and trying to control you.

The longer you ask yourself whether this is ok etc the harder it will get to leave.

You already have doubts about whether it 'really is abusive' by trying to find excuses and or minimising perhaps.

Yes, there are always doubts. Being as I am not the professional, I wasn't aware if there could possibly be a specific technique as I had mentioned above.

In the long popst you wrote I heard such alarming sentneces that I really have to urge yp to find some help else wehere.

I am interested to know which sentences alarmed you the most. It's a learning process for me!

It might be very difficult for you to leave your therapist as the attachement to your therapsit seems already to be strong (which is noirmal and should happen - but it should happen and be worked with! Not used to make you conform and do what your therapist telss you)

This is interesting. I hope I am not saying too much here but very recently my erotic transference was discussed and I revealed a fantasy I had about him. He told me I was making great progress and he was really proud of me. At the end of the session I was having some sort of meltdown. He immediately said he wanted to speak the following day (no charge) and we had another full session. See why I'm afflicted? Anyway, it didn't go well.

The very next session he started the conversation by yelling at me about boundaries. Once again, another screaming tirade about me not respecting his boundaries, etc. It just went on and on. He also specifically spoke about the length of the sessions (ironically, the first time I was going to relay my fantasy to him I noticed the clock and time was up so I mentioned that we would end up going over time to which he replied, "go ahead." I decided not to. So we have good cop/bad cop which of course is going to make me hesitant. So I wonder if he is punishing me because of his own issues or if did or did not do something he just cannot handle appropriately.

After that I tried once again to explain that his Jekyll and Hyde routine was confusing me and that I thought the object of therapy was to integrate the two sides of the split. As a therapist trying to help a borderline to stop splitting I find it rather strange that he would act in a manner that would cause the opposite. I wonder why he wants to control me and what is in it for him???

You guys really don't have to read all of this or feel the need to respond (except for maybe those sentences you mentioned, Sluagh). I think I am just in a vent mode at this point but will try to curb any more long, drawn-out posts.

Again, I thank each one of you for taking the time to respond. It has been extremely helpful.