Ask a Therapist

It may occasionally happen in therapy that your therapist hurts your feelings or upsets you in some way, and this naturally would leave you feeling misunderstood and unsettled, and perhaps a sense of a loss of trust, and you may even want to end therapy with that therapist.

However, my suggestion would be that you take it directly to your therapist and talk about it in the following session. That allows a therapist to understand the impact of their words. It also shows that you’re bringing your openness and your authenticity, and you are creating a sort of healthy boundary with your therapist by letting them know that they upset you. And the key would be how your therapist responds to this.

You may want to say something like, “You said this… and that stayed with me and I’ve been thinking about it and it’s upset me.” Because what you may find is that by being totally open and honest you’re creating a space with the therapist, where there’s a possibility to repair this rupture that has happened. And in doing that, there can often be breakthrough afterwards.

So, I think the thing to consider is how your therapist actually responds to what you’re telling them. If they dismiss your feelings or minimise your feelings in some way, or don’t take any accountability or responsibility for what they said, that would be possibly a cause for concern. Also, if it’s a repeating pattern, if it happens a lot.

Because trust is crucial in therapy, and if you can bring yourself fully into the room with your therapist, let them know exactly how you’re feeling, there can be trust and growth and depth to the relationship. And this can help you then do the same in other relationships.