Is it normal to be angry at your therapist, and should you say so in the session? Read why talking openly about hurt and anger with your therapist is valuable.
You have left the session, and while you wait at the bus stop something is boiling inside you. Your therapist had forgotten an important detail you told them last week. Or, just as you had brought up the most difficult subject, they said, "We're out of time." Perhaps a sentence they said felt as if it belittled what you were telling them. On the way home, two options keep turning over in your head: going to the next session as if nothing had happened, or never going again. Yet there is a third way: being angry at your therapist and talking about it in therapy. In this article I explain why getting angry with your therapist is a common and often valuable experience, where this anger may come from, how you can put it into words in the session, and how, in well-conducted therapy, this conversation can strengthen the relationship.
Is It Normal to Be Angry at My Therapist?
Yes, it is entirely normal. Therapy is a real relationship formed between two people, and as in every relationship, hurt, disappointment and anger can arise here too. In fact, because the subjects discussed in therapy touch a person's most sensitive places, it is not surprising that these feelings are felt more intensely than in everyday relationships.
When many clients become angry with their therapist, they first blame themselves: "They're trying to help me, and I'm being ungrateful." Or, conversely, they see their anger as proof that therapy is not working. Both reactions are understandable, but the anger itself is neither ingratitude nor a sign of failure. Anger is a signal telling you that a boundary has been crossed, that a need has not been met or that something feels unfair to you. Examining this signal in therapy often sheds light on other areas of your life as well.
It is also worth remembering that anger is not always experienced loudly or openly. Being angry at your therapist sometimes appears as quiet resentment, a reluctance that comes on before the session, a sarcastic inner voice responding to the therapist's words, or a withdrawal along the lines of "They don't understand anyway." In Turkey, many people grow up learning not to show their anger directly, especially towards elders or people in a "teacher" position. That is why noticing the anger is the first step, before saying it. Asking yourself, "What have I been carrying towards my therapist since the last session?" can make these hidden feelings visible.
Why Might You Be Angry With Your Therapist?
Being angry with a therapist can stem from very different causes. Some relate to something the therapist actually did, others to your past experiences. Often the two are combined.
A genuine mistake by the therapist
Therapists are human too, and they make mistakes. Mixing up an appointment, forgetting an important piece of information, making the wrong comment at the wrong time, offering a suggestion without listening to you enough, and so on. In these situations your anger is largely a response to a real event, and the therapist is expected to acknowledge it.
The framework of therapy
Arrangements such as sessions having a fixed length, cancellation rules, the therapist going on holiday or responding only to a limited extent to messages between sessions are necessary for therapy to run within a safe structure. But these boundaries can at times feel like rejection, like not being cared about, or like a message that "I'm just a job to them".
Facing a difficult truth
Sometimes the therapist gently points to something you do not want to see: your part in a relationship, a decision you keep postponing or a recurring pattern. Even when it is justified, this confrontation can hurt, and anger may be the first form that hurt takes.
Familiar feelings from the past
Without realising it, your therapist may remind you of someone from your past: a critical parent, an uninterested teacher, an elder who did not understand you. In this case the anger you feel can be much bigger than the present event. In psychology this is called transference; for more detail you can have a look at the article what is transference.
Slow progress
You have been coming to therapy for weeks, but you are still experiencing the same anxiety and the same unhappiness. In this situation, anger can be directed at the therapist or at the process itself: "Why am I still not well after all this time?"
Why Is Not Saying It a Loss?
Instead of saying they are angry with their therapist, many clients choose to carry their anger in silence. Behind this there are often thoughts such as:
- "My therapist will be hurt or will go cold on me."
- "I have no right to criticise my therapist; they're the expert."
- "If I say I'm angry, there'll be a row."
- "It would be rude; they put so much effort in."
These worries often reflect patterns that operate in everyday life too. Someone who never voices their anger behaves in the same way towards their therapist. But unspoken anger does not disappear; it leaks out in other ways:
- Arriving late for sessions or cancelling them
- Talking about superficial subjects in the session and hiding important things
- Not doing homework
- Saying "Everything's fine" while quietly drifting away
- One day quietly giving up therapy
These behaviours mean that therapy is interrupted at exactly the moment when something needs to be worked on. Being angry at your therapist and saying so, on the other hand, can open the door to real change.
When you voice your anger in therapy, you may experience for the first time that a relationship can survive anger.
How Can Being Angry at My Therapist Become an Opportunity in Therapy?
Unlike everyday relationships, the relationship with a therapist is a space where the feelings that arise can be talked about safely. That is why being angry at your therapist, when handled well, can bring several important gains.
A new relational experience: For someone who, as a child, was punished, deprived of affection or mocked when they showed anger, the relationship continuing despite their having expressed anger is a profound experience. When the therapist listens without becoming defensive or punishing, the person's belief that "If I show my anger, I'll lose people" can be shaken.
Seeing patterns live: The anger you feel towards your therapist may be a small example of a pattern you also experience in other relationships in your life. Talking about it in the session, in the moment, can be far more vivid and instructive than recounting events that happened in the past.
The skill of repairing relationships: Psychotherapy research shows that noticing and repairing tensions between client and therapist can strengthen the therapeutic relationship. When a rupture occurs, talking about it, repairing it and carrying on is an extremely important skill in human relationships.
More suitable work: If your anger contains genuine criticism of how therapy is working, for example a feeling that the goals are unclear or that the therapist is insisting on a method that does not suit you, saying so can allow the process to be reorganised to fit you. For situations in which you feel therapy is not progressing, the article therapy isn't working may also offer some guidance.
How Can You Tell Your Therapist You Are Angry?
Putting anger into words can feel difficult, especially if you are not used to doing so. The suggestions below can make this conversation easier.
Note the feeling
If you felt angry after a session, make a short note so that you do not forget it before the next session: What happened, what did you feel, how did your body react, what went through your mind? This note makes it easier to raise the subject.
Raise it at the start of the session
Leaving difficult subjects to the last minutes of a session leaves no time to discuss them. Starting with "There's something about last week's session I'd like to talk about" opens up enough space for the conversation.
Use simple, direct language
You do not have to construct perfect sentences. For example:
- "Last week the session ended just as I started to cry, and I felt as if I'd been left halfway."
- "What you said about my mother made me angry; I felt you didn't know her well enough."
- "This is hard to say, but I think we haven't been making progress here in recent weeks, and I'm angry about that."
Talk face to face, not by message
It may be tempting to convey your anger in a long message between sessions. However, conversations like this go much more productively in the session, where a two-way dialogue is possible. If writing a message makes you feel better, you can bring what you have written to the session and read it out.
Observe the response
After you have expressed your anger, pay attention to how your therapist responds and to what you feel in the face of that response. This observation is also valuable material to discuss.
Let's say that when someone learns their therapist will be going on two weeks' leave, they say nothing, but they arrive twenty minutes late for the next session and do not want to talk. When the therapist gently says they have noticed this change, the person at first denies it, then voices their anger by saying, "You're leaving too, just like everyone else." This sentence is connected to the abandonment they felt years ago, when they were sent to boarding school. What is being discussed at that moment is no longer just a period of leave, but a wound the person has carried throughout their life.
How Should a Therapist Respond to Your Anger?
In an ethical, skilled therapeutic setting, a therapist's response to your anger generally has the following features:
- Curiosity: they try to understand what the anger is about and how it feels.
- Non-defensiveness: they do not rush to justify themselves or to offer explanations.
- Taking responsibility: if they made a genuine mistake, they acknowledge it and may apologise.
- Maintaining boundaries: while trying to understand your anger, they also maintain the framework of therapy; not every instance of anger means the rules need to change.
- Making connections: at an appropriate time, they may suggest exploring together how this experience connects with other relationships in your life.
There is an important distinction here: anger is a feeling, and every feeling can be talked about. However, behaviour that threatens the physical safety of the therapist or the client, insults or threats fall outside the framework of therapy. Saying you are angry and attacking in anger are not the same thing. If you find it hard to control your anger in everyday life, the article on anger management may also be helpful.
When Is It Necessary to Go Beyond Talking?
If you have voiced your anger and talked about it but something still does not feel right, you might consider the following:
- If, even though the same subject has been discussed several times, you continue to feel misunderstood.
- If hurt about the relationship is markedly reducing your wish to continue therapy despite these conversations.
- If you believe that core principles such as confidentiality, respect or safety have been breached in therapy.
In these situations, you can also talk openly with your therapist about options such as taking a break from therapy for a while, redefining the goals, ending therapy or being referred to another professional. Even a conversation like this is a valuable experience in learning to end a relationship in a healthy way rather than silently walking out of it.
How Is Anger Addressed in Therapy?
In individual therapy, anger that arises in the relationship with the therapist is worked with in different ways in different approaches, but with shared care.
In cognitive behavioural therapy, anger towards the therapist can be examined like any other emotion: What was the situation that triggered the anger, what automatic thoughts arose in that moment ("They don't care about me", "They're making fun of me"), what is the evidence for these thoughts, and could there be another explanation? This work builds a skill the person can also use in their everyday relationships.
In schema therapy, anger experienced with the therapist is often seen as the moment a schema is triggered. For example, someone with an "emotional deprivation" schema may relive the feeling that "Nobody really cares about me" at a small lapse of attention by the therapist. The therapist uses this moment to recognise the person's unmet need and, within boundaries, to offer a different experience.
In psychodynamic approaches too, feelings towards the therapist sit at the heart of therapy, and their connections with past relationships are explored together.
Anger towards the therapist is also common when working with children and adolescents: a child who pushes the rules in the playroom, "accidentally" throws the therapist's toy or refuses to accept that the session has ended expresses their anger through behaviour more than words. Here too the therapist keeps the same stance, naming the child's feeling while holding the boundary gently but firmly.
Whatever the approach, the shared aim is to understand what the anger is saying, to learn to express it safely and to experience that the relationship can hold this feeling.
Frequently Asked Questions
I got angry at my therapist but I don't know whether I was right; should I still say so?
Yes. You do not have to work out on your own whether you were right. Sharing your anger allows you to look at the event together and to understand jointly both the therapist's part and the factors feeding your reaction.
If I say I'm angry, will my therapist stop seeing me?
Expressing anger is not a reason to end therapy. On the contrary, it is one of the important feelings that are expected to be talked about in therapy. The therapist approaching this feeling with curiosity and respect is one of the core features of the therapeutic relationship.
Does being angry at my therapist mean therapy is going badly?
No. Sometimes, quite the opposite, it shows that the relationship has become safe enough and that difficult feelings can now come out. What really matters is whether the anger can be talked about and what happens after that conversation.
Is it harder to express anger in online therapy?
For some people the screen makes it easier to voice a feeling; for others it creates distance. In online sessions you can express your anger in the same way; it is also helpful to include hurts specific to the online process, such as connection problems or technical glitches, in the conversation.
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Eda Erkan Alapala
Klinik Psikolog. İstanbul Kent Üniversitesi Klinik Psikoloji Tezli Yüksek Lisans mezunu; bilişsel davranışçı terapi, çocuk merkezli oyun terapisi ve çocuk-ergen psikoterapisi alanlarında eğitimlerini tamamlamıştır.
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