Do not ask your therapist to get rid of your feelings.

Recently I had a session with a young man who complained of angry outbursts. He wanted them to stop. When I questioned him further, he explained his very difficult and uncomfortable situation.

He had relocated to a new country three years ago as a young adult, following his parents, who had wanted the move. He didn’t speak the language, nor did his family.  His current girlfriend, a native of the new country, was unsure about how much she wanted to commit to him and didn’t see herself leaving her home in the future – no matter how much he disliked it. The culture around him felt “lazy” and disorganized and reacted to him with hostility or indifference when he tried to do the basic things – open a new bank account, rent an apartment, set up the internet – anything at all. 

The accumulation of low-level (and not-so-low-level) traumatic incidents was wearing. Explaining oneself over (and over) to people whose cultural response is a non-response is in itself a crucible. No wonder he was angry! He hadn’t chosen this! 

Yet, this patient wasn’t interested in understanding that anger was a logical response to feeling powerless, and that the solution might be to listen. 

The angry part of him was mounting a protest that the whole situation was unfair and untenable, as well as frightening and potentially hopeless, for his anger was caught up in love and loss, as anger often is. 

Anger is the surface emotion that often hides grief, or even mourning. He was fighting the possible loss of his family and girlfriend on the one hand, and his identity on the other. Either conform and make everyone happy, or choose your own path, and feel terribly alone. 

The angry outbursts were about the tension between these two poles. Everyone and everything was irritating, and he was irritated with himself. Blowing up at those closest to him was – paradoxically- the only way to express his ambivalence. 

Yet he asked me to help him stop the anger, as quickly as possible. He did not want to think about his ambivalence, or his potential choices. 

He wanted breathing exercises and meditation to make the anger go away. 

Now, I don’t think it’s a good thing to go blowing up at people or saying hurtful things you’ll regret. But as a therapist that uses psychodynamic theory along with techniques from integrative therapies (notably, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy) there is no clinical approach that will take away a feeling. 

A feeling is there to tell you something. 

Admittedly – that “something” may not seem logical; it may definitely not be convenient… but that’s why it’s there. 

Sometimes we need distance – an observing quality that we can develop – to notice the feelings without acting upon them. There are many techniques for creating this distance which will allow us to think more deeply – and more importantly - generate new choices for moving forward. 

With integrative psychotherapy, we try to do both. We notice the feelings without acting out. We don’t try to devalue them or say they’re “wrong” because they inconvenience us or show us a side of ourselves we don’t like. 

Ironically, when we make space for whatever feeling is there, it tends to dissipate or at least create a lot less pressure than when we fight it. We can notice where it is in the body (pressure in the eyes, throat, stomach…) and notice too that if we can just feel it, it’s not so scary. 

For some people, being angry is “ego dystonic” - this means it is threatening to their sense of who they are, and who they think they should be. When this happens, people want “bad” feelings to go away, or they will even tell me (angrily) how they are never, ever angry.

And while I am all for the calming techniques of breathing exercises or yoga or meditation - those who teach these methods understand that they are not there to make feelings go away… but to help us gain perspective and peace. 

Perspective and peace allows one to make creative choices, whereas anger or anxiety freeze this process, or lead us into something rigid, something that doesn’t feel like a choice, but a compromise. 

And yes, compromise is sometimes inevitable, but most of us can choose what we want to compromise. The freedom of personal, subjective, discernment can seem daunting, and for some people, conformity can feel like a relief rather than dealing with one’s own pesky desires. 

So, a final question - what is really therapeutic, after all? Is the goal to no longer feel unpleasant things, and ask the therapist to “take them away”? If I were an anesthesiologist, this would make sense. I could knock people unconscious and the work of getting better would fall to a surgeon moving things around internally. 

Maybe this is the fantasy at play when people hope meditation will help their anger - not that it won’t, but… it also won’t. At the end of the meditation session, you must return to your life as it is, unless you want to make changes. 

Is therapy about making changes, or feeling pleasant things? These don’t have to be incompatible. Just food for thought. Comment if you’d like to share your perspective.