Well I am not sure what happened in your case and if you felt that the therapist was actually in some way trying to ask to fall in love with her/him.

But you have to understand that it is their job to listen to you, validate you and help you get over your bad experiences or develope strength and abilities to move on.
In many ways because someone is stopping and really listening to you and giving you undevided attention, it is very easy to fall in love or feel love and confusion.

In therapy it does become all about the patient. Well, isnt that what some really love? And if the therapist is of the opposite sex it is very normal to think, oh, finally someone who is perfect for me. So then begins transference. A patient feels that finally someone understands them, validates them and does give them an undivided attention that perhaps they never thought they got, in childhood or even a relationship.

Someone that will be comforting all the time and a patient can even call the therapist in a time of trouble outside therapy. So think about it, a mother figure, a trust figure and entity that really understands. Well, that is what people want in a partner, or wanted as a child. It can almost be like really thinking there is a Santa Clause and then be told there isn't, it can be disappointing.

A good therapist is suppose to give the patient that feeling of trust and comfort so that therapy can progress. So if you start to put regulations on that what will happen is that therapists will get more and more clynical and cold and distant and the valuable trust and comfort will be gone.

Perhaps what therapists need to do is kindly keep telling patients that they are there to support and that does not intail a romantic relationship. Perhaps that needs to take place in the very beginning of therapy. It is important that there is someone that can do the job of helping a patient feel understood and be a comfort to that patient as they try to explore their emotions and sort them out and heal.


Open Eyes