Yearning0723 - So I see there are 91 replies here already and I'll be honest I haven't read them all so maybe I've missed relevant facts . Mind if I opinionate based on just your first post?

First, I see why you would be bothered. Thankfully my T has said "I care about you" period! Not often, but has said it. I would be bothered too if he said something like "I care about you, but I say that to all my clients." If that was how he said it, totally out of the blue, I'd be like what the F was that!?

Here's the thing though, it sounds like you asked her to say she cares. If I asked my T if he cares about me I might get the same response "yes, like I care about all of my clients." In this case I could see her having a therapeutic reason for not giving you the response you wanted. If your T is normally warm and your gut feeling is she does care, you might want to consider this was tough love. Therapy is meant to challenge you after all.

For starters you cant really ask a person to say they care, especially not without asking yourself why you need them to say it! It sounds like you tried too hard to make her say it, imagine being put in her shoes. What would it mean if she finally did say it anyways? It sounds like some kind of enactment to me, some kind of transference related feeling.

Also, you said you cant trust her if she doesn't say she cares, but she did say that she cares, she just qualified it so that you could not use it to feel special. For example, were you really asking her to care more about you than her other clients? I don't know that it was an emotionally healthy ask I guess. It seems like a therapist should not give in to these kind of things too if she didn't think it would help you. If she thinks you are using feeling cared for in a special way to avoid and disassociate from realities you should be facing right now, that could be why she said it that way.

The painful truth is, she is probably being honest. Does she care? Of course! She's a human being listening to you, hearing intimate stories etc., unless she's a sociopath she cares, but she cares about many people and probably doesn't feel as attached as you might. But... if you've had a gut feeling all along she doesn't care and has felt cold/distant always trust your gut and find a new T. Gut feelings are almost all of the time spot on, the tough thing is listening to your gut when you don't like what it's telling you. If you wonder if she might be making a therapeutic stand I would ask .