I think that this would bother me. My T has never outright said “I care about you,” but he’s said similar things that make me believe he does. I’m not sure exactly how to word this for it to make sense, but it would bother me less because of him not saying those words, and more because of the unwillingness to do so (unless he actually did not care about me). To me, it seems like a strange, unnecessary boundary that creates a strange power dynamic to not say something like “I care about you” if it is true. I would venture that the vast majority of Ts care about their clients. It is the nature of the job. I care about the kids I nanny for; I care about the therapy clients who I shadow ffs. I care about them as people, and to be unwilling to say that (when I do truly care), to me, feels like being dishonest in a way. Like I feel insecure about the boundaries in other areas of the T-client relationship, so I need to enforce this “I won’t say these words” boundary to make myself feel better. I really don’t know how to communicate they way I feel about this, but I’m hoping this makes a little bit of sense.