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Originally Posted by RaineD
I think therapists can feel love towards their clients. Otherwise, my therapist lied to me before he died. I don't think he did because that would have been a weird and unnecessary thing to do.
For a long time, I felt a lot of shame for having feelings of love towards my therapist. I don't know where that shame came from, but based on a lot of things I read, I know shame about love and attachment towards one's therapist is quite common. One theory is that if someone learns in childhood that loving and being attached to another results in something bad, such as rejection, neglect, being hurt, or even being shamed by the attachment figure, then that negative experience is programmed into the child, and, as an adult, the person feels shame whenever they feel love and attachment. The shame is like a warning signal: don't have those feelings; they will result in something bad. Don't know if this is true. It's just a theory I read. Psychology is full of theories.
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This fits with my experience. I've told my T that when I've started to feel love for someone, like in a romantic relationship or otherwise (including the first time I felt it for my H), my automatic reaction is "Oh, ****." Because I feel that it's almost an imposition on the other person, like they wouldn't want to deal with LT being in love with them. There's definitely shame there. I think some comes from teen years, with my mom suggesting some of my platonic or romantic love for people was inappropriate. Then there were a few people who bailed on/abandoned me after I shared love feelings (a teacher, a boyfriend, on some level ex-MC), and even a guy who never called me again after I said simply "I like you." So of course I have shame involving any sort of love feelings for ex-MC and T.
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The best thing my therapist did for me was accept my love as something completely normal and natural. He did not question it. He did not analyzer it. He did not assume it was romantic or sexual. He did not assume it was just transference. He didn't question whether it was "real" or "because of therapy." He was not threatened by it. He was not afraid of it. He was not disgusted by it. And he did not shame me for it.
That was very important to me, to have him accept those big feelings without making them seem weird or abnormal.
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That's great that he did that for you. At one time, I thought ex-MC was doing that for me, when I expressed love earlier on in the relationship. I said on the phone, "So if I love, you, is that OK?" And without hesitating, he replied, "That's OK!" Apparently he thought that was more paternal/platonic (which it mostly was), and was OK with it for that reason. Though he did seem to treat me differently the next session, in a bad way (like pushing how great H is). But when I said it to him in the email that led to the rupture, he said (later) it was because he saw it as different then, apparently more romantic (T also said my email sounded romantic). So apparently then, it wasn't OK. Even though it likely was mostly stemming from transference.
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Anyway, I think American society in general is very uncomfortable with the idea of love outside certain very narrowly drawn contexts. People also have a hard time divorcing love from sex. They have a hard time conceptualizing true platonic love outside familial relationships. That's why friends rarely tell each other "i love you." My best friend and I tell each other that, and I have a few other friends I say that to also. But I think close friends should love each other, but society in general has such a hard time with it.
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I agree about this. I recall once saying "I love you" to a close friend over text, then being terrified as to how she'd reply (she said she loved me too and it's been fine). But I rarely say it to people besides my H, D, and parents. Well, I guess my aunt and some other family. I sort of told my T I have some "love feelings" for him and clarified they're platonic, and he said, "So basically it's just you like me a lot." I just kind of agreed, even though that's not the same to me. But as I said to him at another time, I wonder if just what I consider "love" is different from what many others do. Like it has a broader definition for me, but more narrow for many (most?) people.