Quote:
Originally Posted by PurpleMirrors3
I thought I loved my ex-therapist, but in retrospect love shouldn’t have felt so painful. Most days I didn’t even like her - so obsessed or codependent might have been a better descriptive.
That said, I craved my therapist’s love intensely. We discussed it across many sessions, and the best I got back was that she cared about all of her clients. Those discussions triggered a really dark period in my life and unreciprocated love ultimately led to my retraumatization and re-enforced my deep seated fear that I am unlovable.
Love in therapy remains a pretty big trigger for me.
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I think this illustrates really well why love is such a tricky and painful issue. It's hard to see a best outcome. The therapist doesn't love the client (or doesn't use the word love) and the client can feel an existential rejection which leads to core hurt. The therapist does love the client and the client can experience a retraumatisation of "being special" (and all the associations of the language of abuse), of boundary breaches, and of unsafe practice. And yet, in many ways, a kind of love is inevitable.