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ArtleyWilkins · Oct 12, 2019 at 10:13 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SoAn

@susannahsays : when a few months ealier, i had talked about my attraction to him, he later told me (literally) that he found me an attractive woman, and that he would have wanted to get to know me better if we had met in a different context (because we do have some chemistry in terms of humour etc).
When I asked him if that meant he wanted to do the same things as I did (I had said something about wanting to kiss him), he said: 'Well, I just said I found you an attractive woman, so.' (or something similar).

Perhaps he said so because one of my issues is that with men, things always turn sexual, and I had the conviction/feeling that they cannot really be be interested in a non-sexual manner. Also I have have often been treated disrespectfully by the men I was interested in. Perhaps he told me to show that a man can also be attracted to me, yet still also be actually interested in me as a person, AND treat me respectfully without crossing my boundaries. When I asked him why he had told me, he said it wouldn't be fair if he had NOT told me. He is under supervision and it was decided in supervision that he would tell me.

That may be true, but there are other ways to address your issues with men without him crossing that boundary. It does seem inappropriate, and he may have regretted it just as soon as it came out of his mouth which may be why he is open to you speaking to his supervisor about it. However, if he, on the other hand, thinks it is perfectly appropriate to express such things to a client, that seems like a red flag that should be considered when deciding if staying in therapy with this therapist is a good idea.

Personally, I have never had a therapist say or do anything remotely inappropriate that would have made me think I needed to speak to a supervisor about. If I did, I would have been out of there in an instant. Don't stay with a therapist that feels at all inappropriate; the stakes are too high.