Quote:
Originally Posted by Salmon77
I feel like saying "I think you are attractive" is different than saying "I am attracted to you." The first is not quite so bad to me, sort of like saying "you are pretty/beautiful/etc." I don't think a therapist should say that to a client either, most of the time, but it's not as direct or personal as "I am attracted to you." But maybe the other things he said would make that difference not matter.
That's a really good question to ask him. It seems to me that having an attraction and admitting it, does not mean a person has to act on that attraction in any way. But it helps to know what the boundaries are.
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I can see the difference. The way he said it suggested he meant he was attracted to me, because he said to him the difference between finding someone beautiful vs attractive is that he’s not always attracted to the person he finds beautiful.
When I asked if he thought I was attractive, he said “I think you’re very attractive.” And then when I asked if he thought I was sexually attractive, he said “I think you’re attractive and I think you’re physically attractive, so yes I think you’re sexually attractive.”
Today, I talked to him about my concerns about boundaries possibly getting blurred. He expressed that the line that won’t get crossed is having sexual contact. I kept saying that I felt like there should be a line before that, but he basically said that as long as whatever he shares is to help me, it’s ok, and nothing is off limits for me to share. I was like, “maybe we’re defining sexual contact differently, because in my mind there’s a lot of things people can do without having sexual contact.” I don’t know if he fully understood what I meant, so I’m still a little confused and will def need to talk about it more at my next session.