Personally, I feel like it's normal to want someone to care about you, whether it's your therapist, a friend, a coworker, family member, etc. With a therapist, you're telling them things that maybe you aren't telling/haven't told anyone else. If they didn't care, then, I don't know, you might as well just be telling them to a brick wall. Or a computer.

It could be about looking for something you didn't get in childhood. And/or that you aren't getting now, or at least not at the level you want. (When I say "you" here, I mean a client in general, not necessarily you in particular, Wheeler.)

I've struggled at times to believe that my therapist cares because he doesn't tend to actually state that care out loud in those words. Like, he won't even use the phrase "I care about you" with clients, he's said. He'll say, "I care about your well-being" or "I care about your success." That he only uses "I care about you" for those in his outside life. And that bothered me for a time. Then he explained that for him, it wasn't about the *amount* of care, just the type. Which helped to know. And I've learned to feel his caring through things he does and other things he says. Which has helped me to do that with others in my life, even if they don't show "care" (and/or love) in the way I'd most want them, too. (But still, I wish my T would actually say the words "I care about you" sometimes...)