</font><blockquote><div id="quote"><font class="small">Quote:</font>
Griffe said:
Has anyone ever had a close friend become their therapist?

</div></font></blockquote><font class="post">Yes, this exact thing happened to me when I was in college. When he became my therapist, he stopped our friendship, and we stopped seeing each other outside of his office. It was awful. It was very hurtful. I was too young to know what was going on or understand my feelings. I felt almost "tricked" into it. (I didn't realize he was a therapist when he was my friend.) I really felt the loss of his friendship, but he just wanted to provide therapy and I guess didn't mind the loss of our friendship, or at least he never expressed that to me. (It would have been very healing if he did.) I know he probably made this change because he was looking out for me and had my best interests at heart, but this was a hard transition for me, and I don't think he should have done it. He was more valuable to me as a friend than as a therapist. I think if he believed I should see a therapist, he should have suggested that to me and given me the name of someone to see. I don't believe I saw him for many sessions (maybe 6?) because I couldn't deal with all my feelings (I think I was angry at him but didn't know it.) I had not thought of this for many years, but it came up fairly early in sessions with my current T. It was something from my past I had not understood or dealt with, and it presented itself out of nowhere to be dealt with in therapy. My current T helped me mourn the loss of that friendship. He also said it was quite an unusual case--for a friend to transition to being one's T--and that if there is role switching, it is usually the other way around--a therapist becomes a friend.

Griffe, is this happening to you now? It's hard, isn't it?