Question?

Can someone explain emotional attachment vs theraputic attachment? This is with a T.

I can only guess. Could be wrong. You can have an emotional attachment to a person or your possessions or food or whatever. Emotional attachments, if not healthy, can cause obvious problems. Therapeutic attachments, I would guess, are the specific attachments and bonding made in a therapy relationship meant to be healing. That's my take on it. I'm sure someone else can be more concise than this.

Attachment is natural with anyone you know/meet/work with. It's a continuum. Why or how you are attached makes a difference though. A therapeutic attachment you're probably more or less aware of and "using" to work through emotional attachments (with a parent or SO from the past). When you're a kid, you're chemically/naturally attached to your parents, especially your caretaker parent/mother and wholly helpless, etc., kind of imprinted and if it's not a good relationship, it causes emotional problems. If, in the relationship, even if it's a good one, you don't learn how to manage your emotions and use words effectively and "get along" with others, etc., if for whatever "reason" there's a problem while you're growing, that relationship develops a kink in it for you that could use working on later, in therapy.

The relationship developed in therapy is consciously developed by your therapist and is between two adults who didn't know each other before (so everything, by definition, has to be a reflection of the previous attachments) and it gets worked on in that therapeutic attachment. The attachment is not purely therapeutic though, you and your therapist do, naturally, care about/for one another! You couldn't work so intensively together without caring to that degree and having a caring, emotional bond! But it's more therapeutic (one knows it will deliberately end when therapy is done) than emotional as a parent/child or husband/wife, SO/SO relationship. It's not so much a joining of two as a leaning/supporting/learning of two like good therapy is. You know how two people can sit back-to-back and then both push and thus stand up together? I view therapy as kind of like that relationship.

Therapeutic attachment is what happens when someone enters therapy. they learn to trust that therapist and value that therapists judgment and advice. They soon discover they actually like their therapist. then when ever theres a problem the therapist is usually the first one they think of calling to help them through that problem. Usually the attachment to a therapist is a good one. the person learns their therapist is there for them but eventually they learn how to solve their own problems by using the same process that they use with the therapist in problem solving skills. on rare occasions the attachment to a therapist becomes a bad one when the person becomes overly dependant on the therapist and no longer tries to solve their problems and expects the therapist to do it for them.

Emotional attachment around here is called bonding, forming relationships. it can be good or bad. its where you form attachments for people based on how they make you feel. If your into self nurturing you build friendships with people that allow you to remain independent taking care of your own needs. some people who have been in abusive childhood situations in turn form friendships with those that they feel will treat them the same way. Some people form friendships with people who will take care of their every need because emotionally they want someone to take care of/parent them. Your relationships reflect your emotional needs.

I think all attachments are emotional, including the therapeutic attachment. Therapeutic attachments form a subset of all attachments (which I believe are always emotional). I do believe there are differences between attachment between oneself and a therapist and oneself and someone else, but they are indeed both emotional.

Raceka, I'm curious about your question--do you think there are some attachments that are not emotional?

I've just been trying to figure out why my T said to me last session he was glad at the time he was detached from me. He told me he couldn't tell that to anyone else. I know he didn't mean it to hurt me. It didn't sink in at the time until I started processing the session. I won't see him until April 10 so I'm just stewing on it.

I asked my Pdoc about it and he said it was good. He has to be emotionally detached from me to not get pulled into my problems. He has to be emotionally detached in order to help me. He said but he has to be theraputically attached in order for the counseling to work. Theraputic attachment he can still care about me without being emotionally attached.

I'm just trying to get a handle on this until I see T and ask for more explanation.

That actually sounds like a pretty good explanation. I think those in helping professions have to maintain a profession detachment in order to think objectively and to do their job in a focused way. That doesn't mean we don't care; it just means we are able to keep our wits about us in order to help in the best way we were trained. I have to do this as a teacher. My sister has to do this as a radiation therapist. We have a skill set that we have to be able to work from, and accessing that skills set can become difficult if we are working entirely from emotion.

question what would you think and feel if you were talking about something really hard for you and your therapist suddenly acted as if your problem was theirs and started falling apart in front of you crying, shaking, swearing, possibly throwing a fit whatever she thought she needed to do at that moment to express her emotions of experiencing your problem as if it was her own? Imagine going to a therapist who mimicked your problems, your emotions, your posture.

I dont know about you but it would scare the crap out of me if I was sitting there crying, shaking telling my therapist details about my rape and how it felt to go through rape and I see her shaking, crying, and saying how much she wants to go out and kill the creep that raped her, when I am the one that was raped not her, Im the one that needs the shoulder to cry on, Im the one that needs to know how to get through this problem but the therapist is no help because shes falling apart taking on my problem as her own.

Call me selfish but I want a therapist who is going to support and help me not my helping and supporting a therapist who is reacting to my problems.

in order to do their job therapist have to remain neutral (detached) from the client to a degree so that they don't end up getting burned out or reacting as if their clients problems are their own. they have to stay clear headed so that they can support their clients and help them over the hard spots.

Thank you. That makes a lot of sense. It was just that word detached. He should have explained this to me.

Maybe you can get clarification from him next time, and let him know how the word made you feel. There have been good explanations here. I think that word can have a negative tone to it (detached=disengaged, uninterested, etc.) but it isn't necessarily true at all, and your T's explanation might help remove any lingering negative association for you.

That word "detached" would bother me too. I prefer to think that Ts have to maintain emotional distance, not detachment. Distance implies that they are attached and connecting emotionally on some level, but that they may need to take a step backwards in order to offer a healthy, objective viewpoint.

Almost like an elastic cord between the T and client...you're connected, but not enmeshed, and the distance can vary depending on the material you're covering.