[lily99]

I'm sorry for not posting more often, I've had bit going on..
i apologize if this topic has been done a million times before (probably by me) but I'd really appreciate your thoughts on it.

What is the difference between love and attachment in therapy?
I've been in therapy for a little over 3 years, and while I know attachment/transference stuff has played a big role, I kind of also feel like I've known this woman long enough to have genuine feelings of respect, gratitude and love for her. Perhaps it's one sided and a strange kind of love... but is it still love?

or am i just being a naive teen?
thanks.

[rainbow8]

Interesting question, lily! I struggle with attachment and love in therapy also. I think most Ts would say (my former T in fact told me this) that it is common to feel love for one's T. After all, they show US love by the way they treat us. It's true that we pay them, but the therapeutic relationship turns out to be a kind of mutual love for many of us in therapy, though not all. It depends on why we entered therapy. I've only known my new T for about 6 months, but I already feel attached to her, and those feelings do feel like love too.

I'm not sure if it's necessary or helpful to decide whether the feelings are attachment or love. They're probably both. I don't think you're a naive teen!

[Perna]

Not to sound too much like your therapist but, why does it matter and "what do you think?"

I believe love and attachment go hand-in-hand, especially in the therapeutic relationship. I remember having fantasies where I saved my therapist's life and if that's not love, what is?

But I tried not to get side-tracked by just concentrating on the relationship and not remembering my purpose for therapy, to help myself learn and grow. My love for my therapist and the attachment I felt/feel for her are, in the end, tools for me to use in my greater, "real" life out "here".

We love our parents and are attached to them and that's how we grow up and learn, often crummy stuff because our parents don't happen to be the greatest of teachers for us! Whether they are abusive, as my stepmother was or "kind" and distant, such as my father, they are constantly teaching us because we are living with them and learning "their" ways. I had to work hard in therapy to untangle how my stepmother's anxiety which had a lot to do with her controlling, abusive words and actions interacted with my own anxieties and tended to make me controlling and sarcastic. As others have noted here on PsychCentral, I "pull no punches" I use to do that in a much harsher, judgmental fashion and still have to "pay attention" to what I'm doing and saying.

What does loving your therapist do for you? My therapist was/is quieter than I was/am and I wanted to be like her. Concentrating on my attraction and love for my therapist helped me see other ways of perceiving situations, through "her" eyes, that were more pleasant than ways I'd been accustomed to seeing. When I have a situation, I tend to "attack" it but my therapist and husband are much slower and more thoughtful in their approach to things. Because I love them, I hold back more now and am more thoughtful on my approach to things. I use to get extremely anxious when I didn't know the answer to something, when I didn't "understand" what was going on, right this second! LOL. Again, both my husband and therapist gave themselves time and space and do not panic when approached by something new to them, and, because I love and respect them and their judgment and enjoy being with them and talking to them and just their general beings, I "remember" and emulate their approaches better now too, when I am dealing with something on my own.

[seventyeight]

hi lily,

this thread might help you too:

http://forums.psychcentral.com/showt...63#post1413363

but incase you don't feel like reading it, here's what i posted there. it's from a book called 'in sesson' by deborah lott. it's about love in therapy, thought it might help you as it helped me:

"There are ample reasons why a person in psychotherapy might give herself over to love rather than to the more problematic connection of psychotherapy. Love seems to promise a surer, quicker, more pleasurable road to health and happiness than the rigors of treatment. When a person enters therapy partly because of difficulties in loving and being loved, there is a certain logic and efficiency in bypassing the middleman and believing that the solution lies in securing the therapist's love. 'If the arbiter of mental health loves me,' he or she may think, 'I must be ok; if the one who knows me better than anyone else loves me, I must be supremely lovable.'"

((((((((((Lily))))))))))))))

For me, I think it's both. I think the attachment came first...but in insecure kind of attachment, that would come and go. Here was someone who, after all of these years of dealing with things by myself, was listening to me, and hearing me, and not hurting me (yet!). It scared the hell out of me, but it made me want to be with him all the time, at the same time.

Like you, I've been with T for around 3 years, for HUNDREDS of therapy hours, hundreds of phone messages, hundreds of e-mails. I am attached to him in a much more secure way now, and I think I genuinely love him. For me, the love is about wanting the best for him, wanting him to be safe and have the things he needs, wanting him to be happy and secure in his life. The love is kind of about HIM. The attachment is about wanting him to be there for me, needing him to hear me and show me new and healthy ways of living my life. It is about needing him to love me.

I have all of those feelings (and more!) very strongly.

I think the question of "can I really love my T" and "can my T really love me" comes up a lot on PC...it can be a really confusing relationship, because it is so different from any other relationship we have.

When I used to work in mental health, even though I was being paid to be there, since it was my job, I truly loved some of my clients. I still wonder how they're doing, years later. Even though we are paying our therapist, they are still people with feelings, and we are still people with feelings. It's okay to love and be loved.

[rainbow8]

I don't understand the quote from In Session, though the book has been very helpful to me. Why are you "bypassing the middleman" if you feel like your T loves you, or you love T? You still have to go through the "rigors of treatment." I thought her book in general justifies love for your T, but it doesn't seem like it in that paragraph.

tree, what you said.....the attachment is wanting T to love me; loving T is more what love is supposed to be--unselfish caring about someone else. In that case, I was attached to my former T, but I think I'm attached AND love my new T.

[Perna]

Originally Posted by rainbow8

IWhy are you "bypassing the middleman" if you feel like your T loves you, or you love T?

For me, therapy is a three-some :-) There's me, the therapy process, and the therapist. If I think/feel I love the therapist and/or s/he loves me without going through the therapeutic process, without "discussion" with T, it's a little like how I feel about characters when I'm reading a book or watching a movie/show? I feel for characters on the screen, have had my life changed by some in books but they are not "real" people, there's no "real" exchange happening there because, in the end, a book is just paper and the other person's imagination and there's no real intercourse happening outside my head.

Yes, I CAN/DO love my therapist (because that is about me and how I feel) but I cannot say for certain what my therapist feels if I have not discussed it with her. I can see "signs" of what I interpret as love, but that is wholly my interpretation, going on in my head. Yes, my T may even, if I ask, say she loves me, but, even then, what that "means" is not clear unless it is fully discussed between both people.

My stepmother and I often told each other we loved each other, usually between bouts of hurting each other We DID in fact love each other, because we didn't only hurt each other but the relationship was such that there was a good 20+ years of relationship day in and day out. The relationship one has with one's therapist is not built for that "purpose", for a day-to-day living together sort of situation.

[sunrise]

I think we all have different combinations of love, gratitude, respect, attachment, and transference toward our T. I am very attached to my T, I feel love toward him (for me, the love is a deep caring for him), and I do not have much transference (occasionally, I have some negative transference toward him but not too often). Everyone's T relationship is unique. You have your own combination, lily99, and that's OK.

[sittingatwatersedge]

Originally Posted by seventyeight

from a book called 'in sesson' by deborah lott. [.......] 'If the arbiter of mental health loves me,' he or she may think, 'I must be ok; if the one who knows me better than anyone else loves me, I must be supremely lovable.'"

this seems odd to me. If the "arbiter of mental health", one who knows her better than anyone else, loves her, isn't the logical conclusion that she is at least barely lovable, not that she is supremely lovable?!

[lily99]

Thank you for all of your replies, it's given me something to think about.
I haven't brought it up with T yet, even though it's been on my mind for several months. I think I've been saving this topic, because I really hope and wish that when I tell her how I feel about her it will be special and perfect (and slightly dramatic in my fantasies) If I don't tell her, then I won't be disappointed..
I think I've felt these things towards my T for a long time, but initially it was a childlike kind of love. I felt very dependent and needy. I still do sometimes, but I think now the love feels different. Maybe the love I feel has become more mature?

wow I feel really uncomfortable talking about love. I feel ashamed admitting to such feelings..

Take care