Is therapy helping me or hurting me? If it's hurting me, what should I do?

I went into therapy 3 months ago trying to solve a few problems concerning apathy and that sort of thing. I was fortunate enough to end up working with a wonderful psychologist, and I have had a friendly professional relationship with that person ever since.

What bothers me is the fact that my problems still haven't been solved and that I often find myself experiencing a great deal of pain when I remember that I am just my therapist's client and that the day I stop paying, I will no longer be anything to that person. The professional nature of this relationship is hurting me.

My problems haven't been solved, I am in the same place I was 3 months ago, and I now have the extra problem of feeling miserable whenever I think of wanting my relationship with my therapist to be personal, and knowing that this will probably never happen.

I have made my therapist aware of these feelings but my therapist just keeps saying that they are normal and that I am going to learn something from them.

This is very painful and I don't know how to emphasize it enough.

What do I do now? Ask my therapist if our relationship can be something else, and risk getting even more hurt if the answer is no? Or should I keep my feelings to myself, accept that I couldn't handle the relationship, and find another way to deal with my problems? (Again, it's been 3 months and I still haven't got better.)

Keep talking about it with your therapist. It's normal and important and you can trust your therapist with all of your feelings.

your answer to can your relationship be differnt will probibly be no.but i would talk to your T about these feeling you have i bet she he will be able to help you work them out and be able to get back on track on dealing with the issues that brought you to therapy

Give yourself some patience. Three months is barely getting started. This takes time.

I'm in a similar position, and I sure as hell am too scared to be told 'no'!
I'm just savouring the happy moments...

Yes, those feelings are a "normal" part of therapy although personally, but I just can't see that sorta close but not close being healthy... humans are social beings. Despite this, I am still in therapy with a T that will never be anything more than a T.
I have had the "can we be friends" conversation with 4 T's... Got 2 yeses that were really no and did a lot of harm, got one flat out no (and it wasn't as hard to hear as I thought it would be)... and one very precious yes.
So... Don't like it, don't agree with it... but as long as your T is strong enough to be honest with you it is good to talk about. My current T (the flat out no) had a really wonderful way of explaining it... So... I hope that if the answer is no that your T will have just as supportive reason as mine did.

bluray... I know what you are feeling (sounds like others do as well). I've been at this for 6 months... some talk about it hurting the therapy... some seem to savor in it... what I can say is that this relationship, if you've never done it before, is going to be one of the strangest you will ever have. I've frankly fallen in love with this person, and while I haven't told her this in such strong terms, I have talked with her about it... and we are working on it. I don't know where it will lead with me... and I also worry about the end... but you should talk with yours and let them know...

I often wonder what therapists think when we do bring up this type of conversation. Yes, they are trained to handle this, but I wonder how they really feel. How does it feel to be helping someone, yet hurting them at the same time? Not intentionally hurting them, but let's get real, clients DO get hurt going through this process.

A year into my therapy, I have not changed one bit on this situation. It is a love/hate relationship. Talking it through with my therapist did not change anything. Just made me realize it is normal. So what if it is normal, that doesn't make it any easier.

To be honest, I am not sure if talk therapy is for everyone. I think that knowing the pain of severing the relationship keeps people in therapy longer than they probably should be. I can say that I have worked through some issues that I struggled with, I have benefited from being in therapy, BUT I have added a new issue to my life. The therapist/client relationship! Yes, it is the strangest relationship I have ever been in.

Like I said, I am not sure that this is for everyone. My husand explains it like this: If you are in some type of trauma/accident/illness you go to an MD or specialist to help you heal. It may takes months or even years of treatment. You develop a bond with your doctor. He/she is trying to save your life! Of course you feel a closeness to them.

But in the end, when you have healed and no longer need your doctor to treat you, that relationship more than likely ends. You move on and your doctor moves on to treating other patients who, like you, come to him/her needing their professional services to put them back together.

When you look at it like this, it makes sense. Unfortunately, it does not make it any easier.

I should probably add another thing. 3 months for me was kinda of a "getting to know you" period. It was about at this point that I started getting these same sorts of strange feelings. It sounds like you have talked about it a little, and the response was probably not quite what you were expecting, as it was with me.

I went in for something which I thought was simple too. I think what you are finding is that, maybe similar to me, there is more to whatever is going on with you than what's on the surface, and it is this hidden thing that is coming out and bothering you. When they (don't know he/she, and don't know you he/she) say it's normal and you will learn, I believe that is really true... if it wasn't, you probably wouldn't feel the way you are feeling.

The pain may be real, along with the confusion, but follow it and see where the deeper understanding leads you...

Unless you are seeing a robot instead of a person, that can't happen. People, therapists too can't turn relationships of any sort on and off that way. You have changed your therapist's life by being her client. She is learning new things, thinking new thoughts, becoming a "better" person/herself more by seeing you.

We just can't see into other people though, so forget that what is happening to us, happens to other people. No, your therapist isn't experiencing exactly what you are at this time, that's because you are two different people in two different lives and places/experiences. But if you were a therapist; what you would be experiencing would be similar to what she is. Just as when you leave the therapist you will still remember her/what you thought and felt and learned and experienced relating to her, she will do the same in relationship to you. True, she has more clients than you have therapists so it is more like what a teacher in a one-room schoolhouse might experience each year :-)

But you are having these feelings for your therapist because you don't have anyone else in your life to have these feelings with and this is the problem. Therapy can help you to form a life where you have these relationships outside of therapy (besides working on all the other things).

Sannah, this is very true...

Sannah, that could be true, but it's not like sometimes happily married people don't experience the same emotions in therapy. In my case, my therapy is hurting because I am not the type of person who can easily find a partner. My problems are severe and I prefer not to discuss them on this forum. Also, I don't know what type of therapy you are thinking of but the therapy that I am in still hasn't reached the part where the client is taught how to attract partners.

Hi blu ray,

Sometimes it is more helpful to put the central question aside. You are doing important work. Work so important that many cannot and will not do it. By doing it, you will come to know more about the person you truly are. This is the best gift you can give to a future partner.

Please read my previous post.

What you are describing is called transference, it is an integral part of most therapies, and everyone experiences it. In order for therapy to succeed, the transference must be worked out. When the therapy ends, you should have a more realistic view of your feelings.

Most therapies.

False.

I doubt that's true given that there a people on this forum who are still infatuated with the same therapist they have been working with for years.

My T and I were talking recently about how health professionals sometimes need to hurt their patients to help them. He said he sits with many clients and helps them peel back their layers, like a nurse would peel the dead skin off of a burn--excruciating. I don't think he likes causing people pain, but he also sits with them through it and comforts them. This is part of his job. If he wasn't willing to "go there" with people, to their most painful places, then they wouldn't get what they came for--healing. So, therapy is not a bed of roses, and there is pain involved too in the relationship that develops between the T and client. But there can be joy too. And healing. And other good stuff. No pain, no gain?

Squiggle, I very much agree that therapy is not for everyone.

Blu ray, I am struck by how you use the passive voice in your statements about your problems. I wonder why you didn't write, "I still haven't solved my problems yet"? Just caught my eye. Like you are not an active agent in what is going on?

What if the patient can't take the pain? What if the patient is harmed?

If I knew how to do it I wouldn't have gone to therapy.

You went into therapy because of problems with apathy and now you are feeling pain. Clearly, you have started to feel your feelings and the apathy is gone. That is progress. I don't know the context, but from what you are saying I would suggest hang in there and stick with it. I'm sorry it is painful but I think you'd need to work through those feelings with your therapist and understand what they are and where they come from. They might give you a clue as to why you had developed the apathy that brought you to therapy in the first place.