Therapist rescuing client

A client with issues that cause them to fear abandonment and rejection might have rescue fantasies. They may want someone to come in and swoop them up and rescue them from their pain and suffering. They may never have had someone protect them through childhood and never have trusted another. They seek in their life someone to understand, to trust, and be there for them in times of great distress. They held their emotions close, never allowing anyone to come in and see their real identity. Their own identity confuses them. They feel helpless at times, and want someone to see their pain. They want a hand up. Someone to reach back and grasp their hand knowing they are going to be okay. Because sometimes it feels like the pain will never end.

The therapist gives them tools and most of the time the client tries to use them, but sometimes they need more. When their emotions are so overwhelming they can do nothing but reach out. The core abandonment and the core wound has been peeled back and they are in need. They need the healthy, competent, and warm therapist to 'hold them' psychologically until it is over.

And the therapist does. The therapist rescues them from their pain. They allow the client to reach out over and over and the therapist can't turn away and swoops in and recuses them. Allowing the client to lean on them. Telling the client they are loved, worthy, and reminding them it's okay to feel and show their feelings.
The therapist recognizes that they are rescuing and trying to 'fix' the client. The therapist admits to doing this. The client feels loved by the rescuing over and over.

In your opinion is this healthy?
Why or why not?

I think that what makes it unhealthy is that it is a "rescuing" and "fixing" scenario. In reality, the therapist can neither "save" nor "fix" the client, although it's completely normal for both parties to have fantasies about this.

The actual act of providing emotional support isn't inherently unhealthy. But that's what it is -- support. A client isn't really getting "rescued" if it keeps happening over and over again. You're not really rescuing someone who can't swim if you watch her get in the water, she inevitably starts to drown, and you swoop in and pull her out again, and this just repeats over and over. I mean, you technically are pulling her out of trouble, but you're not *keeping* her out of trouble by failing to teach her to swim or handing her a lifejacket in the process. If the therapist is giving the client tools, but those tools aren't enough, then some new action needs to be taken. Figuring out what will help a person keep herself safe is going to be trial and error to some extent.

Everyone slips now and again, and hits a point where they rely on support. But if they believe they are being "saved" by another, rather than being helped to save themselves, it's got the makings of an unhealthy attachment. Worse so if the "savior" also believes in his role, and does not see his role as supportive but rather of knight in shining armor.

I'm going to go ahead and assume you're talking about you and your T, and you're worried that this pattern, even though it feels good each time (and of course it feels good, no one can fault you for that), isn't sustainable?

I think it is healthy and healing to have someone accepting to reach out to. It is healing because it affects how we see ourselves, the thoughts we have. We can move from feeling unworthy to feeling worthy, for example. We become our own rescuers and/or we have less of a need for being rescued. For me this process worked together; the more I internalized my T, the more I can rescue myself in a similar way as T would. I can do that quicker so the despair lasts a shorter time, and I am finding that sometimes that internal process is very quick. It surprises me when that happens. A pleasant surprise.

Along the way there are times I feel that I am too dependent on T, and that I should stop therapy and go out on my own and see how it goes. That is a form of self-criticism and probably fear, fear of losing the support and the relationship.

Then there are times I'm just relaxed in the relationship and so glad for it, so grateful to have someone to go to (on many levels).

There are also times I end up back to wanting a level of rescue and comfort that is more than T can give.. for example, physical comfort is something she feels isn't helpful, because it is something outside me and she wants to help me have those things inside me. So those times, while fewer, are frustrating still, but are not as frequent or intense.

When I am in an intense crisis, she reaches out to me more. That is rare, but it happens. I've received a couple of phone calls and emails that were initiated by her. It feels so relieving and comforting! I know she cares, but those little extras are so sweet.

She knows when to do what and I'm glad she is my T.

I think that part of therapy and becoming healthy is learning that we can all rescue ourselves. Nothing is stronger than building a protector that you can take with you everywhere that you go.

I don't know. I had a T who rescued me at times. I'd be embarrassed to tell you about some of the therapy, but it was nothing illegal or immoral, and it didn't involve sex. I loved her. I felt very very lucky to have found her. I know other therapists from a similar school who have lower boundaries (again, (nothing sexual, nothing illegal or immoral)) than many therapists although not sure if their boundaries would have included what happened in my therapy, and speak of the growth that results. It's my understanding that those from the humanistic school of therapy have lower boundaries than other schools, although I've never seen something to suggest where they would draw boundaries (except for what seems to me nearly universal boundaries around NO SEX).

I now have a different therapist. I wonder about the rescuing. Did it help me heal and grow? or did it make me dependent? did I feel more pathological? or safer? is it okay to be dependent for a little while with the goal of growing out of the dependence, just like a child? does it happen?

I don't know. These are questions I've been asking myself, but you articulated it so much better.

I am a 46 yearold man.
I am recently divorced.
I have hepatitis c. This makes people look at me like I should have a biohazard label on my forehead. They always pull away.
It is so difficult trying to begin and maintain good relationships. It's almost impossible to even have one. I got hepatitis c from a tattoo I got when I was 18.
I tell people this up front because I don't like it when people find out later and regret knowing me. It's happened. I also don't like making people feel like I tricked them.
So there it is.
I should probably say little more about myself, so here goes...
If I edit this back from time to time, it's only because I don't feel safe.
I have many trust issues.
I've been in therapy for 2 and a half years and I hate everything about it.
I didn't end up in therapy of my own free will.
I don't care what anyone says, therapists love the power differential in that room.
The "relationship" is referred to as special and unique, yet it sure does mimic the god-man relationship
God gets to know us but it's not a 2 way street. Therapists act like God's proxy. And we pay them.
I would love to be Gods' therapist though just so I could tell Him, "Time's up" and He has to leave my office in tears and after He's gone I can forget what He told me.
That will never happen because God and therapists are rich in choices. They would never allow themselves to be in a position of impoverished choices.
We've all heard the expression, "Beggars can't be choosers," and it is true. How often have I found myself in therapy feeling like a beggar? Maybe you feel the same. Some people enrich their choices by impoverishing others in their choices and sometimes that's the power of therapy and God.
I guarantee that if a therapist and client were stranded on a deserted island, the therapist would be the first to initiate a change in relationship and rationalize the reason. Why? Because choice is suddenly limited.
I just went through 2 years of therapy and disclosed my whole life to someone that doesn't even care. I did it without any outside support only to find out that I don't mean **** to anyone. Not a single consolation. That's ok I'm used to it.
God and therapists laugh at me behind my back and they enjoy their power.
My mother use to make me stand in the backyard naked so that friends family and neighbors could ridicule me. Little did I know that God and therapists were there the whole time laughing with them.
All my life I have believed in God but I struggle with that subject..
All my life I have been the good samaritan to others.
I have literally fed the hungry, clothed the naked and bound up the wounds. But i feel like when i needed someone to be my good samaritan i was told," **** You!
.
When I've needed to be rescued there was no one. A rescue will never come for me, there wasn't a rescue for me as a child and there isn't one for me now.
I should've kept my silence forever but the acceptance trick of psychology fooled me into opening up. Now I cant take back what I've disclosed. My silence was the only real power I ever had and now that's gone and I'm forced to trust in someone elses silence. Where is the power of choice in that?
I have had suicidal thoughts since i was 7.
I struggle with many disorders and if you met me you wouldn't even know it. I am awesome at hiding it all.
I dont feel the need to hide so much in here. If I feel unsafe my defense mecanisms will protect me.
Each night I go to bed and my last thought is, let this be the night I die.
Each morning I wake up and apologize for still being alive.
In between those moments are nightmares. They don't go away except when I paint or play music. I don't live a happy life. I'm just alive.

This is my profile and you described how I sometimes feel in therapy. It's like I need to be rescued.
I hate that feeling.
It is a contingency.
I believe a doctor should prevent their clients from ending up in these wierd situations before they occur. After all, they are the educated and the objective.
It's cruel.

MD's have to tell you what to expect in every treatment, risk factors, possible outcomes, what to expect etc...
But, for some reason therapists don't. They let you get blind-sided by it and guess what? That is the nature of my traumas. I always was made to feel safe and then the carpet is yanked out from under my feet. It's like being lead down the primrose path.
I accept you, I accept you.
Then you open up and they pull away.
It's a trick.
The therapist ends up insulated from failure and hurt and the patient ends up feeling rejected, hurt and abused all over again.
Maybe it's a useful technique to them but I absolutely resent it and if a therapist is doing that to clients the way it is done to me then shame on them for not being smart enough to find a more compassionate way of handling that.
They are trained to recognize all of my failures as a way of insulating themselves.
I hate getting caught up in something like that and I have.
I resent my T for this because whenever I confront it in therapy my T gets a twinkle in the eye that almost congratulates themself.
I hope that any therapist that does this and celebrates the power differential ends up drinking from their own cup one day.

Deep Breath...deep breath

Charlie Brown and Lucy and that damned football all over again.

I have never had any belief or fantasy that the therapist could rescue me. I fully believe the woman would muck up if she attempted such a foolhardy thing. I would be more pissed off at the incompetence and the arrogance.

The "over and over" part doesn't sound healthy to me. It makes me think of addiction. Someone who becomes dependent and addicted starts needing more and more of their fix to be satisfied. Until the whole thing becomes unsustainable when their need exhausts the supply.

I know that some people really do well with life-long supportive therapy. But most patients are looking to be "healed"--which would necessitate an end point in their therapy. So it seems to me a therapist who always "saves" a client is not really helping them reach their long-term goals.

I've thought about this, and nothing really comes to mind. I know I would never want my therapist to rescue me. I do want her to help me heal from my past - I must say she is doing a fantastic job - and help sure me up for my future.

Interesting question. I'll continue to ponder.

over and over again... no.

being a rescue when nothing else works? yes... i wish that my t would rescue me

What are people thinking of when they think of someone rescuing them? Just curious.

I was told by my last T that I am always looking for someone to rescue me and save me from my life and when the relationship ends I get hurt because I rely on them so much to make me happy. I now know that you can never rely on anyone else to be happy so if I was wanting my T to rescue me I would need to look at what I needed rescuing from and how I could fix the situation myself and take all my power back. There is nothing more satisfying than helping yourself.

Most therapists are careful not to give too much, and especially not to create dependence.

But I don't think that "reminding them it's okay to feel and show their feelings" counts as rescuing.

My mother used to make me stand outside naked in front of friends, family and neighbors. Every single 1 of them mock me and shamed me for it. She never gave a reason for it except 1 time she said my shoes were dirty.
In the Christian community that I lived in, not 1 person came to my rescue. God says to clothe the naked.
Being psychologically disrobed is a form of nakedness and sometimes you need a rescue from that.
I have been that rescue to other people literally. But, when my therapist responds to my genuine need of a rescue even though it's just a psychological one with indifference, it makes you wonder if there's any such thing.
at least that's what goes through my mind.

My T has never "rescued" me, as in "fixing" things for me or solving my problems or making my decisions for me. He wouldn't do that; he doesn't consider that his job or particularly helpful.

What he does do is he is very supportive. In a crisis he is certainly very available for me. He will help lay out what my options are, the pro's and con's, etc. He will even ask me to strongly consider taking a certain plan of action, such as calling my pdoc or admitting myself to the hospital. But in the end it has always been me making the choices for my own life and my own path.

I disagree somewhat...
How much of our happiness is invested in our children our spouses our family etc...
It's like saying contingencies don't exist when they do.
I can't agree that getting rid of all emotional connections will keep you from getting hurt.
If that is true, then we would be perfectly content being the last person on earth with no human interaction whatsoever.
We I really would go crazy then.
we are designed for human interaction based on contingencies.

With respect... my happiness depends on the people around me as much is the people around me depend on me. I I believe the contingencies or something worth striving for.

You make some good points but for me personally I will never hand my power over someone else again that way I can never get hurt. I have to fix my own problems and not expect someone else to fix me or rescue me.

I believe in inner happiness but I also believe in investing that happiness in others and vice versa.
I think that is a big problem in society today...no one wants any investment unless it only benefits themselves. It can only lead to loneliness like being on a deserted island. After a year alone the only thing anyone would want is contingent relationships.
IMO

I do agree with this as it relates to manipulative people.

It's great if you can get this to work out.

But many of us fall short of having the ideal. Maybe we don't have the basic ingredients to make all the essentials for a wonderful life come together. So for us, learning to be self-reliant is the best solution. It may be sad, but it's also a pretty smart strategy. We will not always have other people, but we will always have ourselves.

I fall short of it also and I absolutely have no 1 except myself in this world. that's why I join this website to be around people like me so I wouldn't have to feel so alone
I'm just hoping for all of us.
I honestly didn't mean to make something sound easy when it couldn't be more difficult.

I think that interdependence, relying on onesself and others who have proven trustworthy, is how people operate who haven't been through a traumatic past (this is a guess?). I think those with a traumatic past, when it deals with attachment issues formed at young ages, often deal with this by somehow negating or dissociating their own needs, and being ashamed of those unmet needs. I think this process creates people with different manifestations of the same root cause, attachment issues. If a parent is enmeshing and invalidates who the child is in favor of herself, the child may become dependent on others and never have a real self, and the child may think that love feels like being enmeshed. If the parent is distancing and critical, I think that the child may end up keeping their needs always at a distance, and end up fulfilling other's needs instead of their own. I am sure there are different manifestations of which I am unaware. I don't know if this is accurate and I wonder what others think?

I think that rescuing a client means something different to each person. To me, it means allowing me to have contact when I am drowning in my own emotions, when I feel like my self is being attacked and I feel like I'm going under. However, this is dangerous, because it is a major relief when someone save me from what feels like a psychic death, which is reinforcing. However, if he doesn't allow contact, it feels like I am being destroyed, and that he or no one cares. I guess I need help in overcoming this dilemma -- I am making progress on the wanting to be rescued, but I have not been perfect. Good questions

There is a difference though between investing in relationships emotionally and expecting those relationships to "save" you or "rescue" you in your life. I have solid, loving relationships with my husband, children, family, but they can't save me or rescue me or even "make" me happy in my life. Only I can really control how I feel and if I am to be happy.

My husband used to tell me he couldn't live without me or be happy in life without me (and he meant it). He really did think of me as his rescuer. It was a HUGE burden for me personally. He's come to learn that his happiness and security in life has to come from within himself. I can't do that for him. I can't possible have the power to "rescue" him; only he can do that for himself. However, he can live his life accepting and thriving from what we have here and now, realizing that his happiness comes from just being in the moment and enjoying what he has.

I think this thread is interesting.

For me, I always have rescue fantasies in which T comes to my rescue if I am in a harmful/dangerous situation, so I think in some ways I do harbor this need to be rescued by T.

But, realistically, I do not want or need to be rescued by her "over and over" again. There have been times when she has helped me enormously, maybe some would call it rescuing, but I think I try and be self-sufficient regarding my wants and needs and taking care of myself.

However, I wonder what the difference is between feeling the need to be rescued by your T and being dependent on them. For me, I don't want to rescued by T, but I do feel very dependent on her in regards to having someone be there and listen to me and care about me. I don't really want to be rescued by T, but I do feel very dependent on her, I guess I think it is an interesting distinction.