What when therapy becomes only about the therapist?

Hi all,

I am so stuck in therapy because I love my therapist so much (not sexually, more like a mum) and I can't stop thinking about her. I just love to see her, love to listen to her, just love being with her. I am always anxious around her and so can't talk as openly as I would like to but I just really like being with her. I have been seeing her 6 years now and am SO much better than when I first started. I still have a few issues but not so much that I necessarily need therapy now. But the problem is I don't want to leave my therapist. I never want to leave her. She has told me to trust her and that she will be there for me but what when she retires or stops working for any reason and I can't be part of her life anymore? I have such strong feelings for her and I feel we have a really strong connection. She says she is really fond of me too. I can't face not seeing her but these days when I go to therapy, I don't have much to say anymore. I don't know how to get out of this. I can't bear not seeing her

Has anyone been in this situation? Any advice much appreciated. This really hurts

Srewedupme

Have you talked with her about it?

Can you accept this as something temporary, a natural ebbing and flowing like in all relationships?

Have you talked with her about feeling like you don't have much to say right now, and the extent of your fears of her retiring, or not being there? Is there a reason why this is coming up for you, at this time - is she close to retirement age, etc?

My T tells me the same, that 'barring anything unforseen' she is there for me. That's reassuring even if the 'unforseen' is uncontrollable and can be scary to think about.

Your so-called therapist is the one who is "screwed-up" right now. You're not in any position to help her, either. Lodge a complaint with her professional association if you have to, but get the h*ll out of Dodge and
stay out! And yesterday wouldn't be too soon to do it--for your own sake.


You need and deserve a more competent therapist than the one you're with right now. And getting out of there is the only way for your situation to stop hurting. Otherwise you'll end up even more scr*w*d-up than you were before. And your next therapist will find it even more difficult to help you in the wake of such a relationship. GET OUT AND GET ON WITH IT, mistress!

Am I missing stg here?

Back to OP- I think this can be a natural part of therapy RS (for some clients at least). You don't know what to talk about in session? Tell her this.
A good therapy should lead us to stop needing our Ts- once we got what we need from them we'll be OK with ending therapy.

I'm a bit confused by Douglas' response as well....

It'd be important to talk to T about this, as I'm sure it would lead to some very valuable discoveries and things to work on!

Thanks everyone so much for your responses.

Douglas, I'm sorry, I don't understand your response. My therapist is wonderful and professional and has never overstepped any boundaries with me.

I have talked to my therapist about my attachment to and dependency on her. She is moving away in a few weeks, which I suppose is why this is coming up now. I can still go and see her as she will be an hour and a half away, which isn't too bad... but it's scary to think of her not being close by and it's just made me think that the next time she 'leaves' me will be when she stops working. She is in her 50's. It is reassuring though that she is starting a new practice where she moves so can't be retiring too soon

My therapist has also explained that I will be able to leave when the time is right. This reassured me for a while as I still had issues to work on. But now my life is more stable (albeit still with a few issues to deal with) the attachment is only getting stronger. I see her as a mum and I told her recently that I wished she was my mum. She said she sometimes wishes she was my mum too. And she has said before that she has strong motherly feelings towards me. It just feels like we really get on and that she wants to help me as much as I want her to but we are not allowed to meet outside of therapy. It just feels so wrong that the rules of therapy can keep you apart from someone you desperately want to see. I know I don't know her true feelings, but I have a very strong suspicion that she would happily be there for me too if it weren't for the boundaries. I just can't accept that it has to end I want her in my life forever. She has a daughter and it kills me to think of them being close, which I know they are.

This is all so hard

Screwedupme

((((SUM))))),
I hear you loud and clear. Attachment issues are extremely painful. Maybe you have worked through everything you can with this T, but maybe you possibly have other things to work on with a different T? I'm sorry this is so painful for you!

I was like this for a long time. I think it's a phase in therapy that a lot of people go through. Try not to worry as it will ease in its own time. I was obsessed with my t and thought about her from the moment I got up and couldn't even envisage leaving her but one day I did. I'm stronger now and I can honestly say the obsession will leave you but it may take a long time.

I'll admit it; I freaked when I heard the description of your relationship with your therapist. As I understood your original post, it seemed to me to carry all the signs of a therapist-client relationship going wrong--the kind of wrong that can end in a hearing before an ethics review panel (inappropriate therapist-client relationship), a courtroom (malpractice), or in suicide (worst of all). Your original post suggested a situation (therapist and client changing roles, for example) that is already too close to all kinds of ethical violations--violations of your rights--regarding the therapist-client relationship.

At the time I wrote my first post, I was genuinely afraid of what could happen if your relationship with your therapist stays on what appeared to be its present course. Can you forgive me?

Wow. Sounds like that was definitely more about you than about the OP. Her feelings for her therapist are actually fairly common and can be worked through with the therapist. Doesn't AT ALL sound like the therapist has done anything wrong here.

I feel pretty similar in terms of how attached I am to my therapist. The hardest thing of all is that I know I wouldn't be holding onto the relationship after the end for the wrong reasons. It wouldn't be so she could still be my therapist or my support to rely on. It wouldn't be because I'm not moving forwards in my life and holding onto something that prevents me from doing that. I don't often like people like I like my therapist. It hasn't been just because of all she's done for me either. Really unusually, I felt that way about her immediately (the first and only positive thing I'd thought in six months too, which was a miracle in itself). I care about her. Life is short and she means a lot to me, and that's why I wouldn't want to let go, because there are so few people in life really, for most people I think, who you love that deeply. I don't have any fantasies that we'll be playing a major part in each others lives after the end but I will never be "ready" (as my therapist says too) to let go of her. Not in this lifetime. If I have to, which I assume I will, I will always, always carry some sadness around with me for the rest of my life.

I can understand why it wouldn't be good for many people to continue on any sort of relationship afterwards, I can understand why it wouldn't be good for most therapists to do that too. I also know how good I am at keeping things separate. I understand who she is and who she's not...and so yes, I also have trouble comprehending this weird therapist boundary, and I also fear the end. I know mine doesn't plan to live in the city I live in forever also. I think it's likely that she'll move too far for me to travel to. I'm not really sure how to cope with it either. I try to talk about it a bit though it's not very often. It's a hard topic. She might confirm my worst fears, you know? Sometimes not knowing is almost more bearable. Once she actually said that something after the end might be possible because of our particular relationship, but I'm fairly positively certain because of how she's spoken since that she's now changed her mind.

I can understand why this time is bringing up those fears for you. Because it's so relevant to what's happening with your therapist currently moving away, I would encourage you to be braver than me, and to discuss it as much as you can.

Hi Screwed up me,
I'm sorry you're in this situation!
I know all about being attached to a therapist, and then having to leave as I had to move to a different state recently. We're still in contact somewhat, and I haven't quite found a new t that feels right for me, but I know how painful it can be to be so close and then leave.
I was with mine for a year and a half, six years is a long time!
Sometimes gettng a new t can be helpful, as they can give fresh perspective to the situation. Like antimatter said, maybe considering that you've gone as far as you can with this t could be an option. Or you could continue to see her even though she's moving. Certainly, the move gives you the oppurtunity to reevaluate things, and see what you want to do.
Douglas, I'm just curious what in the original post lead you to think that the relationship was so unethical? To me, and it seems others, this is a pritty typical issue in therapy. I don't see how it could lead to hearings and all that horrible stuff you mentioned.
Best of luck, SUM. Please keep posting.

I've been there. It came to a crisis and I cried for a week. But my feelings are calmer now.

I can relate. I've gotten very attached to my Ts and have found it difficult to leave, some worse than others. (out of 5). I could only leave my former T when I decided to see another T, the one I am currently seeing. I don't like to think about ever not seeing her, so I understand how you feel.

The therapy has become about the T for me in all of my therapies, but at the same time I've managed to work on other issues. My Ts have all been strict about their role. One thing that bothers me is that your T told you she has strong motherly feelings toward you. I think that might give you "false hope" in a sense. My T has told me she likes me very much, but that her only goal is for me to feel better and to get my needs met in RL, not by her. As much as I wish it could be different, I know the reality.

I don't know if it gets better after time. I think the longer you're with a T, the harder it is to leave. At least that's my experience. What is helping me now is to have other people in my life, and other situations where someone is compassionate towards me, but without the opportunity to attach to them in the way I have to my T, like my DBT group and yoga.

Good luck with this difficult situation.

Your feelings aren't strange or horrible or uncontrollable or without end. You are experiencing a strong transference, and it is possible that it can lead to some of your best work together if you can both work through it. I think the fact that your T recognizes both your feelings and her own is very promising. It sounds like she will be able to work through this with you. There's no way to know how long it will take as it depends upon what the transference means for you in your life. But if you follow this to its conclusion, resolve the transference, you will find your relationship normalizes, and you will feel ready to leave therapy. You will still care for her--and it sounds like she will still care for you--but your feelings will be both deeper and less intense, without the anxiety you currently feel.

Part of therapy is to work through these feelings. Chances are they also happen outside therapy. Therapy is where they get worked through.

I had the same concerns as you, and I was in a similar situation. My therapist told me recently that I did not need to stay sick in order to see her. There are clients that check in 1-4 times/year, or come back only when they need her help with something. Sometimes, years (5) later. She says the therapy relationship does not need to end. It just becomes different.

I told her I need to process that we could not be friends after therapy,and she said I had a choice. When the time comes to end, and she said I will know when it's right for me, I could either have her as a therapist or I could have her as a friend. Right now she feels I need her as a therapist, and I agree. She did say it has to be one or the other.

I hope that you are able to process these feelings with your therapist. Processing did help me to quiet these thoughts for now,so that I could get back to work on my issues.

Thanks everyone again for your insights. It really helps to read others experiences.

Douglas, no problem. I know where you are coming from regarding the crossing of boundaries and things potentially becoming unethical as I have read alot about this myself, but my therapist is very professional and I am sure would not jeopardise her career.

Nightlight, I know what you mean about not wanting to hear something because it makes it true. I am so reluctant to discuss this more with my therapist incase she says the words that I dread, that sometime it has to end and she can't be a part of my life. I guess I cling to the hope that maybe, just maybe, she will let me stay in touch and be a friend afterwards.

Goingtogetthere, I think it's amazing that your therapist has said she can either be a friend or a therapist. I would LOVE it if my therapist said that. I guess the only problem is knowing when to switch because there is no way back once she becomes a friend.

It's just so hard when I feel like we have connected so well and in other circumstances, could have just been whatever we wanted to. She has always tried to help me the best she can, has said she is extremely fond of me and wants to take me under her wing, wants to wrap me up in a blanket when I am sad, wants to take me home and feed me (when we used to see each other in a different setting than her home). I really feel that she wants to be more than my therapist too

SuM

Douglas, I think I understand your first post. I wanted to say, 'and I thought I was a T basher!!'. Actually, a lot of what I read here, makes me really wonder if there isnt something going wrong, going back to front as you suggest, with these relationships. Such an agony of longing and all for a paid for relationship. I've been there too, and I do question it. So I think your initial impulse has health in it, but that we have to take into account the complexity of things. Im trying to puzzle this all out, I think its too easy to say 'this is a natural stage' etc, well maybe it is, but I think there must be a better way, theres something not quite right about it too. What do you think, does this resonate for you?

Hi RiverX,

I can certainly see what you are saying. Many times I have questioned the ethics of therapy itself and how this can be beneficial or end well for an awful lot of vulnerable people. Where there is no transference, I am sure therapy is great and has helped many but for so many of us, that haven't had the childhoods we 'should' have had or the caring from our parents, we are so vulnerable and attach so easily and so strongly, that we get entangled in something that there is no easy way out of. My therapist for me has given me the one thing I never had, a mother figure, someone who is interested in me and cares for me and yet, it's only a taster because it will be taken away from me again. How is that ethical or helpful for anyone?? I have posed this question many times and I have never had anyone come back (who was very attached to their therapist) and said that it ended well. Rather, most people say it hurts like hell to let go, that they needed more therapy to get over the therapist etc. Perhaps I was better off not knowing how it feels to have a wonderful, caring mother? What is the point in knowing how it feels but that you will never have it? It feels more damaging sometimes than never to have experienced it. I can't see how it can end well for me. My therapist has said that it is about correcting my experience and giving it a different ending etc. but that isn't how it feels. I am not confident about there being a 'right' time to let go.

It is not normal to pay to see someone because you love being with them, this isn't real life. It's so impossibly difficult

SuM

It is impossibly difficult. However, for me, I would not say at all that I attached easily - or strongly.

It was, in fact, a dog fight. The pain was in the fight - with the unstableness of the attachment. The fondness was here, then gone, here, then gone. It was awful. It got better once I relaxed against it. Quit fighting it sooooo much, and just accepted it for what it was. A fondness and a caring.

As far as ending being hard - oh yes it is hard, but it's not bad, or even unusual.

I suppose if a good ending is one where you can just walk away unscathed, then well, maybe it is bad.

I think grief at the end of a relationship is normal, healthy. We get to mourn our losses. I'm not sure that's pathological at all.

Frankly, I would worry about myself if I didn't grieve the loss.

I can say I just find your words accurate, and moving. I theres lots I could say, but not sure how right now.
rv.x

You know, reading the title of this tread, it's the other way around. What you shared is all about you. Don't mean that in a negative way. Those were your words for your struggles. That's where confusion arises in therapy. The T is there and we have all these feelings, and they're ours. T didn't put them there. They were there but come out. One can choose to face them full on it not. Ceasing therapy doesn't stop the feelings. We continue to carry them. They don't go away. So therapy is always all about us.

Hi Earthmamma,

Thanks for your post.

You are right that the feelings are mine. I know they are and I am not suggesting that my therapist put the feelings there or in any way encouraged them. It's just something that happened and from what I hear happens an awful lot.

I think I am not good at accepting things in general, accepting the way life is and that some things do hurt and you have to grieve for them. You can't avoid all pain in life can you? I guess that has given me something to think about. Thank you.

SuM