Ts saying I love you

I think that for those of us with trust and attachment issues, therapeutic dependence can be crucial. My therapist has Never said she loved me, but she tenderly and with exquisite sensitivity led me into a deep and healing attachment to her. My older posts hear describe my experiences in great detail. I don't think a therapist has to say "I love you" to make you feel incredibly loved. In repairing a deep rupture last year, she read me the children's story Runaway Bunny. She told me that she would do what that Bunny's mother did. She would never abandon me, and would *be* with me wherever I tried to run off to and hide. I cried. It was what I needed to hear. Her encouragement of that kind of atyachment , as intense as it may sound, was always based on my unique needs. I was very attachment avoidant, and I needed someone brave enough to not let me escape it. Because of how she handled it all, I am now very emotionally healthy. I am able to engage in and thrive in healthy attachment relationships. It has changed my life. Not everyone needs this kind of thing, but I after a disastrous toxic therapeutic relationship before this one, what she did literally gave me life. Without ever saying the word love, she bathed me in the love I never had, taught me what healthy live feels like, which gave birth to my creating the capacity within me to find and engage in healthy relationships. I now see her casually. She says that I have internalized the therapeutic relationship, which was the whole point of the Runaway Bunny aspect.

But that's just me!

You are right. It's not ethical at all. It does intensify transference and dependency and it eventually causes damage. It happened to me, and even though it felt good in the beginning it didn't end up well. It left me traumatized for a long time.

Monalisasmile, I've read that T's don't usually say "I love you" because it can have so many meanings, and the love the T has is of a more specific nature, better said in other ways.
But I really want to comment on your statement that saying the Love word,encourages dependency and transference. I wish to explain some more about that. I've read a lot of books on modern psychotherapy, and found that both dependency and transference have come to be of major importance in doing deep and lasting work to heal our problems. In the years between Freud and now, a great deal has been learned about how important it is to allow dependency and transference on the therapist, as it is within those feelings that you will find your answers. It isn't in just talking about feelings but actually having feelings, and discussing them as you have them. Scary, yes. But that is just what is so difficult. We've been shamed all our lives by caregivers and American culture for any shred of dependency on anyone, and it's a great wall between us and the very help we need from therapy. I'm saying this because I'm going thru it now and am seeing how all this works for the better as I get over my fears of transference .

Ugh, I'd love for her to say that to me, or for any woman to really. But she's a good T and I doubt she ever would do that because it wouldn't help things. (Doesn't mean I don't want her to though!)

I don't know my T's style but this, which you so eloquently put may I add, definitely sounds like her. She does encourage a lot of dependency (which can be a struggle for me) and I can say without a doubt that even if we never talked again from this point - it's really helped me trust her enough to go to those scary places with her.

I agree in the sense that a lot of good can come from the deep work of transference and dependency but also a lot of harm. I think a t that brings a client here has to be ready to support them and stick with their feelings. They need to have done a lot of work on themselves and been there with their own therapist. I really believe a t can only bring you as far as they have gone themselves. Also it depends on the client, to some clients the thoughts of depending on a t disgusts them but to others they will do anything to go there with a t and leave all their other relationships aside to live this fantasy they have imagined of having the best most loving and understanding mom or dad. This can be recipe for disaster when they find out that t can never be either but can except as who they are right in this moment. I believe there is a lot of healing in the therapy relationship but that there is also potential for damage and tgere is a fine line between a therapist acting out the love(mostly a client can feel it without being told) and when a therapist saying I love you. I would question their motives and wants around that.

I have been moved to tears by many of the posts in this thread. I can imagine the healing power behind some of the moments described. I think it's wonderful that people have found this kind of connection with a therapist and have found a healing and therapeutic experience in therapy.

I did have a therapist tell me that he loved me but it was a part of a sexual attraction he said he had for me. He told me that he would always be in my life, would always feel the same way about me. When I was unable to continue doing what he wanted me to do he turned away from me and stopped communicating with me. I still feel worthless and unlovable to this day.

Crimson (hug)
I am so sorry to hear how you have been treated. It's deplorable and despicable. I hope you know that it was his issues and his needs that were being meet and not yours. I hate that you have been treated this way but I hope you can find a new therapist to heal from this experience with. One why values your need and hears them x

WOW. What an amazing therapist. WOW. WOW. WOW. I'm in tears.

I have similar core issues, and have trouble letting my therapist in and committing to the full process. I feel it moving in this direction, and I'm terrified. You've just given me some hope that it's not too intense to take in the love.

After being with my therapist for 3+ years, I believe that our relationship has strengthen incredibly since she told me that she loves me. It was only one time and in the context of what we were talking about. Personally, I never had a problem with transference with her. At one point in our relationship, I was having a hard time opening up even though we had been seeing each other for a long while, but I wanted to really badly, because I can tell she wanted to help me. Because I saw her as only a professional, who have shown me multiple times that they don't care, I just couldn't open up like I wanted to. After a really hard session, she asked for a hug and at that moment, I felt that, even though this is her job, she did care about my well-being. Then a week or two later she told me she loved me, and again I felt it strengthened our therapeutic relationship. Could I have lived without those words? Of course. Transference is when we place a role on our therapist, correct? Well, my therapist doesn't fit anyone in my life, or need to fulfill anyone's role. To me, she is just my T. She isn't my friend, or a family member, nor do I care to have a relationship with her outside of our therapeutic relationship. If something happened and I couldn't go back to her, I would be sad, but life would go on. To be analytical, I have four boxes that I put people in: Family, Friends, Strangers, and Special People. She falls in the special people category. A few of my teachers fall there too, as they were more than teachers to me, and I truly did love them as teachers and people, but they weren't my friends/family members etc. I have had a few of my teachers tell me they love me and care for me as well.
For some people, hearing "I love you" puts them in shock because they don't have a box to put them in anymore. It turns them into "more than a professional, but less than a friend" and that can be really hard. Personally, for me, I have gained a lot from hearing those words and receiving hugs.

I thought I always wanted to hear him speak the words I love you. But in hindsight,
I think it would have made my feelings for him too intense, perhaps unmanageable and he knew that, plus it would have exceeded his boundaries. We hugged a few times.
I know he loves me, he has shown me in so many ways by his actions, by the look in his eyes. Now that he has retired, I look at his parting gift to me, a photography collection he took in which he wrote something to me ending it with a hand drawn heart and his name. I guess he finally said it-- non-verbally. I am severely greiving over hiim, but wouldn't change our love for a minute.

I´m pro "therapeutic love" and therfore I´m also positive to a T saying to a client that he/she loves you. Perhaps I though feel it´s not that suitable if you´re a (heterosexual) female and a (heterosexual) male T says he loves you or vv. Then the T must be really accurate in telling the client what kind of love it´s really about.

But in general I think a T that is too impersonal, I don´t mean a T should share a lot of private details though, just makes it harder to confide in such a T. If I know a T have had some hard times, perhaps lives alone or some other "basic" facts I think you could relate much easier.

I think it´s mostly unevitable to picture your T having the "perfect" life when you enter his or her own practice and knows she or he make quite a lot of money. Then, if you get a few more of personal comments, you could feel more at ease and more on the same level as the T, it´s my personal opinion.

Thank you so much for your supportive response, monalisa. I have had a very hard time not seeing what happened as proof of my worthlessness. Since I've joined this forum last year I have been trying to gather some courage to return to a therapist for help. Anyway, thank you for your thread and kind words.