Has your T ever told you they love you?

That's true for all human languages - English doesn't have more ambiguities than any other language with more than a handful speakers

My T is American and she is very clear about not telling a client she loves them. So even though it doesn't necessarily mean love as in loving a partner or very close family, for her the L word is off limits with clients. And she is a very sweet, loving person and expresses her care in a lot of ways - just not by saying 'I love you'
And for me, even with my cultural background and understanding the different meanings it can hold, I still wouldn't want her to tell me she loves me.
But I am good at showing her that I do care about her A LOT.

My former therapist held the line when it came to those three words, " I love you." I got the I care about you deeply. I'm very fond of you. I only say, I love you to family, special friends, yada, yada yada. Well, I had started to feel love for her, and I told her if it's not reciprocal, I surely wasn't going to ever say it, especially because she couldn't tell me how what she says is any different from loving the local baker down the street. And oh, he's not doing therapy, and pouring his guts out to her every session. She asked for time to think about it, and to consult with others in the field. She came back with them telling her that she does love her clients just by the way she speaks about them, and they can see the love she has for her clients in her face, so don't go denying you don't love them. I was the first client she said, " I love you," to. During my worst times I would tell her, "Don't say it!" She said it anyway. Last night, we hugged after the movie, and she said, " I love you."

Do you really equate what you feel for your therapist to be what you feel about the baker? Gotta picture of the baker?

In those exact 3 words? No. But she has said things in a way that there would be no other meaning. I don't need her to say those exact words. I'm content with what she has said.

I have told her in an email that I love her...don't know if she read that part because she only skims my emails.

We were actually talking about love this week. I told her I want to be loved, but I don't feel like I deserve it. She said that I do deserve it even if I didn't get it from my parents. She asked me, "Does everyone deserve to be loved or do only some people deserve love? And does someone who wasn't loved as a child deserve less love?" This conversation started by me telling her she spoils me. At the very least, I know she cares a lot about me.

yes many times daily and yes we do say it back each and every time ♥

I totally agree with you.
In Greek love has three words- agape, filia, eros. And all of this words has different meaning for love.

You should have seen me trying to explain to a Korean student the differences between cows, steers, bulls, heifers, calves, etc. Now that was an interesting English lesson!

We have more words for cattle than for love? Interesting!

What word do we use for the love of cattle?

The only T who ever said she loved me was Madame T. She said, "I love you too."
My attachment to her was such that I needed to hear it. Maybe she understood that.

No she hasn't. If she did I think I would be pretty uncomfortable. Only because I have a hard time saying it to people and hearing it. I know she cares and that is all that I need.

T said that she has unconditional acceptance, or love, for her clients. She could tell that I was weirded out by the love part though so she didn't say that part anymore.

It would feel very uncomfortable for her to tell me she loves me. I wouldn't care for that.

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No, never, and I wouldn't believe him any way.

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After about four and a half years and in reply to me implying that she didn't feel that way, she said something along the lines of I do consider myself as having love for you or maybe it was some love towards you. I was relieved. It was enough.

Yes. We've been seeing each other 1-2x a week for over 3.5 years and it's something that she didn't say for perhaps 2 years and then only a handful of times for about the next year. Now, she says it more often - maybe once/month (it's hard to remember/quantify because it's just normal, natural). I used to say it to her much more and it was hard not to always or often get a reciprocation. But now sometimes when she says it I don't reciprocate - and this has nothing to do with not loving her, just where I am (and it's not even in a bad place - hard to explain). I guess I'm just sharing some of this to talk about the evolution of saying I love you in our relationship. A couple of years ago I would have killed for her to say it regularly. Now she does and I don't want to minimize its specialness at all, but it's not such a big deal - it's more like stating the obvious and something meaningful/special that's said at moments when we feel a very strong connection.

She did, when we said goodbye at my last in-person session before she moved away, but followed it with "therapeutically, of course." I rolled my eyes at her, I believe. lol But yeah she has explained to me more than once that there are different kinds of love and there is a kind of love that develops in therapy "don't you think?" Um yeah, t, I think.... lol

t and i say i love
you all the time. just today we probably sais it maybe five times

The English word "love" feels way too inaccurate for me as I'm used to have several different words depending what kind of love it is. Maybe it's only attachment, but with time I got to "love" my therapist: I definitely have another word for this, lol. I could describe it as affection but it's not even that.

Anyway no, and I don't expect her to. I'd like to hear she cares someday but not that she loves me, it would feel more awkward than nice, and I would find it hard to believe to such statement. She's done a lot for me and I wouldn't feel comfortable asking her to also put it in words.

Thankfully, no. He has said he feels a kind of love for me, and it has characteristics of some of the definitions of the word, but isn't accurately reflected by the word used as a verb. To love someone I think is a different sentiment from having love for someone. The former expresses a directed action; the latter expresses a state of feeling which doesn't demand any action. In a therapy relationship, the former feels to me like a threat to the therapy frame; whereas the latter feels safe because it can be contained within the frame.

Wow, cant believe how many T actually say they love their clients! I just think of it as being professional to not say the words, which can get them in trouble. As much as I would love to hear them, I think it would just make me more dependent and love him too much back. Since he is retiring, that would only make it more difficult for me. But as I said, he shows me all the time he loves me.
He just gave me a memento this week which was very meaningful to me, something simple but something I can take with me as a transitional object. I emailed him afterwards about how much I liked it and signed the email, Luv M He emailed me back just a simple happy face.
I interpret his happy face as expressing love back to me and I have no reason to believe otherwise.

For all of you who hear the words from your T, I'm happy for you, cherish them.

For what it's worth, there are schools of psychology that believe the love that develops between the therapist and client is what promotes healing. I would think that therapists that practice that kind of therapy would be more inclined to say it?

I don't love my therapist (yet). Any type of strong feeling towards T I recognize as transference. I love how he makes me feel, and it's addictive at times. But it's not the same love that I feel for my family. I would not rule out loving T as a person, but I would need to know him better first.

If T said he loved me, I would be all . The thought makes me want to run like hell.

Yes she has and as nice as that is, I wish it had remained unsaid and that I could have kept my safe therapeutic place.

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Yes after almost two years working together. Now she says it all the time

Not verbally, but I can sense it's there.

It seems to me, and I could be all messed up, but it seems like telling someone you love them is kind of selfish, kind of like a statement that begs reciprocation or something...

I don't think a T should ever say "I love you" to a client, to me it seems really inappropriate. There are many ways to say that you care about a person whithout having to say that phrase. Goodness, people who are dating agonize about saying those words, so it shouldn't be something that should be used by a professional! For me as a client, I would be freaked out if my T or pdoc told me they loved me.

I know people who are on the younger side use the term much more loosely than people my age (40's), so maybe it's generational too. Now it seems like a very common way to tell someone you care. I've heard my 14 year old and his female friends say it to each other a lot. When I questioned him he told me not to worry, it's not as serious as I'm thinking it is.

Still in the context of therapy it seems like there are more appropriate ways to get the message across. Otherwise it could be easily misinterpreted and cause more problems it would help.

Agreed! I can't imagine any circumstance for me where it would be appropriate for T to verbalize those type of feelings for me. I didn't go into therapy for that either.

I do think there are individuals that need to hear it as part of their own therapies - because they can't trust just the feeling, and to validate that they are worthy of receiving love. If the T truly feels it, and the client benefits from hearing it, I think it's great! Morally, I'd object to a T saying it without meaning it in an attempt to manipulate healing. It would have to be honest, and natural.

I agree too. I read all these posts where clients say that their therapist has told them they love them and I can't help thinking - how will it end? How do people break free from this unless they stay in therapy their whole life? How does it affect a client whose therapists says these words and then at some point therapy is over, terminated etc. What happens with the "Love"? Will these clients not feel so devastated to lose that love? Or will it be a love they remember and hold dear and move past it?

In my RL when somebody tells me they love me, it means so much to me. In my circles it's never used lightly, it's never a phrase or a habit.
And when I lose someone who has ever said they love me, I feel devastated. And it's not easy to move past that, sometimes it stays with me forever.

In therapy, something that is supposed to be temporarily, I can accept when my therapist tells me she cares about me a lot, I can accept it when she says she is very fond of me and likes me etc. But if she would tell me she loved me, I would have a hell of a time breaking lose from that. In my opinion it holds a danger to promote an attachment that is almost impossible to break off, because it's so difficult to let go of someone who says 'I love you'.