[MirandaL]

I myself were one of those who believed in some kind of "therapy love" in a plathonic way but now I have in a bitterly way experienced that there´s no kind of that love worth calling it´s name. And I´m now not talking of me expecting my T to be some kind of friend.

Caring for and engaging in other people have to be done in an unconditional way, not within a therapy session and out of theoretical frameworks. I believe therapists care for their patients in some way but it can never be fully experienced as authentic as you know therapy is an artificial relationship.

It can never be questioned that therapists use a lot of different techniques to make us feel loved and care for, that´s also the key for errors and for disappointing the client. I´ve experienced my T missing out on important facts about me, that I´ve already told her, her breaking promises to me openly and so on.

With that I mean therapists in some way are blinded by their interpretation of their clients, of them making analyses of us which in the other end just shows that they really didn´t listen to what the client was saying.

That´s also apparent when I realised my T either ignored or just didn´t see my reactions to her questions and her way of talking to me, I felt exposed and stressed but she´d just went on.

Another thing I´ve experienced is the way T:s with private practices use their possibility to go on a leave when they feel like it. When entering back from the leave they don´t have time to prepare in a sufficient way as they after the leave have to deal with all the clients who were left behind and they didn´t have time to see because of the holiday.

And I think noone would be that naive to believe that a therapist would care for you as she or he does for his or her own family members.

Of course my statement here is that you can´t ever trust a person who you pay to care, who analyses every feeling they feel and that just sees your suffering or disappointment as something to explore in therapy.

Has anyone else experienced this? Would really like to hear about experiences that are similar to mine.

I'm sorry your experiences in therapy haven't been altogether positive.
I have to say, I do believe therapists can be authentic within the relationship. That is not to say they can be a parent in the true sense, or that they can care for you in the same way as they do their family, but I think they can be true to who they are and authentic with their feelings (congruent as Carl Rogers put it) and this makes for a great therapeutic relationship.
They can't necessarily be part of the relationship you want to have with them, but they represent another kind of relationship, which for me has been unique, healing and most definitely authentic.

[stopdog]

I agree they are not authentic. I consider that a good thing. They are playing a role in my opinion. I do not seek authenticity from any of them.

[unaluna]

No, you are not going to get a perfect love from a therapist. They are only human. For perfect love you have to turn to religion. Some therapist do strive to provide "good enough" therapy.

[MirandaL]

Echos Myron: Where do you mean you find the authentic part in the relationship? I think it´s mostly a feeling of authenticity, I don´t think you can claim there´s authenticity when you at the samt time limits it within a certain kind of relationship. Authenticity have no limits or borders, as soon as you puts that into a relationship you hinder a person from being genuine, honest and authentic. And that´s exactly how I feel my T acts in therapy.

I'm sorry you've had experiences to make you feel this way. As far as therapy being an "artificial relationship" - interesting to me because a good year ago, I made a similar statement to my t that "therapy is not real life" and she replied, "why isn't it real life?" so I got to thinking about that and set out to write an essay I titled "Why therapy is not real life". The funny thing about it is by the time I came to the end of my essay, I had disproved what I set out to prove. It may be a microcosm of real life, but my therapy is definitely real life - a real relationship - different from any other kind of relationship I have, with different boundaries and whatnot, true, but it's still a real relationship. I don't feel like I am paying her to care about me. I am paying her for her time, her knowledge, and to keep "her stuff" out of the room unless it specifically relates to what we're talking about. I don't think for a minute that she cares about me like a family member and quite frankly I wouldn't want her to, I don't want her to have so much of herself invested in me that she feels like she has the right to tell me what to do like she might with a family member. It took me many years to find a t that is so right for me.... don't give up. Really good t's are out there you just have to keep trying until you find the one that is right for you.

[Lauliza]

Originally Posted by MirandaL

think it´s mostly a feeling of authenticity, I don´t think you can claim there´s authenticity when you at the samt time limits it within a certain kind of relationship. Authenticity have no limits or borders, as soon as you puts that into a relationship you hinder a person from being genuine, honest and authentic. And that´s exactly how I feel my T acts in therapy.

In therapy it is a genuine therapeutic relationship and not a genuine personal one, that is true. But many relationships in life exist in categories - romantic, work, school, family, acquaintences, casual friends, close friends...The fact that they fall into categories doesn't mean they aren't real. It means they exist in a different context.

I do think all relationships have limits and borders to some extent, although I know therapy has some very specific and what can be thought of as strange ones. But in real life, social rules often prevent us from saying anything we want to anyone we want, but that doesn't make a relationship less authentic. Very few relationships, except usually parent-child, are truly unconditional. Therapists give unconditional acceptance and positive regard, but love is not the same. Therapy love is not the same thing as love IRL. Honestly, I'm not comfortable using the term "love" in the context of therapy, at least not in mine. If I expected that then I would be very disappointed because that isn't authentic and I think therapists should be very careful even alluding to it. Caring, yes, I think that is real, but that's not the same as love in my opinion.

[MirandaL]

I don´t see how your story could "prove" that the relationship is authentic. I don´t have the opportunity to try different T:s. I pay out of my pocket and would never have the money to start from the beginning with another T so that´s not an issue I want to bring into this thread.

As I think no therapist can be genuine or fully honest as he or she is bound by rules, theoretical beliefs and so on there would not be point in switching therapist even if I had the opportunity.

[PeeJay]

(I said versions of this other threads, but it is relevant here too.)

I am often shocked at how cold my therapist can be when the session is over, and over the phone and over email. It's like she is two people and I pay for one hour of warm, attentive therapist, and that's it and that's all she is going to give.

She turns on and off the therapeutic act like a switch.

My conclusion is that therapists do this acting thing where they hold you with their eyes and mirror all your emotions, and you can feel magically close to them. It's strangely comforting, though a bit weird and probably manipulative with the intent of helping us.

They can only get into character in person, this attuning caring character.

I'm not saying it's fake. It could be real in the moment. But it is not sustained and it's only for that hour that you pay for.

My therapist has led me to believe that she enjoys helping me. And, she works hard in session and I appreciate her for that. She makes a real effort to help me for that hour when her taxi-meter is running, and so that's the best I can ask for, I guess.

If we need more than that, we either have to pay for more or just acknowledge (and mourn) that we aren't getting it somewhere else in our lives.

[MirandaL]

Lauliza: You have a valid point in that many relationships come with some kind of borders. But hopefully they are borders agreed upon and talked about, not just stated out of theoretical frameworks.

Most important in the therapeutic relationship is that the relationship is based on love in some way, to create that safe environment so the client can share his or her issues freely. But when you don´t feel this "love" and the therapist don´t mediate those feelings you also can say that there´s no real authenticity. "Love" created through theories, analyses and so on it´s just bogus, I would never be able to talk freely in such settings.

Originally Posted by MirandaL

Echos Myron: Where do you mean you find the authentic part in the relationship? I think it´s mostly a feeling of authenticity, I don´t think you can claim there´s authenticity when you at the samt time limits it within a certain kind of relationship. Authenticity have no limits or borders, as soon as you puts that into a relationship you hinder a person from being genuine, honest and authentic. And that´s exactly how I feel my T acts in therapy.

I mean a therapist can strive to be authentic within the relationship but as with any relationship you are limited by the boundaries of the relationship. Here's a paper that might be useful:
https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&so..._Buh9V33eay_fg

[MirandaL]

PeeJay: It´s interesting to hear you have similar experiences and to me it just proves even more that therapists just make us believe we are cared for and for me realising this just makes me don´t want to talk to my therapist anymore. (Or any therapist).

You write that your therapist enjoys helping you, that´s of course nice but in what state does that puts us as a client? Into some "lost sheep" that have to be saved when the therapist puts on his or her "gentle and caring mask" for an hour a week?

No, it´s just fake, everything to it.

[coolibrarian]

I don't agree that you can't trust someone whom you pay to care. I pay my auto mechanic to care about my safety and my car, and I trust him. I pay tuition for grad school, and I trust my professors, who care about my education. I trust my dentist, whom I pay to care about my teeth and my health. And so on.

[PeeJay]

Originally Posted by MirandaL

PeeJay: It´s interesting to hear you have similar experiences and to me it just proves even more that therapists just make us believe we are cared for and for me realising this just makes me don´t want to talk to my therapist anymore. (Or any therapist).

You write that your therapist enjoys helping you, that´s of course nice but in what state does that puts us as a client? Into some "lost sheep" that have to be saved when the therapist puts on his or her "gentle and caring mask" for an hour a week?

No, it´s just fake, everything to it.

Miranda,

I think it can be hurtful to realize that the therapist isn't a savior, but another human being who meets with us on a schedule and gives us his or her all for that meeting.

To me, it's hurtful to realize that I need that hour and I look forward to it and I could use a lot more than an hour. I am ashamed of needing anyone.

But, I go because it is my own act of defiance to pay for something that heals me. And it is strangely healing and has helped me to soften and be a better person in my real life.

I see the therapeutic relationship as an act, not an inauthentic act, but one that is not sustainable over long periods because it takes so much out of the therapist to do this whole mirroring-attuning thing.

I mirror-attune to my children and it comes naturally. And I think that we only really get this sort of thing once in our lives, from our parents. And if we never got it from them, then we have to mourn that.

Therapy is can be dangerous. My first therapist left me worse off than I ever had been, stripping me of some defense mechanisms and then abandoning me mid-therapy. So, definitely I go in now with a guarded heart and psyche, and with open eyes.

But I also think that it takes a special kind of person to decide to *become* a therapist. I could never do it.

[MirandaL]

Cherbiej: The examples you bring into here doesn´t involve you sharing your inner secrets and issues and they´re therefore not fully relevant to a discussion around the therapeutic relationship.

If "love" in the therapeutic relationship always was authentic the therapist wouldn´t have to use certain techniques to guess his or her way forward to approach a client. If the therapist was honest and genuine he or she would (after some sessions getting to know the person) just feel how to respond to a client.

It wouldn´t come with set-backs, disappointments, excuses to uncurl misunderstandings and so on to that quite massive extent that we can all read and hear about when discussing therapeutic relationships.

[HazelGirl]

Miranda, I disagree. I think that maybe your T wasn't authentic and it sounds like they hurt you. But not all T's are like that. And it's certainly not true that just because you pay someone doesn't mean that you can't trust them.

Originally Posted by MirandaL

I myself were one of those who believed in some kind of "therapy love" in a plathonic way but now I have in a bitterly way experienced that there´s no kind of that love worth calling it´s name. And I´m now not talking of me expecting my T to be some kind of friend.

Caring for and engaging in other people have to be done in an unconditional way, not within a therapy session and out of theoretical frameworks. I believe therapists care for their patients in some way but it can never be fully experienced as authentic as you know therapy is an artificial relationship.

It can never be questioned that therapists use a lot of different techniques to make us feel loved and care for, that´s also the key for errors and for disappointing the client. I´ve experienced my T missing out on important facts about me, that I´ve already told her, her breaking promises to me openly and so on.

With that I mean therapists in some way are blinded by their interpretation of their clients, of them making analyses of us which in the other end just shows that they really didn´t listen to what the client was saying.

That´s also apparent when I realised my T either ignored or just didn´t see my reactions to her questions and her way of talking to me, I felt exposed and stressed but she´d just went on.

Another thing I´ve experienced is the way T:s with private practices use their possibility to go on a leave when they feel like it. When entering back from the leave they don´t have time to prepare in a sufficient way as they after the leave have to deal with all the clients who were left behind and they didn´t have time to see because of the holiday.

And I think noone would be that naive to believe that a therapist would care for you as she or he does for his or her own family members.

Of course my statement here is that you can´t ever trust a person who you pay to care, who analyses every feeling they feel and that just sees your suffering or disappointment as something to explore in therapy.

Has anyone else experienced this? Would really like to hear about experiences that are similar to mine.

I see from the replies that some agree with you and others have a different point of view, I'm with the others, I have a different view. I think I'm experiencing something really different to you. My T is authentic, she is 100% in the room with me. Vulnerable too in some way. Our relationship is real. I don't think of it in anyway except as a therapist/ client relationship, but it is a powerful, intense relationship which is making me suddenly feel emotions that I have been numb to since I was a three year old.

At the start I didn't feel that she listened to what I said and I told her so. I think we know each other better now and I don't feel that anymore. She has forgotten a few little things, but nothing of importance. After our summer break it felt to me that she had read through her notes. I trust her, I don't think she sees my suffering as just something to explore, she is aware of how painful it is for me. I am trying to be brutally honest in the room with her, and I feel that I'm getting brutal genuineness in return.

[Lauliza]

It sounds like you were hurt very badly so I understand your mistrust of therapists and their intentions. And I do think that its true that some therapists do a lot of harm by expressing too much in the way of "love" only to end up retracting it when their client responds. I happen to think it's misleading to clients if the true nature of the therapy relationship is not discussed up front.

There are certain people, who just by their nature, create the feeling of closeness and warmth. They are charismatic people and I think a lot of the time they are pretty sincere. However, the unfortunate part of that is that this type of person doesn't always understand the impact they have on someone who has never received this from other people. If a client doesn't fully know what a therapeutic relationship involves, then I can see how it's easy to perceive the relationship as being much deeper than it really is. Some therapists are pretty oblivious to this and can end up making clients worse. They probably are not putting on an act or even being fake. What they are doing is failing to communicate right away what the limitations of therapy are. That it can help you but only to give you tools to carry into your real life so you can create deeper relationships there.

[RedSun]

Your point that 'caring for and engaging with other people has to be done in an unconditional way' is very true when talking about a parental relationship,- I hope I love my kids unconditionally.
However, in, I think all, other relationships, unconditional love or care would suggest a lack of boundaries or self respect. For example, if my hubby cheated on me, or left me, I would not love him or care for him as I do now, and nor should I.
To me, an authentic, adult relationship has to have boundaries and conditional care, and that is what I would expect from a t. A t who does not have boundaries and limits is not really modelling a healthy relationship, IMHO.

[Bill3]

What do you mean by an "authentic" relationship?

[IndestructibleGirl]

Originally Posted by hankster

No, you are not going to get a perfect love from a therapist. They are only human. For perfect love you have to turn to religion. Some therapist do strive to provide "good enough" therapy.

Or a dog or a horse

I agree though. No human love is faultless.

My mother was a brilliant mother, loved me fiercely as I did her, she did so much for me, yet she still made a few mistakes. Likewise, as her young-adult daughter there are mistakes I made then that I can't ever put right because she's dead now. I have to iron these mistakes out in my therapy. Doesn't mean our relationship was not authentically loving, just because we made mistakes.

I think it would be naive to believe that 'perfect' love exists and that you will never be hurt by those you love.

I think it was on these boards I read the analogy about each of us being like a pane of glass when we are born, and our parents (and then subsequent relationships) leave some kind of marks - scuffs and scratches from general wear and tear at the better end of 'good enough', cracks of varying sizes in the middle when things are difficult or chaotic and moving into not-good-enough territory, and outright shattering into jagged shards where the damage is extreme.

So, you will never have a close relationship with someone and emerge unscathed, without at least a few scratches over the course of time.

[Elkino]

Based on the title of your post, I guess I disagree with that statement. I think that authenticity is something any good therapist should bring to their sessions with clients. Being authentic is being real and of course therapists do have a certain agenda, but that doesn't mean they have a facade hiding the 'real' person they are. Although it might be the case for some of them.

Of course a therapy relationship isn't a spontaneous kind of relationship, but I think 'spontaneous' and 'authentic' absolutely can't be used as synonyms here. Yes, they didn't choose to work with their clients, but isn't it a bit like a classroom or something? You didn't pick the other students either and still you build up friendships inside that environment which aren't less 'real' and authentic because of that setting.

[Salmon77]

I'm really confused by the idea that the therapeutic relationship is "based on love". That seems like a very unrealistic expectation to me.

Of course my therapist isn't an authentic parent, friend, sibling, partner, etc. to me. He's authentically my therapist, though. If I'm looking for those other things, the therapist's office is not where I think I should find them.

[coolibrarian]

Originally Posted by MirandaL

Cherbiej: The examples you bring into here doesn´t involve you sharing your inner secrets and issues and they´re therefore not fully relevant to a discussion around the therapeutic relationship.

If "love" in the therapeutic relationship always was authentic the therapist wouldn´t have to use certain techniques to guess his or her way forward to approach a client. If the therapist was honest and genuine he or she would (after some sessions getting to know the person) just feel how to respond to a client.

It wouldn´t come with set-backs, disappointments, excuses to uncurl misunderstandings and so on to that quite massive extent that we can all read and hear about when discussing therapeutic relationships.

What you say has value, but I was responding to the initial post.

[tinyrabbit]

You can care unconditionally and authentically and still make mistakes. Surely a T needs to be human - not a robot, not automated, not perfect - in order to be authentic?

T's may not remember details as they are focusing on process as well as content. They may screw up. That's all part of an authentic relationship between non-robots. All relationships involve mistakes.

I think this sums it up for me:
It?s the Relationship? « what a shrink thinks