Love in therapy

Like SD, I don't at all believe that, but I'm not a big proponent of psychoanalytic theory for the most part. This seems to be using "love" in a very broad, watered down, inaccurate sense.

I'd more willing to agree with the mental health symptoms many experience come from having NOT been treated with care or concern or responsibility or respect rather than somehow their mental health problems stemming from their own inability to do so. Sound like victim-blaming the way this quote phrases it, although I realize it is pulled completely without context.

I think it comes down to finding a therapist with an approach that suits the individual. I would have a hard time with a therapist that's so rigid in her views (therapy without love is a lost cause) that she doesn't adapt to what each individual responds to.

In this case, the OP has to figure out if she wants this approach or not.

I shouldn't have produced that quote since the whole thing is just leading things astray it seems. I was just trying to provide an example for the claim I made that finding a connection of love and therapy is part of the history of the field and so not unusual. I did not mean to suggest that Fromm's view is the correct view, because I am clearly saying there is no such thing as a correct view.

I guess once again all I can say is that I am not really understanding what is so problematic about love. I don't for instance see Fromm's sense of what love means is completely off the mark or too broad so therefore meaningless. This is a rather typical way to define love.

To say that people have problems because of lack of love seems only to underscore its importance in healing. The capacity for love is innate and part of survival. Someone who lacks this capacity has become derailed along the way of development, usually by other people.

I have loved my t for years; we have discussed it. Somehow I have found a way to love someone who isn't available....painful, but a reality. We love who we love. Feelings aren't right or wrong, they simply....are. People sometimes make up fancy words for feelings....transference/countertransference......

To those who say, no thats not it, its something else, i would challenge them to name what that something else is. I think Fromm's quote can be applied to someone who is codependent, who thinks they have the capacity to love but actually they lack respect / boundaries. That would describe me in my early adult years. You think you are intensely interested in another persons growth, but really its not in a good way. Wanting to fix someone else because you think they should change is not love.

But - how do you fix someone else who does want to change? The army way? A magic way?

Well, hankster, it's elementary. It is clearly not love. It is respect, understanding, concern....

As far as fixing it, I leave that to plumbers.

I think you've captured the essence of capacity to love quite well Hankster.
It involves the concept of separateness.

Codependency, excessive caretaking, come from the needs (including fears) of the codependent person. So does dependency, which I think is associated with attachment love. I don't, however, think it has to involve disrespect and boundaries; I think psychological boundaries, including sense of self, are the issue.

Of course this isn't some universal view of love or capacity to love, it's my understanding of how capacity to love is defined in the psychoanalytical sense. I usually call this 'mature love'. There are many types of love and many views about love.

I think one way to look at love is the ability of someone to invest in another without needing anything in return. That's what our parents are supposed to give us. If you didn't get that from your parents, then I think some of us might need that from therapy. But in order to receive that love, to internalize it, the attachment to your therapist has to be there (attachment love).

That's my take on it, anyway.

They do get something in return - payment. Also many of them seem to get off on feeling loved and needed and useful. So to say a therapist gets or expects nothing in return is not true from how I see it.

In terms of not needing anything in return--I mean psychologically, emotionally. Of course payment is considered needing something in return.

Yes, I agree that some therapists are needy and may even be attracted to the profession to get their needs met (need to be adored, need to fix people, etc.). That's one reason why I would not go with a therapist who didn't have years of their own therapy working through those needs.

I think whether there is love in therapy depends on the two people in the room and the issues of the client.
I have been with my T. on and off for 5 years and steady since last April. In the first 4 years, I came in for problem solving. How to help my kids, deal with parents, friends, etc. I didn't think anything about my T., didn't want anything from her and would have laughed if she said she loved me. I may not have come back. I never cared to see what she drove, wondered what she was doing or who she was with. Just. Didn't. Care.

THen, last April my mom got sick. I had just seen my T. the fall before and, again, no feelings whatsoever. Didn't miss her, didn't wonder about appointments, no notes, nothing. In May in the middle of my mom's sickness, she texted me "I always have time...I'm here". That was the first time in my life that some one had said they are here for me, that they have time. This was the beginning of my maternal transference which was positive but mostly negative for many months.
I needed to hear her say she cared about me. I couldn't tell her all my feelings with the same relationship we had had. It felt weird for me to all of a sudden have feelings for her when all these years I could have cared less. I needed her to say that by sharing my feelings she wouldn't abandon me, push me away, etc. It took several months but she said them months after I asked for it. For the first time in our relationship, several months ago I actually felt I loved her and knew I loved her - scary when my mind and my heart were in sync since I had fought it. I told her and she asked why it was so hard for me to say. I told her I didn't need to hear it - I knew from the look in her eyes when she said she cared. She nodded and said it can be shown through actions too.
So, I didn't need love in therapy for problem solving but I need it now while going through the depth of my childhood emotional neglect and the issues with my mom. My mom passing has totally changed our relationship. I think it all depends on the issues you are struggling with.

In the therapeutic relationship, reciprocity is not to be expected (and probably not beneficial). There is a structural difference between patient and therapist such that the focus is on the needs of the patient and the therapist should at least try to refrain from placing demands on the patient.

But there can be mutuality, which might sound the same as reciprocity, but is different. There has to be mutual recognition at some point in the process of therapy. It may not be mutual at the beginning. The patient may not have the ability to recognize the therapist as a subject at first. This interpersonal dimension is something that has to be achieved and is not necessarily a given.

I am just glad I have two I have figured out how to keep back and who no longer try and assault me with things like love, caring, compassion and empathy. Since I put an end to that, it is much more useful for me.

I hold the unpopular, anarchical notion that therapist-client status does not void interpersonal relationships, power dynamics and or expectations of how human beings treat one another.

If I received such a message outside of a therapy setting I'd think, what kind of needy control freak is this? First I disrespect anyone with such certainty How Life Works, How Growth Works, How Therapy Works. She seems far too swept away with her own mystical powers. Second I think her extremely self-important to be convinced that loving HER creates some sort of enchanted effect. Third, it seems she's dictating some sort of script, where she's writing lines for both herself and recipient.

OK, my therapy was harmful, and I never was in love. However, I was so mesmerized I failed to question the therapists' authority, methods conjectures and interpretations. In retrospect I utterly regret the damage in giving myself to people who didn't deserve it.

I'm skeptical of therapy that implants and demands some sort of delusion.

Wow! Thank you for all of the replies! Definitely have to let them all sink in before giving feedback! I just know I don't usually "fight" her... but now I feel like I am. Something, and I'm not sure what, made me feel more vulnerable all of a sudden....

Lickety, yes, marriage issues (continuing) brought me in, but I should have been in therapy many years ago. Born to a 16 year old mom, never knew my dad, somewhat absent mom, marries abusive man which led to whippings, hittings, throwing kids against walls, locking in basements, told how worthless pieces of **** we were....food behind a padlock, etc etc. After about 8 miserable years together, my mom decided to file for divorce. Why? Because he raised a hand to her....ONCE. Yet watched her daughter being beat for years. At 40, I still have issues with that. So, this T got a lot more than she bargained for when I showed up at her door! I was once one who couldn't be touched, didn't love anything, and just hateful and angry. I have turned into the complete opposite, but sometimes I still question motives and such.

This. I just can't emphasize enough how important learning to accept this in myself has been and continues to be.
Being in the shelter I see so many women who think that love means putting someone else first, whether that be an abusive partner or even their children. If you continually put others before yourself though it doesn't take very long for your love to turn to resentment and hate. Even with children. Yes, a child's needs are a priority, but if you can't help yourself you can't help anyone... It's like those oxygen masks on the plane. Put your own on first, because if you pass out who is going to take care of your child.

Really? I do not love my therapist whatsoever. She is very knowledgable and helps me with right strategies to get better. I neither love nor in love nor miss her at all. Never heard one must love their therapist!

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I know this feeling
I turned on previous T in the kind of way that a child will suddenly turn around and tell you that they hate you out of nowhere. I didn't understand what was happening at the time and unfortunately neither did she. I think I'll always carry the wound from that one... But that's another story...
More to the point, I had something very similar happen with T about three weeks back. I had that too vulnerable, need to shut you out feeling, but I recognized the feeling in myself - I posted here about how I felt disconnected in session... Anyhoo, recognizing it led to a huge breakthrough for me.
Love... In my opinion what is not said about love is more powerful and true that anything that can be said. It happens, in many different guises. It just is. Let it be.

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I´ve been thinking a lot about this myself and I would personally be very positive about such a comment as your T left you about love in therapy. It´s a bit hard to determine if she means her love for clients or if she means that the love always has to be reciprokated.

Of course I don´t think that she has any right to expect therapeutic love from a client, you can´t expect that to happen. It´s all about the therapeutic alliance I think, sometimes both T and client feels therapeutic love, sometimes the client defines the T:s love as something else.

I use the word "therapeutic love" as it is a kind of love you can´t explain or compare with other situations and relationships. I´ve been there, feeling very deeply about my T but I never thought about wanting her to be my friend or us spending time together outside therapy.

A T:s therapeutic love is something you share with other clients and I wouldn´t think of it as something she specifically asks from you. I see the love more as a tool that can be healing in many ways.

Perhaps this book would be interesting to you: "The intimate hour, Love and sex in psychotherapy" by Susan Baur.

I really appreciate all the feedback! Hot topic! I'm glad I posted about it. Many of you have read, I have (what I think is) a GREAT T. She has pulled things out of me I never thought I'd speak, she has helped me to open up in the outside world and give myself the voice I never let myself have. She also gives me a safe, supporting place to talk. I don't know why I'm feeling like pushing her away right now. It just hit me overnight, like a ton of bricks. I have a session on Monday, and I really have no interest in talking. I'm happy to listen while she talks...but I just feel like shutting down for awhile. I know that's not good. The only change we had is a change in topic....she's talking about my self loathing, and how I can learn to love and respect myself, and things I need to do to get there. That is one of a small list of things I just don't want to speak of right now, and she tells me I can say "I don't want to talk about that," but I haven't yet, to this point. The only time I voiced something like that was when she was talking about that blasted "inner child" of mine. That's another topic I don't want to go to. I had a really tough week last week.... just depressed, emotional (crying on the inside, not the outside), and then a crucial session got canceled (beyond her control) on Thursday. This bickering started prior to that, and I was fully preparing myself to discuss it on Thursday, but then the cancelation really threw me for a loop. She couldn't help it. Family issue. But still..... She hates me saying this of myself, but I was being selfish. I was ready to talk. now, I just want to shut down again.

Me too! Maybe that notion not so unpopular after all.

The "L" word has come up in my therapy recently also. My T used to say she cared deeply for me but she never used the word love. Part of me used to be "in love" with her but now I have settled into loving her in a more general way.

She surprised me a couple of months ago by writing in an email "sending love to you." Those words scared me because a few years back she told me that the word "love" is reserved for her family and close friends. I know I'm neither.

So we talked about love and she asked "what is love anyway", and mentioned the book Love 2.0 which apparently discusses a broader definition of love than is commonly used. She said that with somatic experiencing the T becomes very close to the client, (not meaning it doesn't happen with other modalities too), so love is important. I think she means deep caring and compassion for her clients which is one kind of love.

At a recent session she made clear that she doesn't mean romantic love, and it's not like the way we love our kids either. I suggested it's " therapy love", and told her I read that terminology somewhere, and she liked it. So in my last email I signed it Love (therapy love), rainbow, and in her email she wrote "sending therapy love." Those words don't scare me as much as the word love alone. For me, exploring my feelings about love is important, and being able to accept that my T cares for me "that much" and to know that I'm allowed to express my love for her, are crucial steps towards my healing.

Love is measured by the level of oxytocin in the brain.

OOO! The O word! Oxytocin, gimme, gimme, gimme!

I don't think I have had oxytocin near the therapist. I think I only get adrenaline rush. The woman once told me I could use some serotonin.