If your therapist tells you that they love you,

"I Love You." Three words that breathed life into me and I will always be grateful that my therapist was willing to buck boundaries to give me what she felt I needed. She was willing to rethink her position. Even more so, because she was trained in school that love of clients or to say it to them was a Big No-No. And, lucky for me and for her other clients that may need or want these words to heal she is willing to go there, despite her 'license' being on the line. I'm glad I was able to affect her growth.

If someone finds comfort in it from a therapist and is otherwise okay with the therapist, then why not go with it?
I would not (and admittedly comfort is not my strong suit to begin with and I don't find it around the therapist at all), but that has no bearing on what is useful for someone else.

How can you if your Mom never showed you?

There is room for other opinions on this issue.

Thank you for that. I try to show what I THINK is love to others but I don't know if it is. I try to always be there for people and to let people know that I care but "care" and "love" are not the same thing right? Love comes completely from the heart?

Who says there isn't? There is always room for all kinds of opinions on every issue I don't think anyone is trying to dispute that

What is love anyway? Who knows.

Threads like this just convince me of how crazy and messed up therapy really is.

Welcome to the club I could elaborate further but ..I'll take the high road. )

I have to log out. We have a big celebration going on here. It's a big Victory Day on May 9th but that's irrelevant to this discussion of course. Whoever wants can google it. Have a good time everyone! I hope y'all will start caring about yourself more than you care about your therapists and will start enjoying life!

As some one who had a very abusive, neglectfull and cruel mother I think I will always be afraid I don't understand real love. That I am not able to recognize it, or to give it appropriately.
However my T does frequently say she loves me ( and I say I love her). Which is pretty important Conside ring I grew up believing my mom was right in calling me "iimpossible to love". What she does has taught me that I CAN be loved and I can recognize and give healthy love. If she wasn't willing to say it I think our therapy would still be stuck .

That being said I think love is active. It's not a feeling but a way of behaving toward someone . I love my partner which means I continue to treat her well even when I do not feel warm and fuzzy towards her. I love my horse so I bandage his legs even if he is uncooperative. so I think love is complicated. Much more complicated than saying a few words. Still.i Am glad my T says them

I never had a mom, but I do understand love. While I don't love my biological mother, there are several other people in my life that I love, including my T. My T and I say "I love you" and it feels like the simplest, easiest, most obvious thing in the world. I recognize that it isn't for everyone and, with other clients, it might be unethical or inappropriate. But, for me, having a loving relationship with my T gives me that kind of maternal, unconditional love that I need. And I love her unconditionally as well. It's full of warm fuzzies and (ironic) emoticons. While I've found love in romantic relationships to be complicated or transitory, love has never felt complicated with my best friend or my T. They're two of "my people." Maybe it's easier because they aren't part of my (dysfunctional) family and there is no romantic element involved. It's all warm fuzzies without any of the childhood trauma, jealousy, unmet expectations, etc.

You do tend to paint with broad strokes, don't you? Sounds a bit condescending to make the assumption that we all place our therapists on some sort of pedestal as more important than ourselves, that we don't care about ourselves, that we aren't enjoying life. I don't know about others, but I've always cared about myself which is what brought me into therapy in the first place. I don't care about my therapist more than I do myself (never have), but I do care about him; might just be that it is a healthy relationship (they do exist in therapy). I quite enjoy my life by the way. And . . . wait for it . . . my therapists have all used the dreaded "L" word with me on occasion and I haven't been damaged by it, scarred by it, taken advantage of by it, etc. I suspect I am not the only person here who can say all of the above AND recognize and respect that other people won't be able to because we all come from different experiences.

Try to understand that your view on therapy doesn't apply to every person's experience. Your philosophy about therapy is just one of many, and is no more valid than any other. Different types of therapy approaches work with different people because we are . . . different. You can't cookie-cutter therapy. It isn't one size fits all, but you seem to keep trying to declare that your viewpoint is the only right viewpoint. You say all opinions are welcome, but that appears to be just patronizing because you turn right around and declare your viewpoint is the only correct viewpoint and then insult us saying we don't care about ourselves and aren't enjoying life.

Perhaps you want to rethink your comments? or not.

If my T said this it would be so odd, I think I would just say, "thank you" but I don't know her well enough to say. "I love you"

We just don't communicate like that.

I'd pinch myself because I must be dreaming.

Reply:

I am terminating with her because I am moving. I have been with her for 6 years and she has been with me through the death of both parents, sister's cancer diagnosis, my own personal health problems, loss of pets, jobs lost and found, trauma. I have never trusted a therapist or shared as much as I have with her. I was able to express feelings and everything. I am leaving in October. I asked if I could come see her at the clinic if I ever come back to visit. She said I couldn't. She said I could send her a postcard or an email to update her on what I am doing but she won't write back. What is the point of doing that? This is the part I don't like about therapy after 6 years it is okay for her to write me out of her life.

I hope I learn to love myself as much as I loved her. I hope and pray that for myself. Thanks.

Yes... We both said "I love you."

My mom told me the same thing many years ago. She was 16. She wanted an abortion, but my grandparents, being strong Catholics, said no way, they wouldn't let her. And she had no problem telling me that either. So, she had sex young, and ended up stuck with me. I never knew my dad.

I know you are speaking metaphorically here but I don't really understand what you mean by "the heart" here. There are many different definitions of "love", and I think many of them coincide with "care". You seem like a loving person to me, and I don't think you need to worry too much about those definitions when it comes to how you interact with other people. What matters is what you do, and that you do care about others, not which label you put on it.

(I think semantics are extremely interesting to discuss, and often very important - in my world there is no such thing as "just semantics". But I think it's possible to get a bit hung up on individual words sometimes. That is just my take on it, of course.)

That sounds really painful, did she give her reasons? Does she think she is doing it for your benefit?

Love, even with partner of 17 years, my best friend or my T is always complicated. Anytime my mother abused me she told me how much she loved me and how because she loved me she couldn't let me be rotten, uglY, etc. So love for me is terribly tangled up with pain, fear and shame. I am afraid to be close to anyone in case they see the same rotten soul my mother did. When I do get close I am constantly afraid that today is the day the person will realize how defective I am. Even my partner. After 17 years, 3 cross country moves, starting a business, 4 hospitalizations and several other serious injuries, 6 dogs, 3 cats, 21 ducks, a raccoon, our own house and 2 horses---iI still am afraid all the time that today will be the day she sees what i am and leaves. I also feel the warm fuzzy side of love. But my own core shame prevents me froM fully embracing it. I don't think my love is good enough. I don't think my love is enough to make up for how flawed and ugly I am. So I think there must be something wrong with me or the way I love. It's a long slow battle

Curious. I went back to see an ex-T a couple of times and she was pleased to see me.

Honestly I don't associate someone telling me they love me with anything good.

But I think it's dangerous in therapy because a therapist really CANNOT know if it will be helpful or harmful to the client. I think it is better to show the "love" or whatever (because I just am repulsed by the whole idea of love in therapy anyway, but that is my issue) by how the therapist acts and how trustworthy they are and on and on. I think saying "I love you" is always unethical in therapy because of the harm it could possibly do. It's irresponsible and somewhat incompetent.

And I'm not even sure what love in therapy means.

I would challenge the idea that they "cannot" know a client that well. And that it is "always" unethical, irresponsible and incompetent. But I understand your personal therapy background was painful and hurtful and that tempers your opinions.

My opinion isn't tempered in this case by my past therapy. I did a lot of research online of complaints made by clients and (I think I mentioned this before) a therapist saying "I love you" was a red flag to the ethics committees and did contribute to the discipline of many therapists. It was NOT the ONLY issue, but it was mentioned over and over. So it is considered in ethics. And I don't think anyone can really know how someone will react to a statement like that in therapy or out of therapy. Even the client might not know how it would affect them. I think it's just better to be safe than sorry.

Love was never something I looked for in therapy though and so this issue isn't tempered at all by my bad therapist.

. . . but that doesn't mean that all therapists who use the phrase have had discipline brought against them or that all therapists who use that phrase are unethical or unskilled. Yes, unethical therapists may have poor skills and it is one of most likely many issues that led to them being disciplined, but correlation is not causation. I suspect far more very competent, professional, and skilled therapists have learned to discern when and with whom they can use that phrase without causing problems, in fact, using it in such a way that it is actually helpful to many clients.