Productive session about touch, love, attraction, and more

Human beings are responsive beings, and are biologically and psychologically designed to interact, connect and respond to other human beings. We can be triggered to respond emotionally and physically in a million and one different ways when interacting with other human beings.
Maybe your feelings and responses don't mean anything more than the fact that you are a living, thinking, feeling human being.

What she is referring to is radical acceptance. When I was anxious my therspist and I worked on this. Basically rather than try to push away the feeling, accept that it is there at this moment. Trying to deny it may cause more anxiety. So rather than labeling it as bad or good just accept it is there. I also wanted to comment on your concern for her using love. I noticed through your posts that you like to dissect your interactions. I hope you understand that not every interaction is going to have some deep meaning. As an example, my therapist yawned one time. I did not take this action and assume she is bored with what I am saying. I took it at face value. It's normal to yawn especially if your tired. On another note you were probably disappointed about not feeling the attraction, because you like the way this feels. Maybe you feel more connected when you have this attraction.

Therapy is something that has forced me to recognize that attraction, love, and arousal don't always fit into neat boxes like I think they should. T's tend to emphasize that the relationship is not romantic but what does that even mean? I think concretely it just means the T will not be your partner, only your T, and they will not engage in sexual behavior. Hand holding is a little on the edge because some clients could perceive it as sexual. I heard of a case once where a T got reported for touching a client's ankle with his foot. The T claimed it was to get the client's attention and the client thought it was sexual. So T's tend to be overcautious about that kind of thing because they don't want to get reported. Even though you think you would never report your T for that, sometimes clients, especially if they are on the trauma or personality disorder spectrum, can turn on their T's and use everything they have against them. So T's are right to be cautious if they want to keep their jobs.

But outside the issue of T's worrying about their licenses...romantic and sexual feelings do happen in therapy. In my case, my T is old enough to be my mother so I don't consider myself to be attracted to her in the conventional sense. But I am still attracted to her. I do fantasize and daydream about her, and while the fantasies aren't sexual in nature, I sometimes am aware of feeling sexually aroused by them in a physical way. I get the same reaction in session if she says something particularly warm or I make a lot of eye contact with her. I just consider that the feeling of intimacy is so strong that it does "cross over" into the realm of sexuality to an extent. In a similar way there have been stages of therapy where the attachment feelings were so strong that they felt romantic or erotic.

Like you, Rainbow, I am married to a man but I actually consider myself to be bisexual. I do feel a little (not much) ashamed of my attractions to women. I think it is internalized homophobia and probably residual shame about sexuality in general. I have so many female friends and part of me thinks they would be skeeved out somehow if they thought I could be attracted to them. As though I had an ulterior motive for wanting to be around them. I'm sure that's probably not true, and it doesn't make sense because I have a lot of gay female friends and I never worry about them being attracted to me or not. But I haven't even told my T that I am bi because I am afraid maybe she wouldn't hug me anymore. Again, something I have no evidence for.

Anyway, I feel your pain. I dunno, it seems like your T is super cute AND you feel really close to her emotionally so it's kind of duh that you would feel attracted, right? You would have to be unusually straight not to, IMO. I think it sucks that I grew up thinking sexuality is only good if it's towards a member of the opposite sex to whom you are married. Really it could be fun to be attracted to lots of kinds of people if there wasn't so much shame around it.

I agree with all of the posters above! I don't write as eloquently and thoughtfully as that, but I wish I did.

I just want to add one thing. When your therapist uses the term "crossing over", I think that means your feelings are leaning more towards the erotic than the maternal/affection type?

It sounds, to me, that when that happens, she considers withdrawing touch and hand holding. That as long as it's not erotic she can touch you but if you become aroused, then she has to stop?

That is not good, almost seems like a veiled threat. If she can't handle erotic feelings she never should have incorporated touch into your therapy. But since she has, she CAN NOT stop now. She needs to learn how to deal with all of the love feelings.

As we have seen with several other PC members, withdrawal of touch, after allowing it, can be catastrophic, in my opinion.

Take care, sweetie. You work so hard in your therapy and have grown so much.

rainbow - this post is about therapists in general, I'm not singling out your experience.

I honestly think that if a therapist touches a patient in an intimate (not sexual, but emotionally) it would be surprising if patients did NOT develop feelings.

The whole therapeutic set up primes attraction/strong feelings (I know most people do NOT experience attraction toward their therapist and I know it's not done by therapists on purpose)...sharing of strong intimate feelings, prolonged eye contact, all attention focused on patient, regular contact...etc

(This will make me incredibly unpopular, but I don't think therapists should touch patients - handshakes and an occasional brief hug are OK). Touch will lead to confusing feelings or feelings of love - It enrages me when therapists act surprised or aren't prepared to handle it comfortably. In particular, I believe this is a common pattern...

Therapist touches patients/is loose with boundaries --> patient develops feelings --> pt shares feelings with therapist --> therapist gets uncomfortable (it seems particularly pronounces when it's same-sex) --> therapist removes touch or all of the sudden implements strict boundaries that were not in place before --> patient feels like their feelings of love/attachment are "bad" and "unwelcomed" and makes people pull away reinforcing their core beliefs of unlovabity--> therapeutic rupture which sometimes cannot be mended.

This is what I was trying to say

Thank you, Pam. I'm going to write more later, but what I am thinking is that it's not my T who can't handle erotic feelings, but me. The hand holding is for a specific purpose, to calm me down, not arouse me. It isn't good for me to feel aroused in therapy, and it has happened, and it feels good, but triggers what I'm missing in RL. My T knows that. Holding her hand has always felt safe and makes me feel calm. I agree with my T that if it would excite me, we'd have to discuss what to do, to stop or replace it with something different. She was wrong that one time she thought I was crossing over. I hate that phrase. I'm writing it because it's what T called it.

Just wanted to comment on the thing about feeling inferior when you are attracted to her. I was intensely attracted to my female T (I am hetero male) and when she looked especially good, it was intimidating and I felt like an insect in her presence. I would actually come to sessions hoping she had gained some weight or had a missing tooth I never noticed just so i would not feel this way. I could break this down, but point is I understand how you feel.

As for the hand holding thing, I have nothing to offer except that if I were you I would be confused and conflicted too. Seems like you are processing it just fine.

I think this is an insightful question. If in fact this is the case, it is probably something worth exploring. There may well be two things going on simultaneously: your fear/anxiety over having sexual feelings towards a woman, and the lack of a satisfying emotional or sexual relationship with your H (or others) outside of therapy.

While I don't experience any sexual attraction towards my T, I can definitely say that there have been times when my relationship with my T was more emotionally intimate than my partner at the time. I'm sure my level of emotional attachment to my T at that time had a lot to do with what I was missing in other relationships. It doesn't change the fact that I AM emotionally intimate with my T-- but I do notice that when my RL relationships are better, I don't cling as closely to my T. I realize this is not the same as your situation, rainbow, because there is no sexual element here-- but I do think emotional intimacy is a big part of what can lead to sexual attraction.

Thank you all for the very thoughtful replies. I just emailed my T that I wanted to discuss my feelings more, and I need help accepting my feelings for women. It's a complicated issue for me, and yes, relates to my marriage. I still want to reply individually when I get a chance. I'm busy in real life, which is a good thing right now.

I have loved reading this discussion! When my daughter came out to me she said my response was underwhelming and my friend told me I was a closet homophobe. Nothing could be further from the truth! I'm not very good at "feelings" therefore I totally suck at talking about them.

Sexuality being fluid makes life a little more spicy (for me, anyway!) and I consider myself to be open to any and all experiences that don't compromise my morals, values, or break the law.

But morals and values are fluid, too. What I was for and against as a teen have come full circle as a middle aged woman.

Rainbow, if your fear of being attracted to women is because of your upbringing it is 100% okay to change your mind. After growing and learning as much as we have, wouldn't our horizons expand? ((((((Rainbow8))))))

Thank you, StressedMess. I will probably have to expand my horizons to allow for the feelings, but acting on them is not something I would do. My morals and values aren't going to change and I don't want them to. I can learn to accept my feelings, though.

I guess I am still confused how your T could think you are using therapy to meet your need for seXual intimacy unless she is a willing participant in something erotic. Sexual feelings towards someone who has no wish to encourage those feelings usually leads to sexual needs being frustrated, not met. So even if the hand holding turned you on as long as she kept the boundaries clear you would just bounce up againSt your unrequited feelings similar to with maternal transference. Then you would have to seek out and deal with the real cause instead of ramming up against the same painful feelings again. I know I was in love for a long time with someone who did not feel the same way and it was once of the most painful experienceso of my b adult life and a catalyst for much change.

But I guess as long as you are happy with your T's response and how you are progressing that's what matters.