Therapist's boundaries changed?

I've been seeing this therapist for about 2 years now and she would always hug me at the end of a session, would put her arm around me as we walked out, and would rub my back when I was upset and even when I wasn't upset. I instantly noticed that she has stopped touching me completely and it has been this way for about 6 months...she hasn't touched me once. We have an outstanding therapeutic relationship and she has helped me immensely. We are both female and she's old enough to be my mother though. Sometimes it's a like a mother-daughter relationship. At one point I did think she was experiencing countertransference because she started to compare me to her daughter (and still does almost every session) and even mistaken me for her daughter once. She's also mentioned how she wishes I were one of her own. Any reason why she may have stopped touching me?? I prefer being comforted through touch. She's a great therapist though. I'm just really confused?? It's been bothering me. Any of your thoughts would help.

If she started comparing you to her daughter she may have started feeling a closeness that exceeded what is exceptable in a therapist/client relationship. Have you asked her about it? Im really sure that its nothing against you, there just may be something that she is worried about as far as how close she felt to you.

Only she can explain it to you and no one else, ask her. Maybe her supervisor told her not to hug, who knows
It happened to me too - my t hugged me and then he said he crossed the line and wont hug me ever again, I was crushed so I can understand how you feel...

My ex-t sounds familiar. I found out her she had bought it up with her supervisor and was acting on her advice. Perhaps there was transference? X

mg627 I would ask hermits like in your post. I have a feeling she probably has been advised to stop.

I've wondered this too. Like maybe it was her own transference and she felt hugging was making it worse. I haven't mentioned it to her, I feel too embarrassed/ashamed...which is probably stemming from my own transference.

I think there is transference, definitely on my end and I am positive she experienced it at one point...due to things she has said. Probably something to discuss with her when I'm more comfortable.

Same thing happened to me.....it's hard! Although I asked my T after a few weeks when I noticed. Caused a rupture and I've not gotten over it since, and it's been 5 months. I have SEVERAL posts out there, but the main one is, if you search for touch in therapy...it's gone. you should find it.

But all you can do is ask!!

Comparing you to her daughter? What's wrong with this t? I don't understand. Why comparing? And how can she mistaken you for her child???? And she said she wished you were hers? Something is not right

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Would you mind sharing what your therapist said when you asked them?

She's an outstanding therapist and probably one of the best in the profession. However, I realize she's human and is aloud to feel a certain way. She was just pointing out (positive) similarities between her daughter and I. Yeah maybe saying stuff about how she wishes I were hers stems from her transference...that might be where it's coming from.

It def sounds like T has a heavy case of countertransference. You really have to ask your T what happened. I'm surprised it hasn't come up at all over the 6 months. Sorry you are going through all of this. I know it must be so hard.

Oh I see. Thanks for clarifying. I see it depends on the context. I imagined bizarre situation how she was confusing who is who. I couldn't imagine mistaking anyone for my daughter. I thought she lost her mind!

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Sounds like she might be using your therapy for herself...She might've realized this and is trying to be more strict with boundaries...She might've gotten in trouble touchy feely-wise with another client and is trying to be more strict with boundaries...could be a lot of things...But, it sounds like she has poor boundaries in general so it's no surprise if they're flimsy/inconsistent.

Outstanding therapists, or therapists who are 'the best' do not initiate touch with clients without having a clear and mutually understood plan, bring up family members during therapy, or treat clients as their children (or in any fashion similar to that).

We see this over and over and over again on this forum. Therapist has loose boundaries and invites client into emotionally open relationship, client feels special and almost like part of therapist's family. This is the honeymoon phase and you could not tell someone that their therapist is being wildly inappropriate if you tried.

Then, at some point, therapist comes to their senses (or, more likely, has their ego sated by client's adoration) and abruptly changes the boundaries, often without bothering to mention it.

Client becomes confused. Still loves therapist, but feels pain of rejection. Usually defends therapist against criticism, because to accept that the therapist has been hugely inappropriate is to accept that what the client so loved is forever lost and never should have been.

End result? Client flailing in pain for months or years. Distress rises as client realizes that they have been pushed out of their therapist's affections. Oftentimes the client is eventually teminated after pushing the issue.

Therapists are human and have feelings. But what you pay for in therapy is for the therapist to focus on you, maintain healthy boundaries and not bring their family members into the equation.

This is why good therapists limit physical affection to hugs at the most, or handshakes. Because cuddling with a person creates emotional connections which cannot just be severed because the therapist decides to sever them. This is almost always hugely painful for clients in this situation, and a major part of the pain is the fact that the client can't bring themselves to believe just how badly they've actually been treated.

Love this. I understand what you're saying...Thank you!

Sorry, haven't been on PC for a couple days, didn't see your question from my response. She said a LOT of things, but I'll find and share with you the Email she sent me first. Because I asked her via Email why she didn't provide it anymore.

Here was her initial reply. Yes, it makes sense. But there was a lot more to it. And yes, she signed the Email Love, T. She also doesn't do that anymore. Here is the link to the first thread I created about this situation. Seems quite similar to yours. I would ask your T..... it was hard to do, but I needed to know.
http://forums.psychcentral.com/psych...-its-gone.html
____________
I appreciate your efforts to sort this out and understand it and make peace with it. This is complicated and difficult. Let me see if I can express my perspective to you in a way that makes sense. For you to allow yourself to be vulnerable and exposed in front of me is a huge leap of trust. It makes you feel all kinds of ancient, powerful, and painful emotions that you have repressed and contained for most of your life. My role in that is to try to make you feel safe, to offer you comfort and company in the pain, and to help you locate your inner strengths and resources so you can move forward in life. While of course there is a wish to be comforted as you were not at the time you were such a vulnerable child suffering abuse and neglect, and that would certainly feel wonderful, it is, in the long run, more useful to you now to be comforted as an adult and to find that you have the internal resources to comfort that child part of yourself. Touch is incredibly powerful. In the beginning of our work, I felt some physical contact was necessary to help you stay connected to me, to help you stay with the pain, to keep you connected to yourself. With that and various other things I also hoped to communicate to you that our relationship is neither casual nor formulary. It is my job, yes, but that does not mean it isn’t personal. But touch is a tricky thing. It can be confusing, it can foster unrealistic expectations about the nature of the relationship, it can pull toward regression rather than progression. So about a month ago I began trying to reduce it — hoping you would find that you could tolerate being on your own on the couch, so to speak, and that the hug at the end of the session was still there as a reminder of my care and support. At the end of the day, our goal is for you to need less from the outside world because you are fully on board to protect and care for yourself.

It is fully to be expected that you would feel rejected and angry about my change in behavior. Here you run up against the reality that there are boundaries in our relationship — that I am not actually embedded in your personal life, that I can’t meet needs that you have. Please understand, I know that you know all of this intellectually. I mean no disrespect by stating it plainly — it is the more emotional, the more regressed part of you that I’m talking to (we ALL have those). The challenge is to understand all of that, feel the disappointment, and not throw the rest away. You have worked very hard for 10 months now. You have taken huge risks, have made huge strides, have thrown yourself fully into this process.

Timing is part of the issue. I can only time things by feel. You are drawing a connection between your sharing more details of your abuse and this change, but there is no connection in my mind. I actually started easing back before that. I understand that you would make this connection because of the immense shame that you feel about these details, and your susceptibility to feeling that others would share your self loathing and disgust. Not so. Never have I admired you more than when you have talked about these things. And then gone from sharing them with me to sharing them with other people who need to know. This is magnificent. And no matter what I did or didn’t do, talking through trauma and abuse makes a person feel wretched.

I doubt I have said anything in this that you don’t know already, but I still think it is useful to lay it out. I feel privileged to work with you, I honor your struggle and your efforts, and I am very hopeful about your ability to make changes that will be reflected in your life becoming more ease less pain, more satisfaction less deprivation, more what you want it to be.

Love,
T

Wow, what a great response she gave you. This gives me some ideas/insight as to why my own T stopped with the touch. Thank you so much for sharing this! I really appreciate it!

Lizzy,
I am still feeling hugely pissed off at your T for going about this the way she did.

She acknowledges that touch is powerful but did not treat you with honor, care or understanding when she absently withdrew significant aspects of touch from therapy without plan, explanation or apology at the time. She just let you discover the change by yourself. She left you to be the one to bring it up.
I am furious with her!

I hope you are able to ask your T why she changed the forms of physical contact she used for you in therapy. She has to know this would likely cause you to have questions, doubt and probably some negative feelings.

Mg, How do you feel about this change in therapy? It would make me question all sorts of things.

Your T owes you an explanation and an apology, at least.

Mussinglizzy I am rather impressed how detailed and thorough is your t in her explanation. I know you are hurt but i have mire respect for your t now after reading her explanation

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Pre, I love you!

I completely understand her reasoning. My problem is how she went about it. Not talking to me? Just implementing change and waiting for me to notice and bring it up? That was very hurtful to me, and leaves me constantly scanning the horizon for what she will change next. She quit using the word "love." She quit with the healing, long hugs she used to give me. So she just keeps adding more. It kind of feels like bait and switch. She offered that behavior to help me trust her more, and stay with the topic (I was dissociating). Then when she felt like she had it, she took the behavior away. My trust is horribly tainted now. So everything she earned has been compromised. If she would have just talked to me, that could have avoided a lot of hurt.

I totally agree. She went wrong about it

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