[Petra5ed]

Falling In Love In Therapy - your therapist loves you!

Thoughts?

"There’s sort of a cliche about falling in love with your therapist. What popular culture often misses is the fact that we therapists fall in love with you, too. If you’re in therapy right now, I would put money on the fact that your therapist is in love with you. My old professor used to say, “I fall madly in love with each client. In the rare instance that I’m not in love, something is very wrong.”

Hhhmmm. .

[iheartjacques]

Not romantic love I hope. Going to read article now. I suspect it's like a teacher caring for students.

[Chummy]

If only that would be true for all therapist... I'm sure my T doesn't love me. Maybe she likes me, I hope she likes me. And I'm absolutely sure none of my previous T's loved me. Some probably didn't even care about me.

[iheartjacques]

Read it. I liked it. I know it doesnt apply to everyone

[iheartjacques]

I know my last great T cared about me. She always said encouraging things. One past t was lovely although she was only starting out. She gave me a statue of the sign called love to remind me mothers always love their children at some level because my mother had just died and we didn't have a good relationship.

"The therapy room is an incubator for love." I like this a lot. My t certainly "talks around it" like the article said, she has never and likely will never say straight out "I love you" like I do but... it's there in the room anyway and I feel it. I liked the article.

[rainbow8]

I loved the article! I wish Ts would reassure us that it is normal to love them. I would have not felt so embarrassed if I knew it! I feel that she genuinely loves me but that's hard to accept. Thanks for posting this article.

[stopdog]

I hope the woman does not feel that way and if she does, that she has the decency to keep it to herself. It would be horrible to me to think that anything in the article applied to the ones I see (not others if they don't mind it - great if you like it - but certainly my own situation does not lend itself to such a thing and I would be appalled if the therapist thought it did)

My therapist is getting to know me, I feel that the only way that my therapy will be a success is if she knows me and feels affection for me. Humans aren't neutral - she'll either like (love) me or feel distaste. It may be hard for me to know what her feelings are as I don't feel particularly loveable. I imagine that some therapists have a greater capacity for love, and feel it more deeply and more often than others.

[stopdog]

I think it is very possible to be neutral - I am neutral about many students and most clients all the time.

Why/how would a therapist have a greater capacity for love than the general public? (I am curious here - not being snotty)

[Petra5ed]

Originally Posted by stopdog

I think it is very possible to be neutral - I am neutral about many students and most clients all the time.

Why/how would a therapist have a greater capacity for love than the general public? (I am curious here - not being snotty)

I think it's very likely they would be ambivalent, and love me sometimes and be annoyed others.... but how can you be neutral about someone you know? To me neutral would be how I felt about an unknown person, in a good case, where I haven't already formed some judgment based on a stereotype.

I don't think the article purports that therapists have a greater capacity for love than the general public, I think it means that love forms with intimacy and closeness, hence therapy is a love incubator. My guess is that therapists are naturally more loving though, and chose their career for that reason.

Sorry to tell you Stopdog, but I'm sure a therapist out there loves you!

Originally Posted by stopdog

I think it is very possible to be neutral - I am neutral about many students and most clients all the time.

Why/how would a therapist have a greater capacity for love than the general public? (I am curious here - not being snotty)

I didn't actually mean that I thought therapists might have a greater capacity than the general public, I meant to say that some therapists might have a greater capacity to love than other therapists. The written word can be so easily misunderstood. As to whether a T could be neutral - I suppose it feels that a T gets to know their client so intensely and sees them warts and all, it feels different to other relationships where people might be more neutral. If you get that close to someone can you really end up with neutral feelings? Especially seeing someone's vulnerability? This is a question not a statement. I don't know the answer.

[unaluna]

It was brown owl who said ts might have a greater capacity for loving. I know i was odd man out in many of my jobs because i felt like i did love my coworkers and my customers. My ts said that was partly because the outside world was safer for me than home was. So the "capacity" in my case kinda came from a bad place, not a good place. But then so does s lot of art And lots of other good stuff. Like good laws. Necessity being the mother of invention.

[Petra5ed]

One question I've had is, can you really get to know someone and not love them? It seems like all the hate in the world is for the "others", people who are different, or unknown. I've been thinking about the recent culture shift toward gay rights for example. When I was little the world seemed so against gays, and then it seems like an influx of gays came out and people realized hey I love these people, what's wrong with me for hating on gays, that's not right... And then within a couple decades laws changed and now (although I know some people still have prejudices) if you are bigoted no one is supportive of that. And all of this because in my mind people finally got to know them. I guess what I'm saying is there is something very loveable about knowing who someone truly is, even if they are very different than us, once you understand someone it's hard not to love them, that's just my opinion at least.

[stopdog]

I am one of those people who don't find it hard to really just not care one way or the other. Knowing stuff doesn't change it for me

[SkyscraperMeow]

Ick. I guess I am going to be the proverbial storm cloud here. This article starts off with a cloying supposition re: we're all waiting to throw ourselves on a bomb for someone by merit of their genetic closeness and complimentary lack of age (the newer you are, the more you must be worth)* and kind of gets worse from there.

For some people the therapy room might be an incubator for love. It's not for me. I'm not in love with my therapist, and I very, very much doubt he's in love with me. I'm sure he 'has' love for me in some context, but that's a phrase so vague I could apply it to literally anything.

I think instinctively, people know very well that anything which is limited to an hour or two a week and bordered by boundaries and designed to one day terminate (terminate, what a hell of a word) is not an 'incubator for love'. I think that conflict between what we absolutely know is true, and what we so want to be true thanks to our wounds and whatnot, is a lot of the pain of therapy.

I'm not saying therapists don't care, or can't help, or don't even quite often do extraordinary things. I just don't think most people's therapists love them. For one, it's completely mentally impossible to 'love' that many people. A therapist who has been in practice for, say, fifteen years, has probably had hundreds of clients in that time. You think the therapist loves all of them? If so, you're stretching the definition of love to a point that it's almost meaningless.

I think therapy can be a place of intensity, connection, and care. I think it exists moment to moment and occasionally loving feelings may arise. But I think it is a disservice to the notion of love to call therapy love. Love doesn't schedule you for 2pm Tuesday. Love doesn't take holidays for which it will be out of contact, please get in touch with your crisis team if the need arises. Love doesn't cease to render services if your insurance provider changes. Love doesn't have a cancellation policy.

*I'm not saying I wouldn't save a kid if I could. Kids are neat and cool in their own way, and it's nice when parents look after them well. I'm just not in this 'sacrifice all adults for baybiez' thing, which is profoundly new in the cultural narrative, no matter how much people pretend that it's the natural order of things. In tribal times, offspring were the first to go in an emergency situation. I'm not saying one is morally right or wrong, I am saying that I'm sick of child worship being so ingrained into our culture that it goes way past healthy love and care and goes all the way to kookoo crazy town where mental health professionals assume we'd all open a vein for someone providing they hadn't yet gotten too old to stop mattering.

[Petra5ed]

Originally Posted by SkyscraperMeow

Ick. I guess I am going to be the proverbial storm cloud here. This article starts off with a cloying supposition re: we're all waiting to throw ourselves on a bomb for someone by merit of their genetic closeness and complimentary lack of age (the newer you are, the more you must be worth)* and kind of gets worse from there.

For some people the therapy room might be an incubator for love. It's not for me. I'm not in love with my therapist, and I very, very much doubt he's in love with me. I'm sure he 'has' love for me in some context, but that's a phrase so vague I could apply it to literally anything.

I think instinctively, people know very well that anything which is limited to an hour or two a week and bordered by boundaries and designed to one day terminate (terminate, what a hell of a word) is not an 'incubator for love'. I think that conflict between what we absolutely know is true, and what we so want to be true thanks to our wounds and whatnot, is a lot of the pain of therapy.

I'm not saying therapists don't care, or can't help, or don't even quite often do extraordinary things. I just don't think most people's therapists love them. For one, it's completely mentally impossible to 'love' that many people. A therapist who has been in practice for, say, fifteen years, has probably had hundreds of clients in that time. You think the therapist loves all of them? If so, you're stretching the definition of love to a point that it's almost meaningless.

I think therapy can be a place of intensity, connection, and care. I think it exists moment to moment and occasionally loving feelings may arise. But I think it is a disservice to the notion of love to call therapy love. Love doesn't schedule you for 2pm Tuesday. Love doesn't take holidays for which it will be out of contact, please get in touch with your crisis team if the need arises. Love doesn't cease to render services if your insurance provider changes. Love doesn't have a cancellation policy.

*I'm not saying I wouldn't save a kid if I could. Kids are neat and cool in their own way, and it's nice when parents look after them well. I'm just not in this 'sacrifice all adults for baybiez' thing, which is profoundly new in the cultural narrative, no matter how much people pretend that it's the natural order of things. In tribal times, offspring were the first to go in an emergency situation. I'm not saying one is morally right or wrong, I am saying that I'm sick of child worship being so ingrained into our culture that it goes way past healthy love and care and goes all the way to kookoo crazy town where mental health professionals assume we'd all open a vein for someone providing they hadn't yet gotten too old to stop mattering.

I would just say that all love relationships have boundaries. Maybe they aren't the same as your therapists or even from one therapist to the next. I schedule my own mother for Saturday at 2:00. She shows up at the allotted time and no other, that is my boundary and I think a normal one. Does that negate my love for her or her for me? I might not have a financial charge for a no show but there is a social charge for that, after one or two no shows I might not even try to meet my mother somewhere for months.

[ManOfConstantSorrow]

Very encouraging - a mental health professional who acknowledges that love is a form of insanity.

Interesting that she did not comment of the love of a man for his car though.

[Lauliza]

I think the term "love"' is used very loosely these days. I say I love a lot of people, some close to me and some not as close, and I mean it when I say it. What that means is going to vary from person to person, depending on the context. I love my family and friends, I love some classmates, some co workers and some clients. Is it the same kind of love, or even real love at all for these people? Of course not- but that's not the same for all people. When I say I "love" a classmate I've known for 6 months or a client, I'm really saying I think they are great and have a strong feeling toward them. It's not insincere but it's not love in the traditional sense. Using the term "in love" sounds odd and somewhat more phony to me, but then I tend to use that term solely in a much deeper (mostly romantic) context, so maybe that's why. Either way people who do use the term "in love" in relation to friends, kids, clients or whoever else, are obviously using it in a lighter context. That said, I know the therapeutic relationship is real and therapists care about, get attached to and are sometimes attracted to clients. Still, I think it's unlikely that therapists are in love with clients in the same way that some clients are "in love" with their Ts.

Regarding feeling neutral, i think it's definitely reasonable that some Ts don't feel one way or anothe about some clients initially. Over time, however, there has to be some kind of relationship or the T wouldn't be able to dk their job effectively. I don't think that means a T loves such clients, it just means they care about their well being. Therapists aren't more capable of loving feelings more than anyone else, in my opinion, but they do establish a certain care for people just because they are humans that other people might not cultivate (at least not unless you have to anyway). I can totally see how Lawyers and professors can be ambivalent toward clients or students, however. As professionals, the services they provide are different - Lawyers care about justice and teachers care about educating. With that in mind, they can do their their jobs well and not have a feeling one way or another about their clients. That can be just as hard for some people to understand as it is for others to understand how someone can claim to love so many people, but I think it comes down to semantics as well as how different personalities express themselves.

[Cinnamon_Stick]

I like this article a lot but must disagree that therapists are in love with there clients. I love my T and have told her so many times but I am not in love with her. Its a maternal love. She has told me she loves me and I Know she is not in love with me and I know its very genuine. I really like the part of the article that says that the therapy room is radiating with love. I feel like that when I am in session. A lot of this depends on your T and your different circumstances.

[unaluna]

Love doesn't schedule you for 2pm Tuesday. Love doesn't take holidays for which it will be out of contact, please get in touch with your crisis team if the need arises. Love doesn't cease to render services if your insurance provider changes. Love doesn't have a cancellation policy.

Hey who died and made you St Paul? Very funny. Looks to me like this raises the question, can you be neutral and and be ethical? Or do you have to be loving to be ethical and fulfill the golden rule of do unto others as you would have others do unto you.

[CantExplain]

The downside is when the patient feels that T is withholding her love.

[SkyscraperMeow]

I guess what bothers me most about calling what therapists do 'love', is that, for me, love really means a whole lot. There are several people I love, friends and, lovers, and family alike. I love my pets too. I love them all in different ways, of course, because, like the article writer acknowledges, there are different kinds of love.

However, even allowing for different kinds of love, in each and every one of those examples of people or animals I love, I would do so, so, so much more for any of them than almost any therapist does for almost any client.

Pretra5ed, you might agree to meet your mom at 2, but I doubt you kick her out and leave at 3. I doubt you get snotty if she calls you at 5.45 pm. If something happened to her, you would probably be at her side as quick as you could. (Depending on your relationship with her.)

Speaking purely for myself, if I love you, or if you're a loved one of mine, I don't care when you contact me, if you need me I'll help you, I will always be happy to hear from you, I will go out of my way to see you, I will host you at my house, pay large sums of money for your vet bills, I'll bail you out if you end up behind bars, I'll travel five days to be at your wedding, etc.

Love, as we instinctively experience it, is not compatible with therapy. It just isn't. In fact, I would even argue that therapy and it's boundaries are designed so you KNOW that you do not have a love relationship with your therapist. There are a hundred little reminders of that. The fact that your therapist charges you for their time is a pretty strong one.

Like I said, I think they can care deeply, I think they can do an excellent job, I think they can be meaningful and important. But I do not think they love their clients as a general rule, though they almost certainly come to love some of them during the course of their association - which is then stymied by the boundary issue.

Perhaps it's the most natural thing in the world to love a therapist. But I also think that love is rebuffed constantly by the therapy process itself, and directed outside to others.

The taboo against sex, the complete clusterfudge around hugs (seriously, have you ever seen so many people have to think so darn hard about a hug before?), the limitations on contact (some people don't even have their therapist's email address). I just don't see how love of any kind really fits into that.

However, having said that. If you think your therapist loves you, you're probably right. Love is an instinctual thing. I think we know when we're loved. I just don't think love is always in the therapy room, or even could be expected to be.

Originally Posted by SkyscraperMeow

Ick. I guess I am going to be the proverbial storm cloud here. This article starts off with a cloying supposition re: we're all waiting to throw ourselves on a bomb for someone by merit of their genetic closeness and complimentary lack of age (the newer you are, the more you must be worth)* and kind of gets worse from there.

For some people the therapy room might be an incubator for love. It's not for me. I'm not in love with my therapist, and I very, very much doubt he's in love with me. I'm sure he 'has' love for me in some context, but that's a phrase so vague I could apply it to literally anything.

I think instinctively, people know very well that anything which is limited to an hour or two a week and bordered by boundaries and designed to one day terminate (terminate, what a hell of a word) is not an 'incubator for love'. I think that conflict between what we absolutely know is true, and what we so want to be true thanks to our wounds and whatnot, is a lot of the pain of therapy.

I'm not saying therapists don't care, or can't help, or don't even quite often do extraordinary things. I just don't think most people's therapists love them. For one, it's completely mentally impossible to 'love' that many people. A therapist who has been in practice for, say, fifteen years, has probably had hundreds of clients in that time. You think the therapist loves all of them? If so, you're stretching the definition of love to a point that it's almost meaningless.

I think therapy can be a place of intensity, connection, and care. I think it exists moment to moment and occasionally loving feelings may arise. But I think it is a disservice to the notion of love to call therapy love. Love doesn't schedule you for 2pm Tuesday. Love doesn't take holidays for which it will be out of contact, please get in touch with your crisis team if the need arises. Love doesn't cease to render services if your insurance provider changes. Love doesn't have a cancellation policy.

*I'm not saying I wouldn't save a kid if I could. Kids are neat and cool in their own way, and it's nice when parents look after them well. I'm just not in this 'sacrifice all adults for baybiez' thing, which is profoundly new in the cultural narrative, no matter how much people pretend that it's the natural order of things. In tribal times, offspring were the first to go in an emergency situation. I'm not saying one is morally right or wrong, I am saying that I'm sick of child worship being so ingrained into our culture that it goes way past healthy love and care and goes all the way to kookoo crazy town where mental health professionals assume we'd all open a vein for someone providing they hadn't yet gotten too old to stop mattering.

When I started therapy I expected that I would just go and talk. I never expected that what I would actually be doing was 'feeling'. I think we seem to be all different in therapy. Some seem to go and talk and work on their life goals, but for me, feelings hit me straight away. I have no idea why these feelings are coming up for and not for others. I'm curious to know why. The feelings are sometimes a bit unrecognisable, I assume they are the feelings that I had as an infant, they are as much physical sensations as abstract emotions. Some of them are horrid, and some of them very occasionally feel like a baby's love for a parent. There is no other word for that feeling than love, and think I that that love can absolutely exist within the one hour a week boundary of therapy.