Do you think the therapist has tried to get you to depend up on them?

My therapist hasn't tried to get me to depend on her. I have her cell phone number and her email but have used both sparingly. I have placed boundaries on our relationship several times "No, I won't hug you" , etc.

I think my T encourages me to not totally depend on her. She wants me to call if things get bad enough. She wants me to use my coping strategies.

She has neither encouraged nor discouraged it. Though if I express a need she tries hard to meet it.

My t told me in the first weeks of us working together that he sensed a "needy" vibe from me. After a couple more months of working together, he told me that he realized I wasn't needy. He definitely does not want me to be dependent on him to meet my needs, but he does want to foster a healthy attachment from me to model the way healthy relationships can be.

I feel like my therapist has encouraged me to depend on him as a way of building up my own ability to take care of myself. Like the dependence on him isn't the point, but more like his reliably compassionate responses have helped me to stop attacking myself and figure out what I can do to feel better. I am getting better at doing this by myself, but having someone help me when I can't seem to stop the loop of anxiety and self-criticism really helps. He does between-session coaching, and the point of calls in between is very much about helping me focus on figuring out ways to help myself. So I feel like he has encouraged me to see him as a dependable source of assistance toward my goal of becoming better at dealing with stress and traumatic memories. And being able to depend on him has reduced some of the feelings of despair associated with those traumatic memories, many of which revolved around feeling that no one was able to help me.

Strongly yes, my therapist encouraged me to become "attached".

Whether attached equals "dependent on" is another discussion .

It hasn't come up at all. She doesn't say anything if I struggle along on my own, and she doesn't turn me down if I ask for extra support between sessions. I think she just leaves it up to me what I want or need and doesn't make an issue of it.

Yes. Mine believes it's an important part of the process

Hi, I didn't really have time to read the whole thing but this question matters to me. I'm in a confusing situation where my therapist seemed to encourage some dependence as part of the process to get to independence. But when I felt independent, even suggested starting to terminate, my therapist started acting really weird.

Now I'm confused but I think he is confused too or something. I am wondering if my feeling independent triggered in him a need to feel like I needed him so he acted all weird to make me feel dependent again. If that makes sense?

He seems to not be willing to let go while also acting cold. Very confusing. And very different from before. He has personal issues (family health) going on so maybe I'm getting it wrong.

Anyway, good question. I think in a lot of cases "dependence" is part of the process for people who need to learn to rely on someone and feel a sense of trust. Still therapists do feel like they are really important and have rescued someone so it seems likely that they would also not like having someone feel independent, even if that is the goal of therapy.

Go figure. Seems a Catch-22.

I put other.

Has he encouraged both? Yes, but at the same time. His encouragement to depend on him wasn't outside proper boundaries. That is, he would remind me that I could call or email if I needed help with the skills. At the same time, he encouraged me to find the people *outside* of therapy who could love and care for me the way they would. Healthy dependence. I was so focused on being independent, I wouldn't let anyone help me. Depending on someone trustworthy is a healthy thing in my mind.

The independence part probably wasn't as emphasized as heavily since I don't generally have an issue there.

I never indicated anything about dependence on a therapist as being healthy or unhealthy.

Mine hasn't encouraged dependence. Only attachment. A person can be attached and depend on someone without being 'dependent.' Not splitting hairs here... Just that when I've felt I needed her, she found a way to 'be there' for me one way or another. But I've never felt emotionally 'dependent' on her... As in "I can't figure out how to exist without her." I think she would discourage that.

Eta: if dependence is defined by offering outside contact, then yes, she did give me contact info. However, I asked to use it.. She didn't encourage it herself. Now that I think about it, although she specifically and repeatedly encouraged attachment, I am the one who reached out to her when I needed something. She took care to be responsive, but did not actively encourage things like outside contact.

That's the idea isn't it, you get supported and understood (hopefully) and they get a regular income.
Therapy is similar to meds.
You depend on it.
Stop therapy and the positive effects fade.
Stop meds and the positive effects fade.

I only had therapy for a very short time. Got dependant very quickly.

Sent from my SM-N910F using Tapatalk

no dependence at all.

If seeing your therapist helps you makes you feel better, you want to go back again. And again.
You feel someone is listening, understanding, supporting (in my case very low self esteem)
don't therapists become addictive (in a good sorta way) If they say, go on holiday for a month you feel a type of heartbreak, a betrayal?

Is that not dependance.


Sent from my SM-N910F using Tapatalk

I don't.

I once told my T that I was worried about becoming too dependent on her and she told me we could scale back sessions to every other week. She also told me, in another session, that she wants me to be careful about becoming dependent on her and if therapy takes the place of me reaching out to other people in my life, then we need to talk about it. I would say she is very aware that I could become dependent on her and that does not seem to be something that she wants (nor do I).

No, but I think there can be unhealthy dependence. I was just trying to be clear.

I don't think it's ever come up. I can depend on her to, say, call me back if I call her and ask for a call back, but any good professional would do the same. She's never asked me to call if I'm having a hard time and she's never told me to call someone else if I'm having a hard time.

I did have one t who tried to encourage attachment, but I found that to be manipulative and it hurt the rel'ship instead.

Longterm T definitely encouraged it in the beginning but gradually wanted me to find other supports.

CBT T has been more iffy on the subject--he tends to discourage it then encourage it at strange times (seeing crying in front of him as some sort of "success")

It can be really confusing.

No, my T hasn't.

She may say she really wants to support me and says she wants me to know I deserve care, but I don't think she's actually encouraging me to reach out to her.

I agree that feeling betrayed and heartbroken if a t is on vacation for a month would be some type of dependence IMHO. I don't believe everyone feels this way when t is gone for a month?

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I sure don't. I like breaks from therapy. It gives me a chance to step back and analyze how it's working for me and whether anything needs to change.

I don't really understand the post divine was responding to. Can therapy be addictive "in a good sorta way" if you feel betrayed and heartbroken when the therapist goes away for a month? That doesn't seem good at all to me. Something's off in that circumstance.

It hasn't really come up. I can tell by things my T says and does that he's trying to foster some dependence on him. I don't fall for it.

I didn't think the poster meant it as a positive thing. I think he/she was defining "dependence? " by using example? Unsure. I understand that for someone who needs weekly session month long vacation just will not work. It is too long. But feeling betrayed and heartbroken is something different IMHO .

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk