[Deer Heart]

I could really use some support and help as I navigate a situation with my therapist, "Cat." I'm going to try to summarize everything as best I can, and I can elaborate more later if necessary.

A little over a year ago, I moved countries and had to find a new therapist. I was very comfortable and happy with my last therapist, and I wasn't really thrilled about finding a new one (especially because I've already been to various different therapists in the past, and some experiences were much better than others). When starting my most recent search for a therapist, I met with five different people before choosing to continue with Cat. Now I've been meeting with her for around 5 or 6 months. It took me a few months to really connect with her and let my guard down, and then I felt like everything started to flow better. I feel like I've gotten a lot out of our time in therapy. (I wrote a bit more about this recently in the first thread that I posted.) However... at some point after forming the attachment to Cat, I also realized that I have feelings for her. I have never had this issue come up in therapy before and it did initially startle me and stress me out a bit.

A couple weeks ago, I told Cat that I have a crush on her. I told her because I felt like it was the right thing to do, and I knew that I would feel better if I were honest about it. I wasn't having any sort of illusions about changing the nature of our relationship; I think that I'm very realistic about the fact that she's my therapist, the factors of the situation are what they are, and I recognize the situation for what it is. Cat has been very accepting of my feelings, I truly don't think she's uncomfortable with how I feel about her, and it's not awkward when we talk about it. We can laugh about things and I feel like that helps a lot. I think she appreciates that I admire so many of her qualities, and she says that she's flattered and that it's very nice of me to have been honest about all of this and to discuss it with her.

But Cat is worried about how this is affecting me, and she is wondering if maybe we should consider switching me to another therapist. I think that Cat is concerned that I am stressing myself out because right now I think about her a lot outside of sessions, and there are parts of that which do cause some anxiety and guilt for me. She is also worried that I might not fully open up about everything, because usually when you have feelings for someone you want them to see the good parts of you. But I don't think that's an issue because she already knows I'm a mess, and even though there are parts of me that I'm ashamed of, I want people to know me for who I am, and I'm very aware that the point of therapy is often talking about not so fun stuff. She's also worried about reinforcing my feelings for her over time, and that I won't be completely honest with myself/her if I feel like I really should go see someone else. I think that maybe she misunderstood the main source of my anxiety/distress as being about my feelings for her when it was really about her sending me to someone else, and I think that I need to try to explain this to her.

Cat is young, and though I don't think that this makes her less skilled, knowledgeable, or competent, I do think that maybe there's certain experiences that she hasn't had yet. When we were last talking about all of this, she said that she didn't know what to do right then and that she had to think about it. I'm [quite] used to her coming across as being confident and in control, so maybe it scared me a little bit that she seemed unsure. I hadn't seen her like that before and maybe, without realizing it, I had counted on her being continuously unflappable. I think that Cat's trying her best, and it's important to her that she feels like she handles this properly so that I don't get hurt. She had one other instance with a client that had feelings for her, but she said that it was a very different situation and that person just left, there wasn't any kind of closure. I think that she would want to make sure that I would have closure of some sort.

I think that it would be very painful to have to stop seeing Cat after building up this therapeutic relationship with her. My life has involved a lot of instability and relocating, as well as unexpected, sudden, abrupt changes. I've had a lot of little and big losses. I have seen a number of different therapists in the past, but only a few have been very good fits. If she does want me to go see someone else, she says that she would help me with the transition to a new therapist, go with me so that we could have a session all together, etc. But I think it would be very awkward and painful, and I'd rather go alone and talk to the new therapist.

Cat says that it's very important that I stay in therapy no matter what. I know that she's right, but I honestly would want to quit therapy for awhile if she plans on referring me. I think that right now I would rebel against having a new therapist and someone that isn't her. I wouldn't be rude or purposefully difficult with the new person, but I just wouldn't want to be there and it wouldn't exactly be productive. I don't want another therapist and I think it's really soon to decide that I should go elsewhere. I think that if I stop seeing Cat, I would want to travel for a couple weeks [back to the country that I used to live in], get away from everything, meet with my therapist over there, and try to process this whole thing. I'm so not ready for a new therapist here. It would be very rough to start over with someone new, and I really feel like I would need to grieve losing Cat and all the progress we've made.

I'm trying to spend time with friends, keep busy, and meet girls. I think I'm doing a pretty decent job of trying to focus on other things. I hope that Cat will give this a chance and keep working with me, but I am very scared. Part of writing this all out was to get a better idea of how to talk to her about it, and I think I do have a better sense of what to do next. I won't see her until Tuesday, so in the meantime, if anyone wants to give me any sort of feedback or share personal experiences, that would be very much appreciated.

[Skeezyks]

Hello Deer Heart: It sounds to me as though you have this whole situation very well sized up, as they say. I'd like to congratulate you on that! I don't have allot of experience with therapists. I've seen a few over the years. But I never found one I thought was worth the expense. From my perspective, I think the most important thing here is that you have been completely honest with your T. So I would say just keep being that open & honest & see where things lead. Then, if it turns out your T is going to refer you on, it seems to me there's no problem taking a break. I'm impressed your T would go to the lengths she wants to go to. Therapists I've seen just take your money for as long as you want to come in. And they never refer out. (That would be taking money out of their pockets.) Cat sounds like a great T! Good luck!

[formyself]

I think you should definitely share more of these feelings. It's always important to look at the whole truth as much as possible.... It sounds like maybe her fear of your feelings affecting you and her bringing up a referral could be what's actually affecting you? Just a thought.

Yes, I'd recommend telling her your anxiety about her wanted to refer you. I understand how you are feeling. My T merely mentions the phrase "new therapist" I get super anxious.

As much as it hurts, she may be doing the right thing by referring you to another. If she is not good in this area, it could really mess you up. My T is very good with these kind of feelings, but he has decades of experience and years of training with transference. The same with my last therapist. I know you said you didn't feel this was an issue in your case. It often is with inexperienced therapists or therapists who don't have the skills to work with transference--there are many people here who have been harmed by such therapists.

On the other hand, if she stuck by you, this could be an area of growth for her too. She has to start somewhere. Perhaps she can get supervision?

It was brave of you to tell her about your feelings. Sorry this is so painful.