Do therapists care or is it all an act

I think they all become therapists because they genuinely care and want to help people. But when you have a career and many clients, you remove yourself from agonizing about their well being. The best therapists are professional and ethical, treating in the best of their abilities. I think they are genuine but get hardened.

What do you think a T thinks before a session with a client? "Hmmmm...today I am going to act empathatic, THAT'LL GET 'EM" I am serious with this question.

Well the problem really is that your T told you that she would "love you no matter what." The only people that should be telling other people that are your parents (if you have good ones).
I do agree with this 100%

My T would never verbalize that she cares about me but I can see it in her face. It I mention something that hurt me, she looks equally as hurt. She listens very intently and has tons of empathy!

One of my favorite things one of my therapists told me is you pay for my time. The caring is free.

I wonder if some of us (definitely including me!) are more difficult to “care about” than others. I have a kind of dual-track personality, still. I can be very polite, proper, and even kind. And I can be emotional, passionate, self-centered and kind of obnoxious at times – this side I uncovered more at the recommendation of therapists, but then I was just “left” with it. I have not had therapists who could help me very much with unpleasant side of things, and the way I developed as a child was just to cut/turn them off.

So, for me, a therapist who could have understood me and where I was coming from was what I believe I was looking for. But didn’t know it, so couldn’t verbalize it. Why did I want a therapist (or anybody?) to understand me, at least in part? Because I didn’t (still don’t?) understand myself. And it’s tough to get along in the world, and with yourself, when you don’t understand yourself. At least it has been for me.

Maybe another factor is that – probably the way I was born, though environment may have affected it – I am oriented toward wanting understanding more than I want relationships – which doesn’t mean that I don’t want relationships! Just that my first impulse when confronted with something distressing is to try to understand, more than to run to somebody for comfort.

So, yeah, I may be harder, then, for therapists to care about. But as I said earlier, I don’t know that I wanted/needed caring in a therapist, except to the extent that it might have helped one understand me.

I suppose they think "it's my job to care so I will try to do that, or appear to, whether I really do or not". I don't think it's malicious, but it certainly seems engineered, and for me that is intolerable.

A T could be empathetic without actually caring. There is, after all, a difference between empathy and sympathy.

My biggest fear about therapy is that my therapist feels distain or contempt for me.

In the first post of this thread it's mentioned that therapists do laugh at clients behind their backs. I've experienced this and it was horrific to find out the person I had chosen to trust and share so many intimate details with was in fact making fun of me behind my back, my part in this was not listening to my gut as I could clearly see major red flags. I've been hurt more than once by people who were supposed to be supportive.

I know there's alot of people who feel therapy has helped them but in my opinion the entire mental health field is deeply flawed and for every person who claims it's beneficial there's many who are ignored who have in some ways been destroyed by the way therapy is practiced and it's methods. When you've been agoraphobic, depressed, and alone for so long, it's devastating. I almost committed suicide and the pain hasn't completely gone away.

I think part of the problem is many who work in the mental health field can't relate with their clients or what they’re going through and on top of that stigmatize them too. We need to drop the labels, get rid of the dsm, and stop medicalizing people's issues. Caring should not be a commodity. I believe a majority of people labeled with a mental illness have been abused as children or continue to be abused and unfortunately the very people who are supposed to help add to the person’s shame, sense of isolation, and feelings worthlessness.

I had a therapist who initially seemed to really care and did not look down on me for my problems, but I saw her for a long time and as time went by, she somehow started to become condescending towards me and look down on me and use against me the very things I was coming to her for help with. It hurt me very badly when I finally realized what was going on. I did finally get the strength to leave and when I did and found a new therapist who does not do that, no matter what I tell her, no matter how I act, even when I am my messiest me, it has really been different and really helpful to me.

To her credit, I don't think Madame T ever laughed at me behind my back.

My big fear, too, is disgust or contemptuousness seeping out from behind the "caring" front. I dated a therapist (PsyD) and am friends with another (mental health social worker), and they've both said derogatory things about clients. Things that could easily fit me - at least in therapy. They both had a select few they said they "really liked" and looked forward to seeing. My current T doesn't put out an "I care about you" vibe, contributing to my fears. I'd love to believe she likes me and cares, but I don't think anyone is that great of an actor. She helps, though.

Sorry to hear that. It was ruinous for me also. Agree, seems the profession leaves many casualties in its wake and some are simply ignored and forgotten. Out of sight out of mind. Seems the successes are considered more relevant than the failures, which are often attributed to client laziness, non-compliance, etc.

Agree on all points. One of my therapists added considerably to my shame, isolation, worthlessness. More than anyone. I think many who work in the field have no business doing so. They are themselves too disturbed and should not be left alone with vulnerable people, or are desperately seeking to fortify their own wounded ego at any cost.

Sorry to hear that. I think with therapists, especially when choosing a new one, it's one of those things where you need to trust your gut completely. There may have been no signs, but a lot of the time, you'll get a vibe, or they'll be a little thing that makes you uncomfortable, or you don't like, but you brush it off because you think you're being silly. When you first meet a therapist/psychiatrist and you get vibe you don't like, even if you think there's no good reason for it, trust that vibe, and find someone else. It's a really hard thing to remember, especially for people who have low self esteem, because we tend to not trust our instincts.

I think my T cares. I think that caring is limited, and as much as that can cause me issues, I think it is rightly limited, but real nonetheless.

Of course they care. You can't pay people to care about you. Look at your friends. Are they paid to care about you or do they just do. You pay for a therapists time. How does your therapist treat you. Do they treat you like a caring person would? Do they support you? I wondered if they cared before but I realize they do care. There are few in it for the money but to be honest the money is not in being a therapist. There are better paying jobs. Now of course they don't care the same way we do about them but they do care.

They can be paid to act like they care.
As long as you find what they do to be useful, what difference does it make whether they care or not? I happen to believe they do not care in any personal way about clients. I don't care in any personal way about them. I don't know them. They don't know me. It is not a personal sort of thing, in my opinion.

I think that they say that they care, and even genuinely care, as part of their script. I think some of them do come to care very much for individual clients, but that can be a bumpy road. Better to not care if they care and use them for what they are there for.

Case in point: at our last (unknown to us) session, No. 2 got irritated because I reminded her she was a therapist and gave me a spiel on how she genuinely cares. I call her two weeks later to tell her I can't pay her anymore and we ended. Caring and wanting income are not mutually incompatible, but one would think that if she had in fact genuinely cared she would not have brusquely wished me well and hung up.

I think it depends on the people involved, I suppose some therapists might end up caring about some people if they've seen them for a long time and they form some sort of attachment, but most of the time they act caring because that is their job.