Is it ok?

Is it ok to ask my therapist if she cares about her clients, and if she cares about me?

Would she see that as attachment? I just think sometimes I don't want to open up because I don't feel like she actually cares about me. I don't want to become vulnerable with someone pretending.

I think it's okay to ask a T anything you want. I would think though that if she is pretending, she might also answer that question with a 'yes'. It would be rather weird for a T to say they don't care about their clients or about the client asking it. But I imagine it could be an informative discussion for the T and you to learn more about your needs.

Those questions--and all the anxieties surrounding them--sound like great therapeutic material. Talk about it. Let us know how it goes.

A therapist, while confusing, is also a person.
No matter how much a therapist treats professionally, its own self will always make a way into the process. So the human part of the treatment is inevitable, and that's a good thing for you. You can ask her the question, and also state your concern. This is one step forward in therapy.

"While confusing..." truer words may never have been spoken!

I want her to be honest, but you're right, if she didn't care about me, she would lie. I honestly don't think, as a human, any of us could see someone regularly and not begin to care about them. Although, there is part of me that feels like no one cares. I'm scared to ask the question because I'm scared of a hurtful answer. I feel like it's their job to care, but that doesn't feel sincere.

When I'm scared of asking that question, I assume they'll say yes. What I'm really afraid of is that I'll ask, regardless of his answer he'll see it as too attached, and then he'll end therapy.

Is it the actual response you're scared of, or something closer to my fear (what asking the question will mean for the relationship)?

I think that's part of it too, but I also don't think it says I'm too attached to want to make sure she actually cares. Knowing someone actually cares makes me feel safer to share things. I do feel like she does care as much as she can. I don't think people, especially people with the personality therapists have, can spend so much time with someone and not care. I think that's why there are such strick boundaries in place. My T is very nice. She listens well. She validates my feelings. I do think she cares. I've mentioned in therapy about being afraid she'd judge me for what I'm telling her, and she assures me she won't.

I think it's totally okay to ask, even though I haven't technically asked. For the first almost two years, I assumed mine cared about doing a good job, but not necessarily about me specifically. And then it started to feel to me that she did actually care, but instead of asking her, I just said it seemed like she cared and she said Yes, I do care. And then added, a lot.

So it turned out better to feel it in myself before bringing it up, and then it was not as a question, but an observation. In that way, it didn't feel fake because I felt it first. Also, a therapist would have to be a real creep to say No I don't if someone says I think you care about me. So I think it's an all around safer way to bring it up by making an observation than asking...but you kind of have to feel it first. I wouldn't have made an observation like that if I wasn't sure already.

I have no idea if it's seen as attachment. I'm not sure I know what that is, except as a concept.

Opening up to believing someone else cares and caring for someone else is scary. You don't always know what the other person will say or do.

I journal a lot and share the majority of it with my t, so things like this come out in my journaling quite some time before it is talked about in session. In those journal entries, I let her know how scared I am about the topic and what I fear might happen.

My session yesterday consisted of ... well from my t's email...
I am glad that we had the chance yesterday to communicate how much we value and care for one another. Your openness and candor made that possible.

I had said something about being her job, a bit later she asked me if I thought that I was just her job (she added the just). I told her that I have no doubt that she cares for me, cares for me a lot. She said she did. She was able to provide the nonverbal communication that left me feeling like I was seeing the authentic her - not Dr t... but the person she is. She also said... what we each do with those feelings are different. At which point, I said that was her job; how she handled her feelings for me, what she did with them, how she used them to help me. And that is what I needed from her.

Attachment goes both ways and I think that is when the therapy might do its most magic, when there is the healthy attachment from a t helping/guiding the client's attachment into a healthy construct. <-- in my opinion.

Some Ts won't answer whether or not they care about you. My T "was" one of them. She told me in the beginning that she will never tell her clients whether she cares about them. So I never asked. But...one day I emailed her saying that she doesn't care. To my surprise, she responded that she does care! She said it in two different emails.

I would ask. If you're pretty sure she does care, then hearing the words (or for me reading the words) can really reassure you and help you feel more connected.

Asking anything should be part of the work. Trust is about us, not the other. If we allow ourselves to be vulnerable and the other was faking, then that's down to them. If we close ourselves down because of what someone else maybe, we are giving them power over our life's.
Be yourself with everyone, some will connect with you others because of their own wounds won't.
If a T is fake, whether to be vulnerable isn't the only issue.