The “L” word in therapy

lol yeah I guess when typed out it sounds scandalous. Pretty sure he doesn’t mean it that way. I am guessing that he had something framed that I gave him or in my imagination I might get a warm hug and the question “so what does that feel like to you?”

Would either of those things feel satisfying. They should be right? Why do I feel like it isn’t going to be enough I ask too much

I'm sorry you're going through this, growly. I really like (liked?) Kashi and it makes me sad that he hurt you so much.

I voted yes. He said it only once and I'm sure he regrets it and will never say it again. I have no idea what happened to him... It was the session after his birthday, so I gave him some presents... But generally it was just our usial session, I wouldn't call it "unusually warm" or anything. He said it in passing: "I love you and respect you, but... [I don't remember, because my heart and my brain shut down lol]"

Earlier he said that he can't use the L word with clients because of the boundaries.

I can't forget it. I'm glad he said it, but the thought that it's not true is quite upsetting.

I think your t does love you. He doesn’t seem like he would say that casually

Its cool you gave gifts though. Mine would refuse them. It is sad boundaries for bid people from being real with each other.

I can't imagine either my ex-T or my current T saying they love a client. I suppose that doesn't mean neither of them would at least with some clients. But neither of them seem... emotionally connected (to me at least) like that. I just really can't imagine it. We do therapy work together. But that isn't anywhere close to my love radar.

Great minds think alike! i was gonna tell her to be videotaping!

I think hes fighting for her because he knows he made a mistake. Only problem is, he keeps making it.

I wouldn't want him to say that and I wouldn't want to say that to him. He says he likes me and I like him. That's good enough for me, he's warm and understanding, and words really don't really mean that much to me anymore. L word would probably make me uncomfortable (also got exploited in the past).
But you need what you need, maybe you need to hear it and that doesn't mean you're nuts.

She and I say I love you to each other all the time. especially if its been a hard session.

My T is very careful and I think he would never use the word "love". We haven't discussed it, but the issues I can think of are as others have mentioned:
- because clients can have very intense feelings of attachment, wishing to be in a T's family etc., and having T say that might not help or might confuse the issue
- in reality the relationship is "therepeutic" and the client is not one of T's friends or family members, and again having T be unclear around this could make the relationship even harder than it already can be
- because T needs to make sure there is no romantic or sexual involvement with a client.
And I expect other similar reasons like that. Basically because the therapy relationship can be very intense and it isn't really similar to other kinds of relationships and so I think - at least some- Ts are being careful with it and with not using the L word.

I think my T does love me, even though he would never say. He once called me "sweetie" by a slip of the tongue - then he corrected himself and said"I mean, Satsuma", but it was very tender and endearing and I could imagine that he addresses his daughter like that. Also he really does care about me. So in my book that is love, even though he doesn't use the L word.

Growly I'm sorry that you've had such a difficult time with Kashi recently. It sounded like he really messed up in your last session. I'm sorry it was so hurtful. I would've felt really upset too I think.

I can't imagine my former T ever saying that he loved me, thankfully. But I also have zero doubt that he did/does? It's not about his saying it, but about my readiness, willingness, and tolerance to feeling and accepting it. There was a time when he could have said it and meant it a million times and it wouldn't have made any difference. I could not feel it from him until I could feel it for myself. And that couldn't happen until the transference was resolved because the unmet need was part of the transference.

I could accept that he liked me, and that he cared about me. But love? Just not on the radar at all because I wasn't able to experience such feelings until those needs expressed through the transference were resolved. Statements of love from someone else don't resolve anything. They may be a quick feelings fix, but like any fix, there's a rebound effect. And that rebound effect I think is playing with fire which is why so many very good Ts won't be drawn into such exchanges. I think such fixes also promote a fantasy that, in actuality, prevent true loving feelings from developing.

My former T is elderly now and in poor health which prevents him from communicating. After 10 years of a solid therapeutic relationship, and twice as many years engaged in a who-knows-what-kind-of-friendship-to-call-it relationship, I think maybe the best gift my T gave me was the time to learn how to love and how to accept love. And the reward was having the opportunity to enjoy the experience. It would have been a shame if he had defaulted to an easy shortcut.

Something occurred to me while reading this thread -I think that in the English language we are so restricted by only having one word for "love"- ok we can put words like maternal/platonic etc in front of it but still the word "love"
Many other languages have many different words and the users of that language are completely at ease with what is being communicated
It's the same for the word "thank you" and many others which cover a broad range of situations-English language is not descriptive enough so we get hung up on one word and either use it too much or not enough for fear of misinterpretation
Personally I don't want my therapist to use the same word for me as he does his partner or children-it's not the same feeling and would feel fake to me
Of course there ipare " loving feelings" there but I can feel them so that's kind of the point to me
Use of the word "love " in the absence of a better descriptive word would reduce its impact to help me at all-I would feel awkward/silly and even being ridiculed

He once said "I feel love for you" and reiterated it last session in the context of me raising it and questioning whether it was fair to tell me that then, and now tell me he can't meet my needs for love I never got as a child.
I'm not sure it was the most useful thing he ever said to me. It's a bit confusing for me. He feels love for "here and now" RS, but it's infant RS that craves love.

I just want to say about Kashi, I suspect one of the reasons he is reticent about that word is that he knows fine well that his boundaries are bad and his lack of control over them is probably scary even to him. A therapist more secure in his boundaries like your long term T, and my T is less likely to worry too much because they know they are able to use that word and still retain the safety of the therapeutic relationship.
It reminds me of how T1 displayed a complete disregard for all kinds of boundaries, and then refused to hug me. It didn't make any sense to me because he always got too close to me in every other way, but wouldn't touch me. It felt rejecting and extremely confusing. I see so much of T1 in Kashi. I think he knows he isn't in control at the moment and is trying to wrestle the control back. It's untherapeutic, poor practice and you deserve better.

I said that I loved him at the end of a very hard session maybe 5 months in, and recently started occasionally ending my messages "love S". Other times it was I love you and his response was "I know". I don't want him to like me, I want that unconditional type of love every child deserves. But if he did say it I'm not sure if I would believe him- I'd want to feel it.

Yes, my T has said the words "I love you" to me. I was surprised because she reversed her previous thinking about saying it. Earlier in therapy, when I brought up the subject, she would say "I care very deeply for you but the word love is something I use only with family (and close friends). I think she said that about friends but I can't remember.

As time passed, sometimes she would say "I feel love for you." I sometimes signed my emails "love, rainbow".

I can't remember exactly when but a few years went by and I got an email signed "love T". I was so surprised I asked if it was a mistake! T said no, and we talked about "therapy love." She said that a good T comes to loves all their clients. So she signs love T all the time now. Once or twice in session she has said "I love you, rainbow" directly. I know it's a different kind of love, but my T is a loving person so she genuinely means it.

My current T has but...given what's going on right now, I really wish he hadn't. Regardless of how happy it made me the one time he said it outright and the two times he alluded to it...I really feel like he doesn't anymore and believing that and believing that he doesn't anymore because of what I am hurts more than if he had never said it at all. Feels like I had his love but lost it because I'm not worth it.

And, I never thought it was a sexual love - just a love that two people who are really close share.

I voted other. My therapist has said to me a while back, “for therapy to work there has to be love; and therapy is working.” These words have always stayed with me.

She also recently lent me a book that this phrase was paraphrased from. It has a whole main section on genuine love, and with a chapter on, what let’s call, therapy love. You’ve probably mostly read it...widely criticised for it’s religious content, but if you can ignore/treat as an analogy it can be helpful. Was for me :-)

I don't think you're nuts for feeling like you need your T to love you. That seems like a pretty natural desire to have for someone you've shared so much of yourself with. However, I'm not sure that I think love is a reasonable requirement. We can't make other people love us, and requiring a person we have a professional relationship with to not only love us, but to express that love is a tall order. It also sounds like it might set you up for disappointment later - you mention your long-term T only being around occasionally, and it sounds like you feel somewhat let down by that. At some point, Kashi too will be mostly out of your life. I think him saying "I love you" would set you up for expectations that can't be met in real life. I agree with his policy of not using the word with clients. After all, I doubt he can love every single client he comes across, and I have no doubt that many would even be harmed and confused by the use of the word "love" (although it might feel good in the moment). There's less risk of causing harm by having a straightforward no "love" policy.

But I know it hurts and I don't think your longing is abnormal.

I wish I'd never said it to my T, he's been so different with me, he handled it well but no doubt it spooked him. I lost the person I felt closest to... now its almost like we are becoming strangers.

I said it to two therapists over the years. One pretended like she didn't hear so I asked her if she heard. She said she did but that is as far as it went. Another one I said it to said thank you. I will never ever do it again. I did have one say that you know how I feel about you which basically meant that she really cared about me which I knew because of all the special things she did for me. She went way beyond what is usual for a therapist for me.

I think therapist may think that using the L word could cause misunderstanding sometimes, even though there are many kinds of love. With mine, she always use the word hears/ cares/ understands about me and I do appreciate that, because it is also another word for love. I have previously been abused, so she seems to be careful whenever she does something that may be uncomfortable to me, she would tell me beforehand whether it is okay or not.

My T often call me "sweetheart" in the session, sometimes "darling" and "honey", but she never says the L word. But, her actions already reflected that she loves me, despite she uses the word "cares", to prevent misunderstanding, as I assume. So, with your saying, I understand about what you mean!

T had said that he does not say “I love you” to patients but he has said “I care about you” and “care deeply for you”. This week he made it sound like I should look to his actions for the truth. That helps. It helps to think that he may feel that but would just never say it. Ok it still hurts but I think I know where is is going with it. It could make therapy feel unsafe. He could get sued. Love is not a precise word and could be confused for a lot of things. I’m still having a hard time with it but t has been in contact with me all week. And asking questions like “how can we make you feel safe in therapy?” He said I may be into something when I wonder out loud if I’m getting hung up on semantics.

I'm glad Kashi is trying to help you work out the love issue. At my session today I brought up that many Ts won't say it to clients. T said it's because there is confusion about what love means, that someone could think it's romantic love, for example. She said she cares about me very much. I jumped on that and said, what happened to love? Tell me you love me! So she said" I love you", then said she means "feeling affection for." So she's meaning that when she signs her emails "love" all the time. I think it IS about semantics and Kashi is right to tell you to look at his actions! I was okay with what my T said because it's nice to hear and see the word love but "care very deeply for" is okay too. I think her feelings are the same for me whichever word she uses. I understand your wanting to hear the word, though.

There's something basic about wanting to be loved, and that gets triggered in therapy. It's confusing! T said the most important thing is to love yourself, so we are going to work more on that. I'm sorry if this post doesn't help. I'm trying to work out that it really IS okay the way my T feels about me. Maybe I DID assume too much when she said "I love you" in the past. She's interchanging it for "affection." She also said she's not perfect. I said "I love you anyway". I used the word the way she does, "feel deep affection for". I think overanalyzing the word is not helpful!!

Anyway, I am glad you're starting to feel better about your therapy.

I have pretty strong feelings about this, so I'll be hopping up on my soapbox now. I understand Ts being cautious about using this word, and I think they should be, but I think they go beyond caution to cowardice. It's ironic that he thinks you're caught up on semantics, when it sounds like he's caught up on semantics (i.e., refusing to use a word because it has multiple meanings--Don't many words? Isn't this talk therapy? Can't we talk about it and come to a shared understanding of what it is and isn't in this relationship?).

What message does it send when they treat the word "love" like it's a venomous snake that they must stay far, far away from? Sure, it's confusing, but they make it more confusing when they *****-foot around it, elude to it but won't name it, expect us to infer it from their actions when other times we get in trouble for inferring things, expect us to name things but they won't. They make it all much more confusing than I think is necessary, and I think they inadvertently send the message the love is dangerous (rather than healing or normal or natural).

Stepping off my soapbox now...