i don't understand...

why can't T be a friend afterwards? **please read the end note about responses before replying**

i understand the dangers of any romantic or sexual relationship with one's T. i understand how he cannot truly be a friend now because things would have to be two-way instead of focused just on me. i understand the potentials for various types of transference.

but i do NOT understand why he can't be a friend later.

a friend said to me that i don't know anything about his outside life so my feelings of wanting to be friends are transference. i'm sure some of it may be... but i don't choose my friends based on what i know about what they do or how they spend their free time, never have (which incidentally is why i have an ecclectic mix of people who often don't share a lot of interests with me). i choose who i'd like to be friends with based on their personalities, my sense of the sort of fabric they are made from.

i have an overdeveloped ability to read body language, minute stuff that most people don't notice. i trust it and it rarely lets me down... it's kind of like how they can replay a tape of a person's face to show tiny changes when they lie.. well, i register that as it happens, so i know or feel i know when someone is lying for example. i am good at it. i am not good at much, but i am good at that. i have even given a "reading" for T on what he was feeling one day when he asked, just to test out what i was saying.. i was dead on even though he wasn't feeling anything extreme.

so i have this "gut feeling" thing that i trust, and that is how i gravitate toward people as friends. My feeling about him is very good. i like who he is as a person, without knowing, or needing to know, whether he likes chocolate or vanilla ice cream. We click. We share the same absurd sense of humour and many values.

honestly... i think we could spend an afternoon talking about things that had little to do with me specifically and still get on fine. In fact, there have been times when we have had to corral (sp?) ourselves because we get off on a tangent of some mutual interest.

he never, ever crosses the line to tell me about his personal life or "stuff." So that point is valid. i just know i would know anyway. Just recently in a session i had been kind of snotty and unreasonable and i knew he was frustrated so i called him on it. Sure enough, yeah, he was. But he was open about that and it was quickly dealt with.

i don't understand why we can't be friends later. i mean, i wouldn't expect that restriction on any other of my health care providers.. i'm sure it would be fine to have a coffee with my orthopedist.

i ask because it matters. i ask because i cannot find a way to reconcile the dynamic in my head otherwise. i don't think i can ever become completely open with someone who i know is just going to walk away later... it's not even "you might leave me," it's i know he will.

i do not understand

and please... please be gentle in any response.. please do not give me a cognitive BS or "rules of therapy" stuff. i have never ever adhered (?) to absolutes in anything. The world is not an absolute place so absolutes are impractical at best.

be kind because i am fragile.

Gerber, In the big scheme of things, I just don't know why. I guess if I feel like you, which I have done, and secretly still do, then I guess most of T's clients feel this way too? I think me thinking why can't she become my friend is easier to work on then the reality that she is never going to become my friend, that is so final. So the dynamic in my head is keeping me hoping? Keeps the dream alive no matter how painful the dream seems? Maybe you could continue the thought and make up plans for you and her? Allow yourself the luxury at least, in your mind?

I think T's can be friends after a year or so after (I know T's are supposed to wait that long to have romantic relationships with former clients). There's T's that collaborate writing books with former clients, etc. I think the "rule" to not be friends has to do with protecting each other since the therapy relationship is "special" with special rules and not like a friendship. After a bit when things have changed to "normal" in the client's life then T's and clients could be friends I suppose but it would have to be mutual? T's have their life and friends just like we have our life and friends and there may not be much in common or time/interest on both people's part. Usually the T relationship is about the therapy and once that is resolved/through, there may not be anything else in common.

now I'm feeling paranoid and hope I answered non techincally :-(

no worries mouse. i just want people's opinions and i need them to be very aware of how poorly i am doing. i don't see anything wrong with what you said.

i don't even need plans really. just the truth that it would be ok. it can't be made up.

we have things, personal qualities in common. That was what i was saying... it's pretty much all i ever have in common with people i am friends with. maybe you're right... maybe he wouldn't want to be my friend. He does like me, that i know, i believe him.

that year rule isn't really a rule... it is in some places but not in many from what i understand. A lot of T's and boards, etc just straight out feel it's inappropriate... just whether they enforce that or not varies. i mean, even he admitted than many T's would have a cow over him saying that yes, as a person, he liked me.

i don't want to date him. i don't want to go on joint family vacations. i don't want to be invited to every xmas party. i just want to know he is my friend. i want to know that someday, afterwards, that i could ask him to grab a coffee and have him say yes. It's as simple as that.

i don't like rules that i feel are created for everyone because some people are very vulnerable or not competant. i'm smart enough to respect boundaries in general relationships. i'm not going to call him up randomly and impose myself on his dinner guests or 3 yrs from now demand therapy from my "friend." That's what the rules are for i think... but i would hope there would be exceptions when the T feels mutual about friendship...

I don't know if I would be "friends" with my T or not. I like, love and respect my T and our discussions/talks together are always interesting and enjoyable but friendship, for me, is also "doing" and giving and having a "mutual" part. I don't know that I could give my T anything she wants/needs? That, to me, would be the hard part about becoming friends with my particular T. I have a good friend from high school who became a T and I'm friends with her easily enough because we have a common history and have done "stuff" together and have other interests and mutual friends, etc. I can't quite imagine doing stuff with my T. We once had a session in a restaurant when she forgot her office keys and it was a bit awkward. I can't imagine being with her trying to "avoid" the focus of talking about what I'm thinking/doing and wondering if she was doing the same. The relationship is so structured as a therapy relationship I think it would be very hard for either of us to change that to a "casual" friendly one? I once mentioned to my T that she was psychologist 24/7 and she denied that; it's her job, she explained, not part of her self in that way. I know she has friends; I remember a winter with snow where she got stuck and couldn't get home and explained to me the next week she had stayed with friends. It use to be odd to me too, to watch her relate to other therapists in the offices we were using; she was new to them and didn't know the other therapist, her "landlady" :-) well either! I overheard the other therapist inviting her to a part at the offices for a few weeks later and how awkward my T sounded trying to respond. I had just assumed she'd be comfortable in any situation like she was with me, LOL.

I guess if both T and the client wanted to be friends and sufficient time had passed after therapy for the therapy relationship to dissipate, then it would be OK. Maybe the "rule" makes it easier for the T's to disengage from the clients. Maybe otherwise, the T would feel they had dozens of former clients clamoring for their time as a friend. I personally feel my T is so "advanced" in interpersonal relationships that he would not want to be my friend "on the outside" due to my inadequacies at handling relationships. I say this despite the fact that we have an extremely close and attuned therapeutic relationship. Gerber, I think it is very cool that you feel you and your T could be friends after you are done with therapy.

i asked my T this same exact question in an email. that i understood we couldnt be friends now, but why not later?? She never answered me, which is what my most recent post is about...

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krazibean723 said:
i asked my T this same exact question in an email. that i understood we couldnt be friends now, but why not later?? She never answered me, which is what my most recent post is about...

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krazibean, that is such a major and important question, I think it merits a face to face discussion rather than an email communication. There is such great potential for misunderstanding in an email. Can you two talk about this in your next session?

thank you sunrise

i really do think we'd be good friends. i don't know that we'd be doing things all the time or anything, but i don't know that about anyone i meet really.. and i generally spend a lot of time alone, just with friends in sporadic ways. i don't really "bother" any friend much.

hmmm... perna, it sounds like your relationship works well and that sounds really good. My relationship works well too but it sounds so very different. We love some of the same movies, and use quotes from obscure things a lot. We make each other laugh. It's really comfortable. We get down to it for most of my hour, but the first few minutes... and then the last few and as i'm leaving we talk about other stuff, stuff we'd love to talk about more but can't because of time and rules. Honestly, i doubt we'd have a hard time finding stuff to talk about outside of me. Sometimes we have to stop and re-focus because we've gone off talking about art or movies or whatever.

we don't talk about other aspects of life because there is so much else to deal with... if i am doing an interesting project i write a page about it and just give it to him to read later... so we can avoid getting wrapped up in it. He appreciates that because he is very interested in the work i do but also knows we can't take up the therapy hour with it.

you guys have given me a little optimism... maybe he would be willing to be friends. i don't even think it's vital that we be friends as much as it is that we could be if we were wanting to be. i think it's kind of important to me that he feel like he would want to be friends in some capacity. That is where i lose my optimism... i sink and get very sad. He is very casual, open and probably looser about some boundaries than other T's... he is so open and honest that i doubt he gets much trouble with people bothering him either... but he is very professional as well. He is an excellent T and i get good feedback about him whenever he happens to come up with people who know him. The big issue i think would be him deciding to stay "professional" due to rules rather than how he felt. i do realise that maybe he wouldn't want to be friends, i'm not that vain, but i doubt it. i believe him when he says he truly likes me and i know that when he bursts out laughing it's not faked.

in my sadness i wonder if maybe i am just an "interesting case" to him. i am reasonably sure he likes working with me because i do take it seriously, i do work hard, i'm not just saying i want change when i really don't. i know he likes the intellectual exchange and i know he likes that he finds me challenging. He has to work harder and the typical "therapy phrases" meet just a snicker from me. i'm paranoid that this sounds narcissistic... but i don't mean it that way. i don't think i am "special" to him, but i do think i'm more unusual than most of the other clients he has.



ok.. i'm back to being deeply sad. so full of despair.