Do you think therapists use their clients to fulfill parental desires?

I do not mean “use” in a negative way (i.e. being manipulative for their own gain), but rather use as a type of countertransference. For example feeling maternal/paternal towards clients in such a way that some of their parental/nurturing desires are partially fulfilled.

I was reading an article recently in which the author claimed that the therapeutic relationship often resembles the parent/child relationship and it got me thinking about this. My own therapist sometimes acts paternal (a couple of weeks ago he even referred to himself as a sort of “parent” in relation to me). I guess it’s human nature for dormant parental feelings to come out in therapy, especially when the client experiences child like transference. For me, it’s been very healing because it allows me to experience both a healthy adult/adult relationship and a healthy parent/child one (which I lacked and terribly missed as a kid). I’d love to know if therapist’s gain anything from these dynamics (another article suggested that there’s no transference without counterteansference, it’s never one sided).

I can only speak from my experience. My T has had yrs of her own therapy. So any issues she has have been resolved.
She also has a full life away from the therapy room. Her needs are met outside the therapy.
Plus her reason for becoming a psychotherapist was ignited when training as a teacher, she witnessed a child with. Obvious issues hiding in a cupboard at Sch and the teacher she was sitting with in her training just left him in there. She decided then and there she'd rather be with that boy and others like them than be the one who ignores.
I'm sure there are T's that do the things you've read about.
But I don't spend my life looking for wrongs. If sombreness wrong. I move on. I prefer funding what's right and doing that. Life has people in all professions that are less than good enough. Look at the teacher in my reply.

You’re surely speaking for those with BPD?

I failed transference therapy, as practiced today.

Actually, it would be would just as soon be a queer left-over from psychoanalysis, maybe?

I’m very confused.

I can only speak for my T, but he already has multiple kids at home, and I doubt he needs even more desires to be fulfilled than that. Honestly, from observing parents with their kids, I think he's glad he doesn't have to be a parent 24/7.

Unsure, alot of T's are decent at their job, but bloody awful parents so I don't know how that fits in with this idea.

But thats blanket statement.
One needs to put aside their personal bias.
Some probably are. But all? How would you know that?

Like me saying because I had an awful adoption experience, that all adoptions are awful and adoptive parents adopt for personall gratification to meet their unmet needs which stops them seeing the adoptive child for who they really are.

I think my former marriage counselor was getting something out of being paternal toward me (I had strong paternal transference for him). Yes, he has two kids, but they're teens and likely not listening to him so much anymore. I think he liked being needed by me, like it fulfilled something in him. The problem is, I'm pretty sure that ended up perpetuating and intensifying the paternal transference. Like the transference and countertransference fed on each other. So then when he decided to pull back, it hurt all the more.

I'm not sure about current T. Lately I've gotten a sense of a bit of paternal countertransference, but nothing near the level of ex-MC.

I'm sure many therapists regard their patients as surrogate children.

I honestly have not gotten this sense from a single therapist I've seen, and I've seen many. Just trying to think about a therapist in this way is hard to fit in my mind.

Are you willing to describe a bit more about where that "sense" of countertransference comes from? How does it manifest itself in the room, for example? I am asking because I have a similar sense with my therapist (maternal), but I find it hard to pinpoint where and when the sense arises. It's not clear to me if it's my stuff or hers.

I think my T definitely has a lot of that counter transference going on. She has 2 younger kids, and she talks about them a lot, and overall it seems like she has a very strong maternal drive. She has said to me multiple times that she sees her therapy clients like they’re her kids. She also has referred to going “mama bear mode” for me when someone was trying to mistreat me. We definitely have a parent/child type relationship, probably helped by the fact that I’m her youngest client. I definitely can feel the transference and countertransference.

Absolutely yes. I see it in my T. I think countertransference of this nature can be positive or negative in a counseling relationship depending on the 'wellness' of the T, their awareness of it, and how it is used to help the client move forward. Nothing in therapy needs to primarily benefit the therapist. The focus should always be on what is most helpful and healthy for the client and if this type of countertransference is helpful, I see no problem with it (within reason).

I don't necessarily think they 'use' us to do so but for some I think it does perhaps help feel a need. Might be that they have no kids at all or they have teenage kids that don't listen.

I think it is possible some do. I believe it is a heady mixture to have people adore you and think you are responsible for keeping them alive/ give you power you should not have and therapists are not immune to being wanted or believing they are needed.

I believe Yalom was an awful father and Freud- he did psychoanalysis in his daughter everyday!
I believe that a lot of therapists neglect their own families in favour of their clients. Their own children don’t see them or idolise them the way clients do.
My own therapist has been more like a mother than my own mother has and she also has lots of children but they all moved to different countries.
So, it is possible that some do and others don’t, it also depends on the clients and how they are with a t.

I never said all T's.
My T experiences are irrelevant to this question. I would saya fair proportion of T's are looking into others to fulfill some unmet need.
Whatever that is.
There are 2 types of T. Those who do it for money, and those who do it because they enjoy picking through the inner workings of others.

Certainly--for some Ts and some clients. Not for all.

I don't think parental feelings or a countertransference pattern need reflect any psychopathology, neediness, or lack of fulfillment in a T's life at all. When it does, it's a problem.

But when appropriate with the right client and a competent T, it can be both benign and useful. And, at its best, enriching for both parties. I see it much in the same way as gift/ compliment giving or receiving: when anyone can't accept a reasonable gift given in a spirit of open generosity, it probably reflects some sort of imbalance. But to characterize all such gifting as inherently problematic or worse, needlessly deprives both parties of one of the joys of being human.

For me, it's similar to being a mentor to students/less experienced colleagues. Do I impose such mentoring on everyone? No. Do I mentor to fulfill an unmet need in myself? No--and I base this on a lot of reflection, and on the reception from those I've engaged with in such a relationships.

But does that mean I gain no benefit from mentoring? Absolutely not. It's a satisfaction, I suspect, much like good parents experience. It isn't devoid of ego, but it isn't driven by ego. It's a "1+" experience, not a substitution for something that's lacking.

Although I sense fleeting maternal feelings in current T, there's no countertransference pattern both because she isn't driven by a need, and I'm not looking to fulfill unmet needs. Those were satisfied by former T.

With former T, because the countertransference was from a healthy place and because I was open to it, it was beneficial. That basic dynamic could continue past therapy because firstly, it was fundamentally healthy; and secondly, it wasn't static--I was allowed to "grow up"by resolving my transference while the countertransference evolved, much as a good parent relates differently to an adult child than a 2 yr old.

That both people in any relationship derive mutual benign benefit is a definition of a healthy relationship. Why wouldn't I want as many healthy relationships in my life as I am lucky enough to be graced with?

Mine clearly were gratified by their power positions and the idolization I gave them. They did everything to encourage and maintain that.

I've never really been that close to a therapist. I change them often.

I’m in a creative group with a therapist whose main life’s goal evidently is to attract worship. She tells people she’s brilliant, brags nonstop and goes into her infantilizing therapist act with unsuspecting people who aren’t her clients. Her #metoo plaint was a boss telling her how beautiful and amazing she is and that many many people harassed her. I’m not sure she’s vying for parent as much as goddess.

I have had two therapists (psychoanalysts) and although both of them have occasionally filled a parental role for me, I don't think they fulfilled their parental desires. Both of them have always kept in mind all my parts (adult, woman, mother etc) even at those times when I was presenting as a child and did not remember anything else in those moments. At the same time, they are the only persons I've experienced as motherly (my own mother failed utterly in this respect) although they both are men.

So, I don't know if therapists in general or many of them fulfil their parental desires with patients, I haven't experienced that but I would probably spot it and run from that kind of therapist as soon as possible.

I think the better question is about fulfilling caregiving desires than parenting ones. The second would certainly be unhealthy in a therapist, though. However, the first I would argue is seen in many professions, such as nursing, teaching, etc.

I think T can be very motherly and yes even protective towards me. I think we both work hard to keep any transference/counter transference in check. I think a lot of it comes from the fact that we have worked together for so long.

She has a son who she is quite close to. I don't think she is in it to fulfill parental desires though. She is a care giver who is very caring and compassionate. She told me early on that she was always the go to person when people had problems. She enjoyed being able to help. So decided that was what she wanted to do in life. She is far from wealthy and worked 2 jobs for many years in a facility for health care benefits and private practice to provide for her son as a single mom
Emdr T is a few years younger than me....

I've wondered about this lately, both my t and his wife became therapists and I don't think they have kids. But is there such a thing as 'parental desires'? Those of us who have an urge to nurture or parent are perhaps simply looking for ways to parent/nurture ourselves... that's what I discovered by becoming a parent, my desire to mother, was really a desire to mother myself. So maybe it's the same for therapists.

I know a psychiatrist who did this. He psychologically and sexually abused me and lost his license in the three States then fled to Afrika. And he told me he was Head of Ethics and the Hospital. He laughed when I told him I had a panic attack at the Art Museum and he said "Wouldn't it have been something if you died at the Art Museum!"