"Love" in the therapeutic relationship

I've never had the feelings for a therapist that some of you seem to have, maybe because I changed therapists pretty often. I also didn't find therapy that helpful.

For me, my love for my T is not commensurate with love for a dog but love for a parent. It is how I imagine children love their parents when their parents are deserving of love. It is pure and fierce and innocent.

You said your T is around the same age as you. That's possibly what makes it hard to imagine a non-romantic love in the therapy relationship. That's also why I would never see a therapist who is remotely my age. My therapist was 29 years older than me. And it was, on some level, impossible for me to develop romantic feelings for someone that much older. All of this was intentional on my part. I try very hard to avoid erotic transference because I think it would harm me more than help. I also generally prefer gay men as therapists so they don't develop erotic counter-transference towards me.

I imagine if my therapist was my age, it would be hard to imagine love that isn't tainted with romance.

I have to qualify my statement about romantic love being tainted with my own history, experience, and issues. For me, romantic love is a drug. The high of being in love was better than any drug. I would use lovers as a means to get high and toss them aside once I was done. I hurt a lot of people with my insane behavior. I also hated myself for it.

One of the main reasons I was in therapy was because I knew there was something wrong with me that made me have this need to suck love out of people like a vampire to feed my habit. So developing romantic feelings for my therapist would be like going to substance abuse counseling and doing drugs with the counselor.

It sounds more like you love the experience of how he treated you rather than loving him, per se. I also do not think using dogs as an example strengthens your case. Dogs love us because we provide for them and give them attention, not for our unique personalities.

I also think it's sometimes the case that clients experience infatuation and confuse it with love.

Sounds like you're assuming how I feel. Also I highly disagree about dogs. Take a look at a homeless person with a dog. Someone who cant often feed or properly care for them. They exist mostly out of love for one another.

I am fine with disagreeing but it drives me nuts when people assume things on others feelings.

The posts I'm reading here are huge reflection of my intional post issue in that they assume love is sexual. Such a sad world. At any rate. Hope you all had a nice holiday

[QUOTE=
The posts I'm reading here are huge reflection of my intional post issue in that they assume love is sexual. Such a sad world. [/QUOTE]

Not to write a post about "sex positivity" while it is a psychology cliche buzzword right now, but there is a beauty to consensual sexual love ( I say that as a csa survivor , not just blithely). It isn't the sign of a sad world that people give consideration to that kind of love among others. No one really knows except the two people involved. It is sad if a T breaks ethics, but no one is suggesting that.

I’m interested in the idea that love between adults must be sexual, because it’s not something that has matched my reality. My therapist is a male close to my age, and I’m a straight female. I feel like there’s a lot of love in our relationship, but there’s no sexual vibe. (He actually reminds me a lot of a cousin I adore.) He’s been such a companion to me in grieving so many losses, and has been really with me in the darkest places of my heart. None of this is conducive to sexual feelings in my mind - I feel compassion from him, not romantic love, and that is what my heart responds to.

I agree there is no "must", there is just "may" or "might". If there is, it isn't sad or bad, as long as it is handled ethically and sensitively.

Seems the main thing many therapists love is client worship. And in some cases if the worship stops, or takes on a problematic flavor, then the lovin' stops.

There's also the money problem... the therapist is motivated to avoid saying the wrong thing and driving the client away. In my view the therapist's declarations or responses are always suspect.

And many of the stories i read seem so humiliating... client professes love and gets back vague, cryptic, patronizing response.

Also I find therapy love a bit creepy because of the mix of parent-child, adult needs, and the quasi-clinical setting.

Obviously none of this precludes genuine mutual affection from developing but it sure makes things dodgy and weird, and personally I would not want to enter into that kind of degrading cluster-f again.

After two weeks of a lot of reflecting, I still know how I feel, and I still love him, despite everything, I always will.

However, he never loved or cared about me. I never mattered. He, like most T's, was just acting... because it's part of the gig. He's moved on, I meant **** to him, like all the other clients. It's a sad reALITY. I have to mentally block all the good memories now because it's too confusing and makes me want to believe I did matter and he did care, but I know better I can't believe I fell for his crap.

There's no way I will EVER allow anyone to be that close to me again.... and for those naysayers on here, don't worry. I already know I'll never speak to him again. He wont even remember me in 2 years, let alone WANT to talk to me. What a waste of my life therapy was, and getting to know him so well....

You're still hurting from this and that is very understandable, I would be, too. But I think you can see there is a big range of emotions in between "love" and "not giving a ****." People can like you and care about you and still make choices that have a negative impact on you.

I hope when the pain is gone there will be something good you can take away from the experience.

A bit of black and white thinking going on here. A middle-ground option is that he was caring for you as a client in the environment and context of therapy. Yes, that means he may have cared for you like his other clients. That's not a bad thing. That isn't dislike. That isn't not caring. That's doing his job. Yes, you had the impression he "loved" you more than just a client, but for the most part, professionals do care about their clients, but it is in the context of their work. They do compartmentalize that caring which is necessary for them to be able to do their jobs.

I care about my students. I'd say there are a few students over the years that I care more about than others -- they stand out for some reason and we even keep in touch occasionally as adults, but it's rare and we still just touch base very occasionally via email or Facebook. But once most students aren't in my classroom, it isn't that I don't care, but their chairs are filled by 90 brand new faces that I care about also. I've been having those chairs refilled twice a year for 34 years. I cared about each on of them, but our relationship is time-limited by the context. I cared about their education. I cared about their personal issues that affected them while they were in my room. But the context was limited by the nature of the relationship.

I don't think it's much different, quite honestly, for most therapist/client relationships. Even with the therapists I have kept in touch with for decades, who I know cared deeply about my well-being, even loved me, while they were working with me, I know I probably don't cross their minds very often anymore. That's normal. They still care, but we've moved on. That's as it should be.

I'm sorry this is so painful for you, and I hope in time you will reach a place where you also move forward and realize there are relationships in life that aren't quite so temporary in context. Those will be the relationships that will ultimately sustain you.

I never said he loved me. I said it felt it at times but I don't believe he did at all, no. He admitted to having different feelings for me than others and treating me differently than others. So I was not delusional but I don't think he ever cared or I mattered anymore than he was trained for. To me, that's fake. Oh well. Just another phony in the world

The only relationship I ever want is with dogs. They aren't ****** and fake like people. I'd love to see t again and I stupidly believed he was very open to future contact considering how often he said it but I already know that I'm a passing thought. A loser from his past. He's probably thrilled to be free of me so at least I guess I made his future better by not being in it

I wish I was lucky like you amd could have a relationship after. I never saw him as a t so its super ****** I'm suddenly supposed to

So anyone who cares for their clients (nurses, doctors, therapists, paramedics, police officers, firefighters, teachers, etc.) in the context of their training is "fake" and "just another phony"? I know you don't really mean that. (At least I would hope you don't really mean that.)

I know you are angry and bitter right now, but try not let it poison your outlook on the world in the long run. You are a much better person than that. I know you are. People here know you are. You are valued and cared for by so many of us.

The world has shown me how cruel it is my whole life. Care is hard to see as genuine if you are trained to. I don't want to be cared for out of obligation. I want to be actually cared about. I believed completely until this ended that my t did. Knowing how easily and cold he can walk away like I mean nothing, proved it. He even referred to it as "a gig" (therapy itself)

But you chose to pay a therapist. And you often say that you don't want to have friends (who would do it naturally). So you kinda make it impossible for the world to care about you more.

No, I think they just get paid to do a job. I cant imagine being in their position and actually loving my clients. I dont even think they really care much about us either.

I don't think T1 or T3 or current T loved/loves me. I do think T2 who I commonly refer to on PC as my former T, I believe she loved me. She told me so in our last session and I believe her. Does she still love me? IDK. But I still love her. Kit.

I don't think your T not being available now means he had no real care for you then. When I was a kid, I saw that musical Into The Woods, and bc it made me cry; my grandfather had a long talk with me about the song "sometimes people leave you halfway through the woods". He explained that people to move away, move on, pass away, change, grow, diminish, lose and find their ways, but it doesn't mean somewhere back in time they didn't love you or were not with you or didn't care. The moments can be real, and still things change.

I think what was suggested is that therapists specifically are phony and fake.

They sell simulated emotion and calculated caring often preying on desperate types, screw with basic human needs then say it's just a "gig", behave ambiguously and evasively then blame the client for getting the "wrong idea", and have the nerve/insanity to suggest that these mind games and deceptions, and their clinical "love" and clinical "caring", constitute a reliable corrective experience for whatever ails ya.

Teachers, etc are providing a tangible service, not just dispensing faux caring all day long to paying customers.

My therapists provided a very valuable and tangible service. Their caring was not “faux.” It was supportive and indispensable, allowing me to survive what could very well have been unsurvivable. I was not preyed upon, nor sold a bill of goods. Your assessment is your generalization — not the experience for many who have found their therapist’s care and support valuable, and not a generalization that I agree with.

Agree, except I do have friends LOL. They are just mostly online or like my best friend lives out of state... I no longer have any local friends. I'm not really WANTING that, as meeting people and trying to make lasting friendships is exhausting.... but I am ok with talking to people.

I have a family, who SHOULD care, but they don't.... I've had many friends in my past, I used to be popular in school when I was young, but none of them are left anymore. It's very hard to trust people and believe they care when they keep leaving me

What did you hire the therapist to do? Did it happen before he quit being a therapist?

I agree with you, while I don't believe my T cares anymore... and while I don't believe he cared about me as much as I thought when he was a T, I believed he did at the time and that all helped me so much, it got me through terrible times. I am glad I believed it then, and wish I still could but I honestly.... think I'm just trying to accept the reality of "never" in the future.... rather then live with delusions. Even though he was completely open to it.... there is NO WAY he thinks of me more than a passing thought anymore, no way he cares anymore and no way I matter.... all reasons I can't see why there would be any hope for the future. I think he just pretended to like me

People do leave. That's the nature of relationships - they are not permanent. Things change, people stop caring, people move away, people get old and get dementia and forget you, people die. All relationships are a risk, and all relationships eventually end in a loss of some sort - even if you are the one moving, leaving, or dying. It's up to you if you want to take that risk or not, and you have made very very clear that you do not want to take that risk... but if you don't want to take the risk, then you're not going to have the care that you want. It's pretty easy to type "that's OK I can accept that" on a forum; it's much much more difficult to actually live with day in and day out for forever.