[DP_2017]

I miss my T tons and I think of him often, I was finally able to tell him I loved him before we parted ways, although it was a whole session before. I didn't say it out loud for the last session (but I did text it)

Anyway.... Do you actually believe therapists feel love for their clients?

And why does love from a therapy standpoint come off as shameful to many? I mean, love does not always mean a romantic thing. The world needs more love. I've never understood why it's such a big deal.... but it apparently is. Why do we have to question it and "dig into it"? Why can't it just be ok to say to each other "I love you"?

All my life I struggled with love issues... due to my family, I felt dirty saying I loved anyone who wasn't an animal, because, like many people, they instantly think "sex" or "romance" and not LOVE.... (my family never says they love each other)
and it took so long to ACCEPT I felt love for my T and to tell him.... I just thought he'd vomit or run off screaming... he didn't but my point is, I see so many people afraid to share these feelings in therapy... why? I wish therapy didn't make people question such basic feelings... even though my T didn't react at all to me saying it... I believe completely that he thinks I am just saying it "cuz of therapy" and it really bothers me. I truly do love him. (not that it matters anymore)

I have no idea what I am posting this for really...I guess I just wonder why it can't be real without being questioned and if T's ever do love clients or if they just come off that way at times? (training an all)

[SalingerEsme]

I do believe love grows between humans in close proximity, when they delight or enliven or companion each other in an intake-of-breath way. I think therapists might love a client(s), but they can't do it on cue for everyone. It is complicated too when love inside an "as if" play space hits the outside world in which people are married / ethically clear on not acting. The t feeling love and the t saying that are different as well.

[stopdog]

The reason I don't believe in it is because in my opinion, a client does not know the therapist as a real person. The person the therapist truly is can only be a stranger to the client. So to me, if one was to think they loved the the therapist they hired - it would be that they loved a fiction - the therapist persona played by that person hired for that appointment period of time.
And I don't think most therapists feel love for clients. They may like or dislike the client, but I don't the client matters enough to most therapists for the therapist to feel love towards any specific client.

[DP_2017]

Originally Posted by stopdog

The reason I don't believe in it is because in my opinion, a client does not know the therapist as a real person. The person the therapist truly is can only be a stranger to the client. So to me, if one was to think they loved the the therapist they hired - it would be that they loved a fiction - the therapist persona played by that person hired for that appointment period of time.

I disagree. In some cases, they DO.... at least fairly well.... and you don't have to know someone completely to love them.

I mean, for instance, my best friend and I don't share anything emotional or deeply personal with each other, we only talk surface things but she says she loves me, am I to assume she is lying then?

you can also love strangers, just because you are a decent person and love other people. You can love a teacher for the impact they have had on your life. I don't think love should have limits, that's kind of my point in all this. Love is love... and the world needs more of it, not less and limited versions of it.

[ScarletPimpernel]

My T told me that she doesn't love her clients. However, when she asked me my definition of love (you care about someone deeply and are willing to make sacrifices), she said she did feel that way about me. So... feelings are mutual, but we have different definitions of the word.

[koru_kiwi]

Originally Posted by DP_2017

Do you actually believe therapists feel love for their clients?

i don't doubt that many Ts do feel genuine love for some, but not necessarily for all of their clients or even on the same level. love is such a general and simple word for an immensely broad and complex human phenomenon. because of this, i do believe that love is expressed and shared between all differnt people, in many differnt relationships and contexts, by many various means and modalities. and this includes what can unfold in the closeness of the relationship between the T and the client.

Originally Posted by DP_2017

And why does love from a therapy standpoint come off as shameful to many? I mean, love does not always mean a romantic thing. The world needs more love. I've never understood why it's such a big deal.... but it apparently is. Why do we have to question it and "dig into it"? Why can't it just be ok to say to each other "I love you"?

i agree, the shear concept of love is often so greatly over-analysed in the context of therapy and i personally felt that this over analysis definilty tainted the innocent feelings of love that were emerging for me in the context of my own therapy. that over analysis, and picking apart and justifying why i was having those feeling towards my T definilty contributed to experiencing feelings of confusion and shame. in my case, which i was not quite aware of at first, the feelings of love were emerging from the youngest parts of me, which were quite innocent in nature. even my T originally was not quite understanding of where these feelings emerged from and he reacted towards them as if they were coming from an adult part of me, and this resulted in me feeling very misunderstood, with a lot of hurt feelings, plus many needless ruptures and repair.

Originally Posted by DP_2017

I see so many people afraid to share these feelings in therapy... why? I wish therapy didn't make people question such basic feelings... even though my T didn't react at all to me saying it...

I have no idea what I am posting this for really...I guess I just wonder why it can't be real without being questioned and if T's ever do love clients or if they just come off that way at times? (training an all)

eventually, as my T began to understand where my feelings of love were coming from and that they were not a threat to him and his profession, he was more comfortable about openly sharing and discussing the concepts within the frame of the therapeutic relationship and even reciprocated his feelings of care and love back towards me in various ways throughout our years together.

similar to you, i came from a family where love was rarely voiced or physically expressed towards me by my parents or other family members. i had no problems expressing love in an adult manner towards my husband or other intimate partners over the years, but i didn't know how to express love from the young childhood parts of myself nor did i believe that my young parts were worthy of being loved in return. this is where love in the relationship with my T was so beneficial. it was the catalyst that helped me to finally understand that if i could have such strong and deep feelings of love towards my T (almost a perfect stranger in many regards, who probably could not even reciprocate the same level of care and love that i felt towards him) then in actuality, i should be able to have those same feelings of love towards myself, especially for my scared and lonely younger parts. this was one of my major personal epiphanies that occurred in my many years of therapy.

kudos to you that you were able to acknowledge and express your feelings of love and care towards your T before your final parting. that definilty shows courage and a level of personal growth in your own healing.

[stopdog]

Originally Posted by DP_2017

I disagree. In some cases, they DO.... at least fairly well.... and you don't have to know someone completely to love them.

I mean, for instance, my best friend and I don't share anything emotional or deeply personal with each other, we only talk surface things but she says she loves me, am I to assume she is lying then?

you can also love strangers, just because you are a decent person and love other people. You can love a teacher for the impact they have had on your life. I don't think love should have limits, that's kind of my point in all this. Love is love... and the world needs more of it, not less and limited versions of it.

I actually don't think the world needs more love. It may need more decency, more thoughtfulness, more tolerance. But not love in any of the way I define love. I also do not think one loves strangers because one is a decent person who loves other people. To me, that dilutes the very idea of love. I have no problem with a concept of platonic love but I do believe one needs to know someone before the term love applies. Otherwise, to me, the word is meaningless.

[ArtleyWilkins]

Yes, I do know therapist can feel love for their clients. I have long-term friendships with all of my therapists, and I am very comfortable knowing they love me and my family. In fact, just a few minutes ago, I received a message from my last therapist wishing us a Merry Christmas. We Facebook these days (it's been years since therapy ended). He had happened to be watching the symphony Christmas program on television, and I happened to get a fair amount of camera time this year. He was letting me know he enjoyed the program and had been thinking about us, knowing my husband recently had surgery. He asked about our sons and my father. He cares. And in my experience, that love and caring isn't unusual.

[Lrad123]

Originally Posted by koru_kiwi

similar to you, i came from a family where love was rarely voiced or physically expressed towards me by my parents or other family members. i had no problems expressing love in an adult manner towards my husband or other intimate partners over the years, but i didn't know how to express love from the young childhood parts of myself nor did i believe that my young parts were worthy of being loved in return. this is where love in the relationship with my T was so beneficial. it was the catalyst that helped me to finally understand that if i could have such strong and deep feelings of love towards my T (almost a perfect stranger in many regards, who probably could not even reciprocate the same level of care and love that i felt towards him) then in actuality, i should be able to have those same feelings of love towards myself, especially for my scared and lonely younger parts. this was one of my major personal epiphanies that occurred in my many years of therapy.

This is lovely. Thanks for sharing.

[RaineD]

I think therapists can feel love towards their clients. Otherwise, my therapist lied to me before he died. I don't think he did because that would have been a weird and unnecessary thing to do.

For a long time, I felt a lot of shame for having feelings of love towards my therapist. I don't know where that shame came from, but based on a lot of things I read, I know shame about love and attachment towards one's therapist is quite common. One theory is that if someone learns in childhood that loving and being attached to another results in something bad, such as rejection, neglect, being hurt, or even being shamed by the attachment figure, then that negative experience is programmed into the child, and, as an adult, the person feels shame whenever they feel love and attachment. The shame is like a warning signal: don't have those feelings; they will result in something bad. Don't know if this is true. It's just a theory I read. Psychology is full of theories.

The best thing my therapist did for me was accept my love as something completely normal and natural. He did not question it. He did not analyzer it. He did not assume it was romantic or sexual. He did not assume it was just transference. He didn't question whether it was "real" or "because of therapy." He was not threatened by it. He was not afraid of it. He was not disgusted by it. And he did not shame me for it.

That was very important to me, to have him accept those big feelings without making them seem weird or abnormal.

Anyway, I think American society in general is very uncomfortable with the idea of love outside certain very narrowly drawn contexts. People also have a hard time divorcing love from sex. They have a hard time conceptualizing true platonic love outside familial relationships. That's why friends rarely tell each other "i love you." My best friend and I tell each other that, and I have a few other friends I say that to also. But I think close friends should love each other, but society in general has such a hard time with it.

I just don't have an answer.

[captgut]

I told him I loved him twice.
He told me he loved me once, and I'm sure he regrets that, but I keep replaying it in my head.
I don't think he loves me. I wish he told that again, but I'm afraid it's impossible. Boundaries and so on...

I'm sure Ts can love their clients. I like this article
The Irreverent Psychologist: Dear Young Therapist: Don't Be Afraid to Love

[elisewin]

I believe in love in general, I definitely love my T and she loves me back. No shame, no place to argue it or be cynical about it.

[DP_2017]

Originally Posted by RaineD

The best thing my therapist did for me was accept my love as something completely normal and natural. He did not question it. He did not analyzer it. He did not assume it was romantic or sexual. He did not assume it was just transference. He didn't question whether it was "real" or "because of therapy." He was not threatened by it. He was not afraid of it. He was not disgusted by it. And he did not shame me for it.

YES! Same here... I included that in my goodbye letter because it was so important to me. I read so many scary things on here about when people said it to their T, that I felt so shameful and dirty and sick over it.... but he showed me "It's ok"

Anyway, I think American society in general is very uncomfortable with the idea of love outside certain very narrowly drawn contexts. People also have a hard time divorcing love from sex. They have a hard time conceptualizing true platonic love outside familial relationships. That's why friends rarely tell each other "i love you." My best friend and I tell each other that, and I have a few other friends I say that to also. But I think close friends should love each other, but society in general has such a hard time with it.

Yes, I agree with all that. It's sad really. For me "being in love" implies more romance or sexual but just "love" or "loving someone" can vary in many areas. It doesn't have to be this massive thing society makes it out to be.

[SalingerEsme]

I agree with StopDog in some ways- that we know a persona of the T only for quite a while ( or only) .

Also, I don't think my T knows me as well as my partner in real life, though he knows more secrets and the places that need healing. He knows less about my strengths in the real world.

In a long psychodynamic or psychoanalytical therapy though, the authentic presence of both people is required, or the whole thing tanks into impasse or enactments. You see your T is rigid or generous, forgiving or holds petty grudges, creates a language with you and speaks in it and you create that language too with T and you speak in it.

In something like Relational Psychoanalysis, there is definitely room for love in that Martin Buber I/thou sense in moments in their literature.

For me though, maybe I am a touch cynical, but I think most feelings of love really do have a romantic /sexual component once they are preoccupying in adults. I understand transference can be parental etc, but transference isn't love.

Mature, sustained love in the outside world isn't ever likely to happen, though in my town is a psychiatrist who married his patient two decades ago. If there is that ineffable physical chemistry on top of the intimate moments, it really is a choice . Love might be in the offing, but outside the room are marriages , ethic boards, children, real lives. It is impossible but possible for T's to love a client, but just rarely, not everyone and some not even one.

In the show In Treatment, you can see the personal life of Paul tanks, and then he entertains the notion he loves his client. Dr. Andrea Celenza studies and treats therapists who are "lovesick" and make breeches of boundaries . She has a real set of circumstances that usually prefigure that. Middle aged male, getting divorced, needs met through client- but a true feeling of love within his awareness. She separates this one time offense from predatory T's etc.

I don't think that is love either.

Love is a feeling, but acting on love is a relationship that isn't therapy anymore. Therapy is all about holding feelings up to the light in words and body language without acting them out.

I think a therapist can feel love, but can't act on it; and the patient too.

Saying that, most of the time , T's have too much distance and objectivity to love most patients.

[Waterloo12345]

My young parts love my doc with a pure unparalleled joy. But it's a construct of him, based on what I know of him irl sure, but still a construct.

The love, the feeling of it, is no less real and immediate and encompassing for that though. I do want to tell him [x] loves him (x being the relevant part). I've used every other formulation in emails but not the simple declarative one.

He knows for sure though. Esp as we had a convo about erotomania and the incidence of it in our professions which I brought up as a back doorway to assure him it was not like an affair I was after. I am hoping as I grow and learn through therapy and through his type of medical care, it will fade away. He says in a few years you won't need me. I guess but he's such a dear man I wish not.

As an adult I respect, admire, am even in awe of his kindness, goodness, integrity, peacefulness (and a host of other positive traits but for me those are the main ones).

I don't love him as an adult. I'm his patient and only know that side of him, so any love for him as a person, a friend, I don't feel. He just doesn't have that role in my life.

I agree that there are many different types of love and I don't see why, on its facts e.g. where DP seems to have crossed over to proper friends, one can't love a t as a friend or a confidant or whatever other category the love goes in.

EtA: just reread the definitions of storge love and philia love as I was pretty sure someone else has said it better than I! For me there are different types of love not just eros.

[DP_2017]

Originally Posted by SalingerEsme

but I think most feelings of love really do have a romantic /sexual component once they are preoccupying in adults.

That's a mindset many people have, sadly and it needs to change. People can love their friends, their family, their teachers, their neighbor, their pastor etc... look at dogs.... they exhume love... it "just is" with them. There is no romantic or sexual component, it's just the feeling of love at it's most pure.... THAT is what I am talking about.

Being "in love" and "loving someone" are vastly different. Did I have romantic thoughts or sexual thoughts at times? Sure... rarely but yes... but that is not love to me. I never claimed to be "in love" with my T.

For me, even when he was angry at me, I still deeply cared about him and wanted the best for him in life. Even when we didn't talk a while, I still deeply cared and wanted the best for him in life. He made me laugh like no one else really could, everything came "Easy" for us.... and he was there for me when no one else was after my dog... it has nothing to do with being a T... remember, we hardly had "Deep" sessions.... it was about him connecting with me, as a fellow human being.... and making me smile, showing me he cared and that everything would be ok. Of all my family and friends etc NO ONE even offered to hug me after my dog died, but that was the first thing he did. I told him, that was the time when I knew I felt love for him, not on a "oh it's just a normal therapy thing" level but on a human level...... he made me feel loved and cared for during that whole hell, not even my own family could do that. I told him all of this in his goodbye letter. I don't want him to ever question my love.... because in it's most simple form.... I love him deeply, forever... because, if nothing else, he was there for me when everyone else walked away and I had lost my best friend.

None of that is romantic or sexual and I would have felt it for ANYONE, T or not, who had treated me with such kindness then. After all that happened, there was so many times he "tested" me, unintentionally, with his anger and boundary changes etc, even with this random short term leave at the end, none of that ever made me feel "less love" or like it was "just therapy".... I still deeply love him and I always will.... in a way similar to how my dog loves me.

[Anne2.0]

There are feelings in the room, including love, that seem too precious to express or might be transformed by hearing them. I can feel the heat in the room but I don't need to go check the furnace to see if it's on.

I have felt love towards him in the room, and I have felt love from him. Not necessarily at the same time. This kind of love feels exquisitely delicate, in the sense that it does not announce itself or demand recognition, which happens for me in the world outside therapy, particularly with my teenager and friends. So the love seems non-romantic, with the occasional exception.

[elisewin]

I also don't think all (or even most) love is romantic/sexual. I deeply love my friends for example and there is nothing romantic in in.

Also I don't think love is "eternal" and unlike a dog that takes almost anything and still is ready to love the person not worth it, I can also stop loving someone, if s/he acts in a way that love fades away.

[DP_2017]

Originally Posted by elisewin

Also I don't think love is "eternal" and unlike a dog that takes almost anything and still is ready to love the person not worth it, I can also stop loving someone, if s/he acts in a way that love fades away.

There are many people like this.... and I personally think love shouldn't be conditional. To me, it means, it never really was. This is the kind of love I grew up with, the kind of love that made me feel shame for loving anyone else, the kind of love that has broken me and made me who I am today (and not in a good way), the unconditional love from my dog(s) is literally the only thing that has kept me going all these years.... believing that no matter what mistakes I make, what flaws I have, how poor or ugly I may be, someone loves me.

That's the kind of love I try to give to others, and it's harder as humans no doubt, but it's also why I am very careful of who I say I really love. Do I love my family? No, not a chance. Do I love my friends? Meh, somewhat but not really... more like care for them.... Do I love my T? Yes. Do I love my dogs? Without any doubt, yes.

[LonesomeTonight]

Originally Posted by RaineD

I think therapists can feel love towards their clients. Otherwise, my therapist lied to me before he died. I don't think he did because that would have been a weird and unnecessary thing to do.

For a long time, I felt a lot of shame for having feelings of love towards my therapist. I don't know where that shame came from, but based on a lot of things I read, I know shame about love and attachment towards one's therapist is quite common. One theory is that if someone learns in childhood that loving and being attached to another results in something bad, such as rejection, neglect, being hurt, or even being shamed by the attachment figure, then that negative experience is programmed into the child, and, as an adult, the person feels shame whenever they feel love and attachment. The shame is like a warning signal: don't have those feelings; they will result in something bad. Don't know if this is true. It's just a theory I read. Psychology is full of theories.

This fits with my experience. I've told my T that when I've started to feel love for someone, like in a romantic relationship or otherwise (including the first time I felt it for my H), my automatic reaction is "Oh, ****." Because I feel that it's almost an imposition on the other person, like they wouldn't want to deal with LT being in love with them. There's definitely shame there. I think some comes from teen years, with my mom suggesting some of my platonic or romantic love for people was inappropriate. Then there were a few people who bailed on/abandoned me after I shared love feelings (a teacher, a boyfriend, on some level ex-MC), and even a guy who never called me again after I said simply "I like you." So of course I have shame involving any sort of love feelings for ex-MC and T.

The best thing my therapist did for me was accept my love as something completely normal and natural. He did not question it. He did not analyzer it. He did not assume it was romantic or sexual. He did not assume it was just transference. He didn't question whether it was "real" or "because of therapy." He was not threatened by it. He was not afraid of it. He was not disgusted by it. And he did not shame me for it.

That was very important to me, to have him accept those big feelings without making them seem weird or abnormal.

That's great that he did that for you. At one time, I thought ex-MC was doing that for me, when I expressed love earlier on in the relationship. I said on the phone, "So if I love, you, is that OK?" And without hesitating, he replied, "That's OK!" Apparently he thought that was more paternal/platonic (which it mostly was), and was OK with it for that reason. Though he did seem to treat me differently the next session, in a bad way (like pushing how great H is). But when I said it to him in the email that led to the rupture, he said (later) it was because he saw it as different then, apparently more romantic (T also said my email sounded romantic). So apparently then, it wasn't OK. Even though it likely was mostly stemming from transference.

Anyway, I think American society in general is very uncomfortable with the idea of love outside certain very narrowly drawn contexts. People also have a hard time divorcing love from sex. They have a hard time conceptualizing true platonic love outside familial relationships. That's why friends rarely tell each other "i love you." My best friend and I tell each other that, and I have a few other friends I say that to also. But I think close friends should love each other, but society in general has such a hard time with it.

I agree about this. I recall once saying "I love you" to a close friend over text, then being terrified as to how she'd reply (she said she loved me too and it's been fine). But I rarely say it to people besides my H, D, and parents. Well, I guess my aunt and some other family. I sort of told my T I have some "love feelings" for him and clarified they're platonic, and he said, "So basically it's just you like me a lot." I just kind of agreed, even though that's not the same to me. But as I said to him at another time, I wonder if just what I consider "love" is different from what many others do. Like it has a broader definition for me, but more narrow for many (most?) people.

[toomanycats]

I believe a T can feel love for a client.

[elisewin]

I don't think a child should lose love whatever s/he is or does. In a healthy family that is not happening. Unfortunately that might not have been the case with many of us. I'm sorry if that has been the case with you.

In an adult world, people do change, feelings change, sometimes people just drift apart, sometimes something too malicious or abusive happens that makes wagging the tail impossible. Luckily there also is love that stays and only gets better with age.

[LonesomeTonight]

Originally Posted by DP_2017

There are many people like this.... and I personally think love shouldn't be conditional. To me, it means, it never really was. This is the kind of love I grew up with, the kind of love that made me feel shame for loving anyone else, the kind of love that has broken me and made me who I am today (and not in a good way), the unconditional love from my dog(s) is literally the only thing that has kept me going all these years.... believing that no matter what mistakes I make, what flaws I have, how poor or ugly I may be, someone loves me.

That's the kind of love I try to give to others, and it's harder as humans no doubt, but it's also why I am very careful of who I say I really love. Do I love my family? No, not a chance. Do I love my friends? Meh, somewhat but not really... more like care for them.... Do I love my T? Yes. Do I love my dogs? Without any doubt, yes.

It really puzzled me when my T said how all love is conditional, and I said, "Even for your son?" And he said yes, how his son could do something awful and that could lead him to stop loving him. As a fellow parent, that confused me. I feel that I'd love my daughter no matter what. I do feel that my parents love me and always have, but their acceptance (by my mom) was/is conditional. If that makes any sense.

[LonesomeTonight]

Originally Posted by toomanycats

I believe a T can feel love for a client.

Me too. Ex-T basically said she loved me. At one point, she said something about loving a former longtime client (in context of a story). And a while later, I said I loved her, then added that I knew the therapeutic relationship was unique and she likely couldn't say it back. And she said it was unique, adding, "Not that I don't love you, too." I felt love many times from ex-MC, but I don't think he'd ever admit to that. T has said he ex-MC did things that made me feel loved, though of course he wouldn't know if he actually loved me.

I think if my T felt or ever feels love for me, he wouldn't say it, but that would be more for my sake, because of what happened with ex-MC (plus, I imagine a personal boundary of his). It's why he said he wasn't sure he should say "I care about you" but was willing to say "I care about your success" and "I care about your well-being." Even though I can tell he genuinely cares about me by his words and actions (including the fact that he said he was trying to be careful in what he said to me because of how it went with ex-MC).