For those of you who love or who have loved your therapist..

Do or did you find it healing in your therapy? Or do/did you find it damaging?

Was it helpful or a hinderance?

Are you a healthier/whole person because of the experience?

2 months post-therapy (7+years worth) I will say for me, it was overall healing, helpful, basically the best thing I've ever done for myself. I still feel love for her and likely always will.
Eta and yes I feel that I am a healthier person now because of the work that I did within that most special and unique relationship. Not to say I'm perfect, I still have my moments.... but I deal with them better now, get through/past them quicker than I used to.

Originally Posted by Client xx

For those of you who love or who have loved your therapist..

Do or did you find it healing in your therapy? Or do/did you find it damaging?

Was it helpful or a hinderance?

Are you a healthier/whole person because of the experience?

What do you mean by "love"

[HD7970GHZ]

Unfortunately the transference in therapy has harmed me far more than helped. Yearning for a relationship that cannot happen is painful. Aside from that - I did get a sense of connection that I haven't been able to replicate since. (This being a therapist that didn't harm me)

[Echos Myron redux]

Loving him is tremendously painful and difficult at times, and at other times it feels wonderful. The purpose of it is ultimately to heal old wounds and I know that that is happening. Slowly, but surely.

[MoxieDoxie]

Originally Posted by HD7970GHZ

Unfortunately the transference in therapy has harmed me far more than helped. Yearning for a relationship that cannot happen is painful. Aside from that - I did get a sense of connection that I haven't been able to replicate since. (This being a therapist that didn't harm me)

Yeah right now for me the transference is killing me. The yearning for a relationship/friendship I can not have is like grieving for a loved one that has died but it is cruel because they are right there.

[Anne2.0]

I have felt love for my T and felt loved in therapy. Not erotic transference or a longing for a "real" relationship in any sustained way. I'd be hard pressed to say that the experience of love is ever harmful. Sometimes it's the impact of "love" that is harmful, such as because I loved him I ______ (insert inappropriate behavior here). The feeling is one thing, then acting on that feeling is another. I'm talking only about feelings here in therapy, don't know if this is what you meant.

I think that for me, loving T it's a cruel replication of my wounds.

[ArtleyWilkins]

I have loved all of my therapists as I would anyone who shows me that amount of respect and care and support. I wouldn't say the love itself was healing; love was just a natural feeling of response. But the effectiveness of that therapy that resulted from that respect and care and support was absolutely healing.

[DP_2017]

This is hard for me to answer well because I'm in the process of grieving him still... BUT that being said, I still deeply love him...

So has it been damaging? No. I think the damaging part itself is the loss, like it was with my dog. Loving my dog, was beautiful and powerful and made our relationship amazing, losing him, because I loved him so much, has been the damaging part... but I think that's to be expected in loss

The same with T, only difference is.... I typically don't "love" humans. I knew exactly the point when I started to feel love for him as opposed to just liking him or being comfortable etc. I got scared and had to talk to myself often about if it's worth the risk. Even though we had a few bumps long the way, once he knew of my feelings, I think it was worth me experiencing that for someone. Although currently I wish I hadn't because this loss is so difficult and heartbreaking but then again I remind myself 'Its because you love him'

If I had the choice to experience love all over with my dog again, I would. It's such a pure love. A non judgemental love. A love without limits.

If I had to chose to love T or not all over again? I'd chose not. Simply because this hurts more than I ever imagined it could. I think DURING the time he was in my life... it was healing, the hugs, the support, the conversations with him about anything blunt, the arguments, the laughs, all of it was healing in a point... but the loss now is to much for me to bear... I could not willingly chose this again if given the choice.

[SlumberKitty]

Originally Posted by Client xx

For those of you who love or who have loved your therapist..

Do or did you find it healing in your therapy? Or do/did you find it damaging?

Was it helpful or a hinderance?

Are you a healthier/whole person because of the experience?

I loved/love my former T. I did think it was healing, but since losing her, maybe it has been damaging. The loss part...that's damaging. Loving her and having her love me, that part wasn't. But when that love was gone then all that is left is a great big giant crater. I think it was mostly helpful at the time, but I think it is a hindrance to my current therapy. I don't want to get close. I don't want to be vulnerable. I don't want to attach. Etc.

[DP_2017]

Kit

You said it perfectly. I agree with all of it

Originally Posted by Jessica11

What do you mean by "love"

Any kind of love felt from a client towards their therapist

Originally Posted by Anne2.0

I have felt love for my T and felt loved in therapy. Not erotic transference or a longing for a "real" relationship in any sustained way. I'd be hard pressed to say that the experience of love is ever harmful. Sometimes it's the impact of "love" that is harmful, such as because I loved him I ______ (insert inappropriate behavior here). The feeling is one thing, then acting on that feeling is another. I'm talking only about feelings here in therapy, don't know if this is what you meant.

Feeling feelings, even love, can cause pain as shown by some comments here.

I think you may feel pain because you lose someone but it is because you love them that you feel the pain over the loss.

[BudFox]

For me clinical therapy "love" was degrading and toxic. Also pointless.

I think it's self-evident that the basic scenario of one-sided feelings, or at least one-sided disclosure of feelings, is a set up for bad things to happen. It puts the client in a dangerous place and then encourages them to keep coming back to "work thru" the feelings. So much for first-do-no-harm. This is rationalized on the basis that some unknown number of people find it helpful. Lot of horror stories leak out on client forums and therapist blogs, but the denial reflex is strong.

[RaineD]

Loving my therapist was incredibly healing. I like to say that he taught me how to love because before him I had never known this sort of pure, devoted love untainted by anger, hatred, or too much desire.

I lost him too, but the loss didn't harm me. It's incredibly painful, but there's no permanent damage. The pain and grief actually feel really healthy because for the first time I'm allowing myself to feel everything instead of trying to ignore it, which was how I used to deal with pain.

All personalities are different. I desperately loved my adoptive mother. She didn't reciprocate.
Because T is authentic those feelings came up for her.
Her warmth and caring effected me at that level.
To have my love received and apriciated is a wonderful thing.
The relationship I have with T I carry and refer to time and time again.
Very healing? Comforting? Human?

[downandlonely]

I never really cared much for a therapist. But I never saw one for that long.

[winterblues17]

Originally Posted by SlumberKitty

I loved/love my former T. I did think it was healing, but since losing her, maybe it has been damaging. The loss part...that's damaging. Loving her and having her love me, that part wasn't. But when that love was gone then all that is left is a great big giant crater. I think it was mostly helpful at the time, but I think it is a hindrance to my current therapy. I don't want to get close. I don't want to be vulnerable. I don't want to attach. Etc.

You wrote this so well, I completely agree!

I just want to say for myself that loving T the way I did has made me more open to loving others, not seeing it as a sign of weakness and defensiveness because it made me feel safe while I was there and it felt nice.
Although do I want to experience this ever again with another T no, because quite simply, when the inevitable end happens, we are left with hurt and pain.

[Myrto]

I think clients confuse feeling supported, feeling heard, the therapist making them feel good with love. I think the idea of being "healed" by the love of a therapist and by the therapeutic "relationship" is one pushed by therapists and it's incredibly dangerous and frankly creepy. It has a lot of religious and cultish elements to it. People waste years of their life and so much money chasing a fantasy: there are dozens of horror stories all over the internet and yet people rationalize them, jump through mental hoops to dismiss them because they want that "high", that specialness. Look, I've been there. I thought I loved my ex therapist. I didn't. I didn't know her, and mostly what I loved was how she was making me feel sometimes. She sure as **** didn't love me. Thankfully I didn't end up traumatized like so many people did. Ultimately it's an illusion and the healthy thing to do is not to fall for that. I know it's easy to say and harder to do since a lot of therapists push this "healing through love" idea because 1) they're clueless and don't think it through and 2) because it makes THEM feel good, therapy is for therapists after all.

[iwiwatb]

I have had those that gave me what I needed when I needed it and I very easily could have fallen into the vulnerable feelings trap, but I have always reminded myself that they are just doing what they are paid for. I am paying for a service and that includes a professional relationship. On a side note, I had a wonderful T take me on self pay and write off much of my bill when I first sought help. Without her, I would have never stuck with the system as long as I have. Love? I wasn't even capable of it back then.

[ArtleyWilkins]

Or . . . some people have a broader definition of love, understand there are many connotations for love, and not all love is equal in its qualities. The support, attention, and validation a therapist can provide is appreciated and acknowledged by some of us and in our personal definition, that feeling we have for those therapists is love, and it is not a creepy or dangerous emotion. I've never had a therapist "push" the idea of "love" or "healing through love" on me, but I do know therapy was healing for me -- life changing in the end -- and much of that is the result of having that support and validation which were qualities I so much loved and appreciated in my therapists. I was the one who left therapy feeling good about myself. My therapy wasn't about them or for them. It was what I did for myself. I did leave therapy very much healed, not BY the "love," but by the work I did through that support and validation that I love my therapists for providing.

[Anne2.0]

Originally Posted by Client xx

Feeling feelings, even love, can cause pain as shown by some comments here.

I think you may feel pain because you lose someone but it is because you love them that you feel the pain over the loss.

Can't comment on what emotions are like for other people, but I have experienced a shift in not only my feelings, but how my feelings feel. Sounds funny, but what I mean is that the way I relate to my own feelings plays a role for me in how I experience them. In the past few years, I've been through a rather big grief, and at times when I can tap into the expected painful of the loss and accept it as where I am in the moment, it feels different than if I beat up on myself for "still" feeling something strongly. Sometimes I feel grateful that I can feel something painful, because it's better than being numb or wooden.

I feel that way about love, whether it's for my therapist, my child, or others in the orbit of my world. I'm glad to experience it as a feeling and don't attach meaning to it that causes me pain. The types of meaning that cause me pain include (in the case of a loss) "I will never find another partner; I'll be alone the rest of my life" or "I wish he would leave his wife and be with me" or "love isn't worth it." Maybe it's the judging of my emotions as negative that's part of my problem. But just the little ripple of pleasure to feel connected to another person, which is what love feels like to me, the exquisite purity of what feels like an exercise of essential humanness, I try to welcome it for what it is. It makes me feel lucky.

[elisewin]

I *love* the last 2 posts on this subject. They pretty much said what I was about to say anyway.

[susannahsays]

Originally Posted by ArtleyWilkins

Or . . . some people have a broader definition of love, understand there are many connotations for love, and not all love is equal in its qualities. The support, attention, and validation a therapist can provide is appreciated and acknowledged by some of us and in our personal definition, that feeling we have for those therapists is love, and it is not a creepy or dangerous emotion. I've never had a therapist "push" the idea of "love" or "healing through love" on me, but I do know therapy was healing for me -- life changing in the end -- and much of that is the result of having that support and validation which were qualities I so much loved and appreciated in my therapists. I was the one who left therapy feeling good about myself. My therapy wasn't about them or for them. It was what I did for myself. I did leave therapy very much healed, not BY the "love," but by the work I did through that support and validation that I love my therapists for providing.

Please don't take this as me trying to argue any point, I'm just interested in clarification. Did you mean you love the support, attention, and validation the therapists provided rather than the therapists themselves? Or is it your definition that when you love what someone gives you, that means you love them? Or something else? Sorry if I'm being obtuse; the nuances of this sort of thing often escape me. I wish I understood other people more when it comes to emotional things.