Male Client/Female T and unrequited love

Has been several months since this came about with me and ex T. We terminated bit later. I don't think I have recovered at all. I still think about her every single day. Most emotionally devastating thing I have ever experienced.

I felt I was picking up on subtle cues from her that she too felt something for me. She eventually said no. This was a torment because I could never know if (a) she really did not have any such feelings or (b) she did but would not admit it. I had already told her I was madly in love with her.

Some talk of subtle "emotional seduction" as one of the most harmful experiences that can come out of therapy. Not least because of the subtlety of it, how easily it can be dismissed by others, and the crippling self doubt and confusion that arises. Not sure if this even happened to me, but I think so at least a little.

Anyone else go through this?

EDITED ORIGINAL POST TO REMOVE EXCESS DETAIL

I think alot of people have transference issues. Have you thought about what makes you love your therapist the way you do. What qualities does she have that draw you to her? If going back to your therapist to work through transference is not an option, have you considered seeing another therapist to work through your transference?

Bud, it's difficult to say what was really happening because you were alone with your T and we can't comment. There are certainly some, probably rare, situations where a T feels attraction for a C. It may have even occurred with your T.

But when you think of it, the therapeutic setting is so conducive to transference. And the attentiveness of a T who is engrossed in your words and gestures, trying to glean information from you...that can look like attraction or flirtation.

Bipolar is right, you might want to see a new T about that whole experience. What IS totally valid is YOUR feelings. In truth your ex-T doesn't matter so much. Many of us have intense attraction to our Ts. There's even a subforum, Romantic Feelings. All normal but very uncomfortable.

For a very few people the emotional pull associated with former Ts last for years. I hope it gets better for you soon.

Sorry, my post was bit confusing. I meant to emphasize, not just the transference scenario, but specifically where the client expresses in no uncertain terms romantic love for the T, but T declares she has no such feelings and no attraction.

In other words, it ends up being the ultimate rejection, coming as it does from one who is in an authority role, possibly parental/maternal attachment figure, confidant, and so on. It also felt like T was fanning the flames subtly, "emotional seduction" as some call it, though that's a tough call.

Have thought extensively about what draws me to her. And certainly want to find someone like that in the real world. But part of the problem is the way therapy can lead to idealization, and the image of perfection, and that's hard to replicate in real life.

have seen several Ts since, but none so far as been a fit or has understood enough to help, and some have increased the damage.

I've experienced the unrequited bit but not the "ultimate rejection." That is, I've expressed my love for my therapist, and not had it returned to me, i.e. he is not "in love" with me, does not love me, would not sleep with me, and strengthened his boundaries by reiterating I shouldn't schedule with him for late apts or to be the last apt etc. So, I have fantasized that he reciprocates my feelings for him, but intellectually I know it's not the case. If he felt like I did he would abandon his career and risk it all to be with me, LOL.

Transference for me has been painful but is slowly getting better with time. In time my therapist started (intentionally I assume) mentioning other women he dates. At first this really bothered me, and now not so much. I think the therapeutic setting is very seductive, at least for a person like me who is desperate for a kind ear. Not sure if this helps you or not, but time will heal it for you. The grief you feel likely extends back to earlier trauma, which is why it's so intense.

Thanks for the response. Yes, the setting is very conducive to love feelings arising, and "transference" is common part of the process. But what is seemingly not acknowledged much is that allowing, or even encouraging, a client to develop love feelings for the T carries with it enormous risk. Intense unrequited love in any context can be emotionally devastating. But in therapy, with old attachment trauma potentially getting re-enacted and the client so vulernable and exposed, it is even more risky.

Seems a T who is encouraging such feelings needs to be enormously skilled at containing the relationship. if they are not it can be like a "child playing with a live bomb" to quote something I read. To quote something else I read, you can end up having your "heart professionally broken".

Essentially I am questioning the basic structure of therapy. Not only did the process stir up very old trauma, which might be necessary if one is to heal, but the therapy itself traumatized me. And it induced an obsession with, and excruciating longing for, my T that is undiminished after 6 months. Perhaps because we terminated with very little resolved (which itself was traumatic).

Sorry for the rambling...

The "ultimate rejection" thing is a term a recent T used. I think he meant that it's rejection not only in terms of romantic love, but it's also coming from an attachment figure -- e.g. it's like being rejected by my mother + also an attractive adult in present time.

For me it wasn't about getting to T to love me back so we could act on these feelings, rather I had a desperate need to know what she felt. So I kept asking. She finally said no, no attraction.

How long with your T before you felt things were getting better? Glad you are making progress. Did he explicitly state that he does not love you?

No he's never explicitly said he doesn't love me, that's kind of what I meant by not having experienced the ultimate rejection, because I can still pretend he does if I want... Although like I said I don't think he does, a few months ago he wrote me a check and misspelled my name for example, like badly misspelled.

I don't want to scare you but I've been seeing him for two years and only recently started feeling like I'm letting go. I've always been too scared to ask him if he's attracted to me or in love with me, but I hope to get the guts to ask before I leave. It will crush me to know he's not, which I'm fairly sure is the case, but it also fuels the fire to keep the mystery alive.

For me, I recently expressed feelings of "physical and emotional attraction" to my marriage counselor (not in front of my husband, of course, though he's now aware of at least the emotional part). He's great at empathy (which I felt was missing from my marriage) and stuff like "hugging from across the room" (his term) or "hugging me with his voice" (mine). I feel an intense connection to him--we also seem to be wired somewhat similarly (both introverts, social anxiety, insecure, etc.), so I feel like he understands me in ways that my husband doesn't (extrovert, no social anxiety, fairly secure, etc.).

Met with MC individually last week to discuss these feelings and ended up mostly talking about my desire for empathy, to feel safe/secure, feel "emotionally held," etc. Dredged up some stuff from my past that may have led me to have some of those feelings now. Monday he met with my H and I, discussed some of what had come up, since my H sort of figured out why I had the individual meeting. In the meantime, I had also started thinking there might be some paternal transference instead of or in addition to the romantic/erotic. So I wanted to discuss more of that with MC, ideally in another individual session. As I put it, it's like these wounds were opened up and I wanted his help to heal them. Note that I also see an individual T at the same practice (a woman, who's awesome).

During Monday's session, I asked if I could have another individual session with MC (my H as well as my T had already said OK). But MC seemed to be trying to dodge it, saying I should work with my T instead or that he, H, and I could work on it together. I tried a couple times to express my desire to meet separately, and he was mentioning boundaries (with my T, with my H, etc.), and basically seemed to be rejecting my request.

It felt like a knife through my heart. Like, once I got out of the office, I was just sobbing. Because it felt like such a rejection to me, that he didn't want to meet with me separately to sort of finish the conversation we'd started. I think it was a combo of the romantic and paternal at play, plus the whole authority figure thing. Left him a long, sobbing voicemail, didn't really sleep that night. And he called back the next day apologizing profusely, saying he didn't mean for me to feel rejected, that it wasn't that he was unwilling to see me or work with me, and we ended up setting another individual appointment for next week. I felt such relief after that, like my heart was healed again.

Sorry--that was way longer than I meant it to be! (And I have my own thread or two about it.) Just sharing to let you know I understand the intensity--and that was without actually telling him I loved him (and having him reject me). I think it's so painful because it's not just about what's happening between you and T, but also the stuff from the past that comes up in sessions, as another poster mentioned. Plus you've shared deep emotion, thoughts, and pain with this person, so it feels just like a romantic relationship--maybe even more intense.

Out of curiosity, BudFox, did your T give you the option to stay longer and work through the feelings? Just wondering if the termination was her idea, yours (because it was too painful), or a mutual decision? I definitely think it would help to work through it with another T, though as you've said, it can be hard to find someone you're comfortable with.

Ok, I know what you mean about being scared to ask. Either answer is problematic -- if the answer is yes how do you possibly put that aside and do therapy, and if it's no then you are crushed as you say, and as happened to me.

Do you mean letting go of the feelings of needing him, or of needing to know his feelings?

I can say that once I asked and heard the answer, things were never the same, and she pushed for termination not long after, because she could see I was not doing well. But I later asked for reconsideration as the termination was itself traumatic. We went for 6 months. I would like to have had the chance to go longer, as you have, but looks like the door is shut. But for me to not know was too much of a torment.

LonesomeTonight: I also felt an intense connection to my T. Was almost otherworldly. And a profound level of understanding and attunement.

Did your MC comment on your expression of feelings for him, or attempt to interpret them for you?

I hope you can get some clarity about why he was resisting and hope it goes well. What do you think will happen after that one session? Sounds like a big thing to cover in one session.

No my T did not give the option for more sessions. We did try for a couple months after I had declared my feelings for her and things became difficult, but once we stopped, she wanted to cut me off completely. This in itself was devastating and not planned for nor anticipated.

She was main one pushing for termination. I was agreeing, but for me it was a break to see how I fared away from this sometimes harrowing process. I was worse. So I asked her to reconsider, threw everything I had at her. After that our interactions gradually deteriorated.

Anyway, I guess the main thing prompting me to start this thread is just questioning the basic sanity of a process where a professional, or the process itself, induces another human being to fall in love with someone who is unavailable. And not even with a real person, but an amalgam of symbolic and literal parts. For me it has been crushing (so far).

I meant letting go of needing him, although I could say too I care less about how he feels about me. Our relationship feels a lot less real to me now, it still feels pretty real and obviously feels nice, but I'm not letting it take up as much space in my heart as it was... Hard to explain really, because I still love him, but I'm not in the obsessed infatuated super passionate in love state I once was in.

So what got you to the place of not being so obsessed infatuated passionate in love? Was it just time with your T that slowly tempered these feelings?

That is where I have been for 8 months. Termination has not diminished this hardly at all.

BTW, i read something interesting about people with attachment trauma. They will often shut down a part of themselves to maintain relationships. I often see clients talk about their intense feelings for their T and how they keep it a secret, fearing that expressing them will end the relationship.

That would only make sense if she wanted something to come out of all this (a romantic relationship). Clearly she did not, so this probably was in your fantasy. Nothing else makes logical sense. This post by you is old and I don't know if you have realized that since then though. I also don't know if this helps - I just imagine maybe it can and that's why I'm mentioning it at all - if you realize that it was in your imagination just due to your own issues.

I hope you get past this soon!

I think that emotional seduction is a good way to describe it, even if the T doesn't want anything to come of it. I think that sometimes the Ts can be like children playing with fire, as another poster said, unaware of the power of the thing they are playing with.

My t let me know in many ways he was attracted to me....physically and emotionally......he was physically and verbally seductive. I kept a list of his behaviors...any one of them could get him in trouble. He told me he trusted me with his life (huh?) and.....if he was not married he would probably "go for it." If anyone wants to see the list you can pm me.

For some, it could be an ego thing. Like they get an ego boost out of seducing a client (whether emotionally or more than that). And they would know what they were doing and have no intention of anything romantic or sexual coming from it.

On the other end of the spectrum would be a T who had countertransference but maybe wasn't fully aware of it. And so he or she would act flirtatious and/or be "emotionally seductive" toward a particular client, but might not realize what he/she was doing or the effect it could have on the client because it was subconscious. (Hope that makes sense.)

Not the same at all, but along the same lines: I can think of times when I suddenly realized I was talking in a flirtatious way to a male coworker, like using different body language, tone of voice, etc., than I would with a female coworker or a male that I wasn't drawn to. And then suddenly I'd be like, "Agh, what am I doing?" Again, not at all at the level of a T doing that with a client, since in my case I had no sort of "authority" kind of role, but I could certain see that happening if a client is pouring out their emotions to a T.

If they are unaware of what they are doing then it's entirely irrelevant, again. In the sense that it does not need to be thought of as a special meaningful something.

Otoh, they should get aware of it so that they do not do it at all.

Such people need to be shot.

Glad you realized it. Did you stop doing it? Then at least you don't have to be shot. Don't ****ing play with the emotions of other people for no meaningful reason.

Your T is an unusual case and unfortunately sounds quite disturbed and in need of treatment himself.

Au contraire. I didnt say romantic seduction, I said emotional seduction. She gave me special treatment, extra attention, shared more with me than any other client (her own admission).

What I think she wanted was -- to be liked and admired and desired, to have an attachment and connection to me that met her own needs, to be in control, maybe to play the role of perfect mommy or mate or other.

Also the setup of therapy itself can be seductive. Even her therapy office is very small and intimate with no windows and mood lighting. Add in maternal-infant dynamics and attachment, and you have an explosive and possibly destructive situation.

Logically I knew that nothing was going to happen, but what does any of this have to do with logic? The process exposed my deepest child and adult longings and needs.

That sort of overt seduction is a whole other kettle of fish I guess, and that had to be awfully confusing. And so wrong. Some compare this sort of thing to incest, if it is carried thru.

However, was there some sort of gratification or validation knowing that he felt this way for you? Mine never admitted to such feelings, she may or may not have had them, but to be told no was like being annihilated.

Bud, thats excellent insight. The thing is, being told yes is also annihilating, as it does equate to incest. Being told no is annihilating because the child or client THINKS they are in control, but they never can be. It would be like reenacting and gratifying the child's fantasy (of being in control), instead of letting the child face and deal with his or her angry feelings. Ooh - which still lurk in me. And which a person can "inherit" from the parent. Thanks for continuing this discussion. Pc IS like therapy - we just keep peeling off those onion layers!.

Thanks unaluna.

I can imagine being told yes would be possibly horrifying. ALthough I wonder if this applies much more to male T/female C. For me (female T/male T) I don't think it would have felt that way, though would have been very confusing.

I know that theory of the T not gratifying client's infantile wishes, but I wonder how prudent it is to stir up these wishes in the first place.

For me lot of the torment was to do with adult needs. Lot of ppl seem to overlook that developing intense feelings for a T might be partly, or largely, to do with the here and now. Or it's just dismissed as unrequited love, get over it. But being told no did speak to the child too. So it was double rejection.

The wishes are there irregardless. My t and i have sort of a running joke, that i want him to stop by my apartment on his way home from the airport (after a trip or dropping someone (cough cough his wife) off). He wasnt married the first time i asked, btw! He doesnt let me get away with saying its just a joke, tho - its always, what do you really want, why do you phrase it as a joke, etc etc etc etc etc etc! My answers have changed over the years. I would jump him in a new york minute, thats not the issue. Sex ALWAYS seems like a good idea - thats how sex works! But then real life gets in the way, i guess. Idk - i might have to talk to him about it.