It's not uncommon for therapists to have feelings for clients, and vice versa—call it transference, countertransference, or something else. But we have to remember that it's the therapist's job to meet the client's therapeutic needs and goals, not the therapist's own personal or professional wants and needs.
It's common for a therapist to feel some degree of friendship and even attraction toward a client. You spend a lot of time with every client, learning about their lives and sharing personal information. However, while experiencing attraction is relatively common, acting on this attraction is unethical.
One of the other warning signs your therapist is attracted to you is that they try to push the physical boundary. They touch you, caress you, let their hand linger on yours and even go in for a hug that lasts just a little too long. And they know it. Like I said, therapists are people too.
The APA Ethics Code forbids therapists from being sexually intimate with current clients due to ethical conflicts of interest. Likewise, therapists should not take on clients with whom they've been intimate in the past.
You may be surprised to know that what you are experiencing with your therapist isn't uncommon. In fact, what you are likely experiencing is a phenomenon known as “erotic transference,” which is when a person experiences feelings of love or fantasies of a sexual or sensual nature about his or her therapist.
If you're falling in love with your therapist, try not to panic. This is a common experience called transference. Discovering and healing the root of why you're experiencing transference can help you achieve healthier relationships, including the one you have with your therapist.
After you realize that transference is very common and not shameful, talk about your feelings with your therapist. Professing your love (or whatever emotion you're feeling) may be easier said than done, but it can help your therapist understand your issues and help you get the most out of your therapy.
Being liked and seen as helpful feels good
“Some people want their therapist to like them for the same reason they would want anyone to like them — because it makes them feel good,” said Kristi Beroldi, a licensed professional counselor and assistant clinic director for Thriveworks in Reston, Virginia.
In this context, feeling love for or sexual attraction to a therapist isn't pathology. It's an adult brain and body doing exactly what they are meant to do. The feelings are normal, and discussing them is something experienced therapists have handled many times.
Can I ask My Therapist What He/She Thinks of Me? Yes, you can, and yes you should. This is a reasonable question to ask a therapist, and any good therapist will be happy to answer.
Your therapist's relationship with you exists between sessions, even if you don't communicate with each other. She thinks of your conversations, as well, continuing to reflect on key moments as the week unfolds. She may even reconsider an opinion she had or an intervention she made during a session.
Is Therapy Confidential? In almost every instance, therapy is absolutely confidential. You therapist is required to maintain confidentiality about everything said in sessions between the two of you, just like a doctor is required to keep your records private.
Many clients don't want to be touched, and it's important to know each person's boundaries. Touch must be for the client's sake, not the therapist's. And when touch helps build connection with the client, it can be a beneficial adjunct to talk therapy.
Edward Bordin, defined a good therapeutic relationship as consisting of three essential qualities: an emotional bond of trust, caring, and respect; agreement on the goals of therapy; and collaboration on the "work" or tasks of the treatment.
An obvious sign of transference is when a client directs emotions at the therapist. For example, if a client cries and accuses the therapist of hurting their feelings for asking a probing question, it may be a sign that a parent hurt the client regarding a similar question/topic in the past.
If you believe you're safe and comfortable with a hug from your therapist, it doesn't hurt to ask for one. Of course, your therapist has a right to say no.
There is no absolute right or wrong answer to this. As a therapist I have hugged lots of people I have seen in counseling. They will ask me if I am am “huggable” and I have always said yes. If you want to know if your therapist will hug just ask him or her.
It's okay to ask your therapist about their life. Any questions you have in therapy are valid and are likely relevant to the therapeutic process. Whether your therapist answers the question and shares personal information can depend on their individual personality, philosophy, and approach to your treatment.
The general idea is that, unconsciously, emotional feelings that you may have had or wished you could have had as a child are transferred from your parents or other caretaker to your therapist. So clients often have feelings for their therapists that are like the ones that children have towards their parents.
It's natural and not uncommon to feel close to your therapist and want to be friends with them. However, building a personal relationship with them goes against most mental health counseling codes of ethics. It may also impact your therapeutic process and lessen therapy's benefits.
Scanning our body for tightness, emotion, specific sensations such as a sinking gut can help provide insight into how we experience the world and provide direction for steps going forward. A therapist is not a keeper of all the right answers and does not intuitively know what is best for you.
Research has shown time and time again that the relationship between the therapist and the person in therapy is one of the factors that will lead to positive therapeutic growth, so it is important to feel comfortable with the therapist you are working with.
Therapists are human, and so they have likes and dislikes just as anyone would. They may “like” some clients more than others, but that doesn't mean they will give better care to those people. Often, liking a client makes it more difficult to be objective with them.
Yes they do. The purpose of compliments is to help patients realize the improvements they are making or to show them the strength they have inside of themselves and are not aware of.