Perhaps a pattern in your life, in general, is that you always fall in love with people who are unavailable, and your therapist is just another example of one of these people. Or, perhaps you have never had that warmth and acceptance from someone, and the taste of it is intoxicating to you. That would make sense since as humans we all need someone to care about and accept us.
Your therapist should help you understand these feelings, and once you get more of a handle on what is going on, you will likely experience personal growth as a result. An ethical and well-trained therapist will be open and welcoming to a discussion about your feelings toward them. Therapy is a safe place to discuss interpersonal processes and a lot of personal growth can occur from doing so. Your therapist should handle this news gracefully and explore it with you. It is crucial to know that romantic relationships are inappropriate between therapist and client, and it is up to your therapist to uphold this boundary.
By sharing your emotional experiences and sometimes secrets with your therapist, you are opening yourself up and being vulnerable, which is often important to get the most out of the process.
If, however, your therapist takes advantage of this vulnerability and reciprocates such feelings in any way, this is a very clear ethical violation. If this happens in therapy, you should end the process of therapy and consider reporting the therapist to their state board if you feel comfortable doing so. Ever wonder what your personality type means? Sign up to find out more in our Healthy Mind newsletter. Transference, transference interpretations, and transference-focused psychotherapies. Psychotherapy Chic.
That evening I learned that he and his ex-wife shared custody of their rebellious year-old son who was constantly getting into trouble. He barely spoke with his boy and believed his wife had turned his kid against him.
He complained bitterly that his wife had extracted a huge alimony settlement from him. What happened to my strong, all-knowing psychologist who helped me solve my problems and figure out my purpose?
As I listened to him complain about his life, his attractiveness dissipated with each grievance. The elbow patches on his jacket, so endearing at first, started to look like an affectation instead. I could barely figure out where I was going, much less be a partner to someone with such complicated problems. When he walked me to my door that night, I no longer wanted to invite him in. After the agonizing months-long wait, it turned out my psychologist was more messed up than I was.
We never saw each other again. When I shared the details of my rendezvous and my stunned realization with my two roommates later that evening, the women shook their heads knowingly. The other, then a nursing student, was equally incredulous. He should have known that you were putting your feelings for your dad and boyfriend onto him. Two years later, assigned to a new male psychoanalyst and troubled by my growing attachment to him, I related this episode during a session.
Not only was I frightened, I was let down and confused as well. Decades later, uncertainties about this chapter of my life have stayed with me. And then there is the thorny subject of countertransference. But what if their own desires start to intrude? What if they act on them? Transgressions are taken very seriously and can be career-ending. But was it just in my own mind? It became more and more heated, so exciting, so weird-feeling.
Kind of terrifying. OK, so to cut a long story short, we had an affair. We stopped the therapy, and became lovers. It was like taking heroin. It was addictive beyond belief, but it messed with my head, damaged my marriage, my mothering, and after a while she left me, and I had a breakdown. Transference is often intentionally used by a therapist as a tool. The therapist has to stay really grounded.
Mary, then single and now married, fell in love with her therapist. Your mental health will ebb and flow throughout your life, so you might benefit from therapy again at some point in the future. Between how difficult it can be to find a new therapist and how exhausting it can be to brief them on your whole life story, going back to an effective former therapist can be a great option when possible.
Becoming close friends with a former therapist would pretty quickly make them off-limits for future treatment. My social media call-out opened my eyes to a few special cases of unavoidable dual relationships. They all hinge on running into each other a lot socially. This is always going to be case by case, but it will unfortunately most often make sense for a former therapist and patient to keep any friendliness pretty surface-level.
Jessica A. Gold, M. Find her on Twitter drjessigold. SELF does not provide medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Any information published on this website or by this brand is not intended as a substitute for medical advice, and you should not take any action before consulting with a healthcare professional.
Health Chevron Mental Health Chevron. Therapeutic relationships are grounded in power differentials.
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