I Think I’m Falling in Love with my Therapist!?!??!!

I just read a Yahoo Answers thread with this title: “I think I’m falling in Love with My Therapist.”

As a licensed mental health therapist, I found the answers provided by the respondents to range from uninformed and ridiculous to directive but unhelpful. I had to reply, but the thread was closed. So here are my thoughts.

The questioner believed that her romantic feelings for her therapist were “real.” And not what we call in the therapy business, “transference.” Which she claimed to know all about and to think that her experience was not transference. She wanted to know what to do.

Transference with a Therapist

First off, practically every interpersonal interaction we have with people every day is a transference experience.

The difference between what happens in everyday life and what happens in therapy is this. In therapy, the therapist uses the interactions (transference) you have with him or her to help you understand yourself better. Consequently, this can often be irritating, confusing, or even infuriating. That’s because sometimes all you wanted was to have the therapist respond to you with some kind of “real” response. Which is what we do in our daily lives.

What Should She Do With These Feelings?

So back to the questioner who wanted to know what to do with her “real” feelings toward her therapist.

Because she did not understand transference, she thought she was stuck with only 2 options:

  1. Try to make a move on her therapist that might get her kicked out of therapy or
  2. Keep her feelings inside with the hopes that the feelings would not disrupt the work she was doing with her therapist.

The answer to her question of what to do with her feelings is to speak to her therapist about them. This is the work of therapy. Therapists are trained to use this type of situation to help their patients. Even a therapist doing short-term therapy can use a positive transference such as this to help a patient reach their goals. Since the patient will be very motivated to do the work the therapist is asking them to do. Particularly when they have an immediately strong positive transference such as the one this questioner described having.

The bottom line regarding any feelings you have toward your therapist is this. Take advantage of one of the only opportunities in life (since you were an infant) to freely express any feelings about anything. To express these feelings at any intensity, toward someone who is going to accept it and encourage you to do so. That is your therapist.

Interested in feeling what it is like to safely express how you really feel? Give me a call. We’ll talk.

Leah Benson Therapy icon

Contact me now to set up your free 15-minute phone consultation.

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