When You Love Your Therapist — Transference or Real

Genuine love between therapists and clients - does it exist?

Having been in therapy myself for a few years and really clicking with my therapist, I've been wondering exactly that. It turns out, it's not uncommon for clients to ask their therapist if they can remain friends once their sessions come to an end. Throughout treatment, you've entrusted your therapist, sharing your rooted desires, fears, traumas, and expressing emotions in a way that you couldn't with other people you may be close to. This genuine connection during the therapy relationship is likely to occur, and that's a good thing. It allows the therapist to understand their client, analyse their behaviours and support them in getting back to a healthier life path. But the real question is, can the therapist love you back to form a strong, platonic bond?

Platonic love in therapy relationships

Platonic love is a mutual emotional and spiritual relationship between people who admire each other. They have common interests, connect on a deep level, can love each other without any sexual involvement.

First and foremost, therapists are people too. They have emotions, feelings and opinions, just like any other person. You can love your therapist platonically, and they may even feel that way too. In fact, it is said that over 80% of therapists have had some form of attraction towards their clients at least once in their career. But the difference between them and an ordinary person is that they set barriers and boundaries when it comes to the relationships they develop with their clients. This ensures that it is professional, respectful, and that the client is getting the full benefit of the sessions and not the other way around. Because of this underlying foundation and the fact that therapy is not a two-sided relationship, platonic love is, for the most part, frowned upon in this setting.

But that doesn't mean therapists have a switch to turn off love and care for someone. That sincere, empathetic feeling is what makes people human in the first place. It's how they react to it that will determine the outcome, and in professional settings, it is in the client's best interest to maintain objectivity and avoid any conflicting dual relationships. It's a therapist's legal and ethical obligation to avoid crossing lines and hindering the work with their clients. But what about outside the office or after your therapy relationship has ended?

If you love your therapist

I totally get it. You're in a vulnerable state, and when you finally get to express those intense feelings towards someone else who wants nothing more than to help you, it can often turn into what feels like genuine love towards them. If you find yourself cultivating a deep passion for your therapist, you're not alone. Therapy is an intimate process, and developing those feelings and connections happens more often than you may think, and it's usually due to something called transference. This is a phenomenon where clients redirect their childhood emotions to their therapist. The came can happen vice versa, from the therapist towards the client, which is then called countertransference.

"For some clients who fall in love with their therapist, it's likely a dynamic called 'transference'" - Deborah Serani, Psy. D

Transference or real love?

Now, the real challenge here is knowing how to distinguish transference and countertransference from actual love. When talking about transference, it's something everyone does every day. It's when you make unconscious assumptions about another person based on previous experiences with people in your life. Maybe you had a loving, caring grandmother, or an abusive father, and your therapist reminded you of that, causing highly charged feelings you can't ignore. These can be negative or positive. But you have to remember that though your emotions are raw and real, it doesn't necessarily mean it's 'right'; it's just familiar to you.

Now, knowing if you're experiencing transference versus real love is determined based on whether you feel an obsessive attraction not based on any real merit - meaning the person is not really a good mutual friend to you, but your unconscious mind is forcing you to see them that way regardless. You're filtering out the reality of the situation, and only seeing through rose-tinted glasses.

Don't get me wrong; sometimes transference love can turn into more profound love or even Pragma love over time. But when it comes to therapy, you should acknowledge your feelings, explore why those emotions surfaced in the first place, and make sure to let your therapist know. If you have a good, trained, ethical therapist, they will be open and welcoming to talk about the feeling you have towards them. As long as you both respect the boundaries that were set in the beginning, then there should be no need to terminate the relationship before it gets out of hand.

Final thoughts

It's imperative to understand that romantic or platonic relationships between you and your therapist are inappropriate while you're still in therapy. If you're the client, it's only going to dis-serve you in the end, especially if your therapist breaks their professional barrier and flirts with the idea of being your friend on a more mutual level. Because, let's be honest, it does happen from time to time, even if it shouldn't. It probably happens more often than we'd think that a therapist also develops genuine feelings for a client - but if they're professional, they won't act on it.

Once your therapy relationship has ended and sufficient time has passed, on the other hand, it might be possible to pursue a friendship if you're mature about it and both on the same page, and once all residual transference feelings have been resolved. In some jurisdictions, there are laws and regulations that prescribe that clients and therapists can pursue friendship or even relationships two years after their therapeutic relationships has ended; the exact period prescribed varies from state to state.

As a final note, yes, genuine platonic love can exist in therapy relationships. While you're in a professional relationship though, feeding into it isn't ideal. Therapy is not a symmetrical relationship and there should never be two-sided sharing. Yes, therapists care about you, probably more than you realise, but it shouldn't skip over into real friendship, loving territory. At least not while you're still professionally connected.

Even if you feel yourself loving your therapist, if they are good, they will remain professional and be that consistent base for you. Their role is to serve their clients by listening, mirroring, offering perspectives, empathizing, and providing coping skills, and do so with clear boundaries and intact. If your therapist does this even after telling them that you love them, then you can be assured you have a good one on your hands.

*** Originally published on Medium ***