Is it normal to become attached to your therapist

One key reason relates to the feeling of safety. With sufficient safety you can open up more easily to your therapist and thereby access deeper areas of your emotional brain. It's in the deep areas of the brain where the change needs to happen if you're to move through your transference. You can't merely "think" your way through. You see, there's a big difference between you feeling safe and your primitive, reptilian body-based brain feeling safe.

Because when I ask them to pause and sense into the sensations in their body, they notice the unmistakable signs of fear …. If these sensations or symptoms sound familiar to you, there's a chance your brain is too overwhelmed for the necessary learning to occur. Why might you be feeling "unsafe" even when you feel your therapist is heartfelt and emotionally available?

Read on. When you establish a good working connection with your therapist, you often create sufficient safety to allow yourself to access feelings you might not have otherwise. Sometimes the more kind and emotionally available your therapist, the harder it is to open up.

To really understand why you might have so much fear, it's important to appreciate that the experiences underlying transferences occur early in life. Transferences surface only when the conditions are right and harken back to when you were similarly dependent. When transference arises in therapy it's a kind of re-creation of the circumstances that you experienced back then.

But now, owing to your connection, it's an opportunity to finally fulfill a certain stage in your development. You may also know that as an infant you're totally dependent on your parents for your survival. Your connection to them figures strongly in your day to day activities. That's what being triggered is all about. So what happens if alongside those strong feelings you once felt as an infant there was some inconsistent caretaking going on eg.

The feelings associated with negative memories are going to wrap around these present day feelings and naturally make you feel a little on guard. You're worried about opening up, getting even more attached and then, as before, something bad happening ie. With a transference, you're tapping into these early as yet unprocessed feelings and fears. In other words, the stakes are high. A lot is riding on your connection to your therapist. You don't want a repeat of what happened back then when you're weren't getting certain needs met.

Fortunately, you now have the right components to make up the normal stage of development that you missed. You get the chance to work through it and fill in the missing pieces. Best of all, these interactive experiences with your therapist expand your capacity to regulate emotion.

More on that exciting topic later. The conditions that 'moulded' the brain back then must be in place in order for your transference to be completely resolved.

But with a good therapeutic alliance - you already have the most important condition. We feel, sense, touch. We move our body through space. We don't learn through words as much as through experience. We play with objects in our environment, we explore, we experiment. For example, suppose a client walks into the office with a dominating attitude and brown hair. If the counselor has an ex-husband with brown hair and a similar personality to the patient, the therapist may unconsciously harbor resentment.

Fortunately, the therapist will often recognize countertransference and can deal with it right away to continue a healthy relationship with the client. Maybe the client has a narcissistic personality disorder. Suppose the therapist has been listening to the client speak in a demeaning manner towards them for over four weeks.

More often than not, countertransference will not greatly affect the therapy. Some psychologists use it to their advantage as a teaching opportunity.

For therapy to go well, a therapist needs to be somewhat attached to the client. However, there are definite lines that should not be crossed. A healthy relationship between a therapist and a client should be respectful, comforting, and trusting.

However, it is the role of the therapist to stay objective. Your counselor needs to look at your thoughts and feelings and not let personal emotions distract them from analyzing what is going on. Nonetheless, therapists often feel a sense of healthy attachment towards their clients. Generally, a good counselor, psychotherapist, or clinical psychologist will be genuinely rooting for you. They want to see you thrive and be able to live your life happily and healthy.

When they have healthy and positive feelings towards you, they will do their best to determine the best treatment plan. If a therapist does not truly care about the client, then the therapeutic process will not be effective. If you want a more in-depth answer to this question, consider checking out the video below. A therapist created the video, and she discusses how a therapist should feel towards their client and when attachment has gone too far:.

Even though it is rare, there are times when a clinician needs to terminate the therapy relationship with their client. A psychologist will refer them to another colleague if this needs to happen. If you are a new therapist yourself, you may be a bit overwhelmed by all of the issues that could arise because of attachment.

Check out On Being a Therapist for some interesting thoughts. This book can help you get the most out of therapy. Therapists can become attached to their clients for several reasons. They may experience transference if the client reminds them of a prominent figure in their life. Therapists may also experience countertransference depending on how the client interacts with them.

It is healthy and normal for a therapist to become attached to the client. However, a good therapist should refer the client to another professional if they grow too attached. John Cottrell, Ph. He has been teaching yoga since John continues his devotion to sharing health and well-being through his business, mbody. We're a team of scientists, doctors, teachers, and coaches experienced in helping people with special needs. We hope you like our research and share it with others who might find it helpful too :.

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