Attachment to a therapist, a ''bad'' thing?

Something just happened that made me think of this question. I thought of posting it in the ''depression'' forum but I think it fits better here. For those with shame based CPTSD etc, is attachment to a therapist a ''bad'' thing and ''should'' we be shamed for it? (I was after it was encouraged.) But I got the other therapy wrong also as I did not get attached (with T2). (I am not going to ''keep making threads'' I just want to ask this question.

I was also told in therapy I ask ''too many questions''... I am sure the parental units told me the same thing when I was little.

I looked up a therapist online yesterday and scuttled back to my cave. I think she would be quite horrified to meet me, I sound almost ''normal'' on the phone

My experience with this forum is that if/when someone needs/wants to "keep making threads", that's OK.

Look in the Community Guidelines!! Nothing there about it, so it's OK.

I would hope for you that you feel OK posting in this forum, if you have questions. It has helped me to do it, and I would hope that for you, too.

I have CPTSD too. T1 I never attached to. T2 didn’t want or encourage attachment (CBT). Another T created dependency thinking she was creating attachment and messed me up really bad, calling me names, punishing me, and being mean for what she created. Current T believes that the relationship (and attachment) is where the healing happens. So far I feel safe being attached to him and he has not done anything hurtful. He knows I am very attached to him and he is OK with it. He does lots of stuff other T’s said would make me dependent (I can email whenever I want, he will hold my hand or hold me if I ask). My experience is that it is increasing the attachment and lowering the dependency. I used to email him 2-3 times a week (we meet weekly) and really struggle between sessions. When he started holding me I wanted it all the time... you know what his response was? “Omers, seeing as you weren’t held as an infant or child I think you might want a lot of this and that’s OK”! Because I have trouble processing things quickly I do typically still send him one email a week but it lets him know I am OK after session, what was helpful and if anything wasn’t helpful. No more crisis emails, no crisis phone calls since he started holding me either. So while attaching has been very painful and harmful in the past I am feeling pretty safe attaching to him and so far (year and two months) he deserves my trust and attachment. Besides needing him less between sessions I have had provable improvement in some long term health issues that the medical doctors were stumped by.
I don’t think we should be shamed for attaching. I think T’s that take advantage of that attachment or use it to hurt is should get all the shame.
Side note, I don’t think you are asking too many questions.

I don’t think it’s bad. I personally don’t attach to therapists or anyone for that matter but i like to stick around same people if they are good at what they do. I don’t change doctors or dentists or hairdressers. I don’t like change. But I don’t know if it qualifies as attachment. I don’t think it’s bad regardless, unless maybe you stop functioning when your therapist isn’t available then it might be a problem. I think balance is important

I don’t think it is wrong or bad to be attached to a therapist. But from your story and others we read, it can turn out badly if the T doesn’t handle it well or maybe they are just not the right T or doing the kind of therapy that can help. I like Omers story, and I have also experienced being attached and it was scary but has been very healing and being able to lean into
It actually lessens the need over time. (I also have CPTSD)

I think some of those people actively encourage it. The first woman kept telling me I needed to bond to her. Luckily I never did - dodged that bullet.

I struggled with attachment to my T in December after a very intensive therapy period with frequent long sessions.

To be honest, now that we’ve gone down to 1-2 times/week for an hour, I feel relieved, because I feel less attached and less dependent.

I do understand the idea of trying to heal attachment issues by fostering an attachment between client and therapist. But I think this can in some cases become too extreme, and confusing, and potentially harmful, because of the inherent nature of the relationship - it’s not “real.” Once you stop paying them, the therapy stops.

Very open to divergent opinions on this - the above is just where I am at the minute.

To my mind attachment needs to happen in order the therapy to work for CPTSD or trauma or PD or however one wants to call their condition. Problems with attachment is one of the common cause of all these problems and thus attachment is needed to heal them.

As one of my therapists said, attachment is part and parcel of life and thus in general, how could it be bad? It's just something that is that connects people together. I also don't think that attachment ends when therapy ends - from neither side. Yes, if therapy ends then the therapist and the patient won't see each other anymore, but 'out of sight, out of mind' is rather indicative of attachment problems rather than normal attachments in general.

In my view the therapy relationship is real, just a different kind of real. The act of paying a therapist is supposed to protect the boundary and ensure the client is getting what they need rather than render the relationship fake. At the end of the day it's two human beings relating.

I don't believe that an attachment should be actively encouraged if it's not sought out by the client but it often happens because people have attachment and relational trauma and this is where the therapeutic relationship can be very healing if it is managed properly.

To my mind, there are things that are part and parcel of life and can be bad. For instance, rejection, abandonment, betrayal. . .and when those play out in therapy and the THERAPIST gets stuck in their own stuff, it is bad for the client. It is (re) -traumatizing, soul-destroying, hope-destroying.

It takes two to have a real relationship, and when the therapist can't do it, then it ends when then therapy ends. It may well be that therapists who have the attitude "out of sight, out of mind" have attachment problems themselves but unfortunately, in my long experience, there are many who do.

My T (and I) agree with Lonelyinmyheart. T tells me often that we have a relationship AND he is my doctor, the relationship is real. I have no doubts about his feelings for me, I know he loves me, I know he cares, I know he thinks about me. When I share hard things with him I know he hurts, I know he wants to take the pain away and I know he knows he can’t. I know he struggles with “the process” wanting me to feel better faster, for the road to be less bumpy. He shows me through his actions and stories what a parent should have been, what a friend should be, what love should feel like. I know he worries about my finances, I am pretty sure that everyone else he works with makes a lot more money. I don’t know what would happen if I could not pay his fee but I choose to trust him, to trust that he and I could find some way to make sure I was OK.
For the skeptics, part of how I know what he does is real is from a google search that landed me a gold mine of information about him that he did not put out there. So much information about him as a person and about him in relationships. It is all the same, like scary the same, as what I see in session. Same person. Same relating.
Also for the skeptics, the other 9 T’s I worked with and 5+ others I fired before ever working with them weren’t good T’s. It was completely valid to be scared and skeptical, they all hurt me weather they meant to or not and no matter how good they were as people. The odds of finding a good T suck.

Ahh, Here Today. Here we go again. Again you feel that with my response I somehow invalidate your experience, which I absolutely do not do.

The question was very general and that's why also my answer, rooted in my own experiences and understandings, was very general.

It's kind of obvious that if the other part (the therapist, the parent, the friend, the spouse etc) is not up to the task then the attachment cannot be the source of growth and rather can cause a lot of pain. I know it from my very own experience (fortunately not in therapy). But just because there are situations where things can go wrong, it doesn't make the attachment in itself bad. And just because there are (many) therapists who cannot help people with attachment wounds, doesn't make the attachment itself in therapy bad.

Omers this is exactly how it is with my T too. We often talk about it and in fact did in my most recent session. We talked about the relationship being very real to both of us and not something that is defined by money or time slot or how many clients she has. I trust her as a person and know she is genuine and her feelings for me are totally real. She has gone above and beyond to show me this and help me see I mean a lot to her in many ways. She is always professional and holds boundaries, is self-aware but is always 100% herself in the room with me. She doesn't 'need' me in an unhealthy codependent way but the work with me, and no doubt her other clients, means a lot to her and is important to her. I think it's incredibly hard for people who have not experienced good therapy to imagine how healing this can be or even to think that the therapy relationship can be a real experience. In some ways it feels extremely hard to even put words to a good therapy experience but you know when it is real.

Yes, it CAN BE bad. My attachment led to bad results, for me. We can quibble about whether that means that attachment is inherently bad or not, but at a practical level it very much can be bad.

It was an attachment to a fake person (actually several people) who weren't able to be helpful and instead led me down the garden path to hurt and disappointment -- which COULD have been helpful, looking at why my tendency to go down that path, if I had had anyone to talk to about it, which I didn't.

Except, piecing it together myself, I am able to talk about, and process it somewhat, in this forum. Not an "attachment" to a particular person necessarily, but to a place where I am not often rejected and dismissed.

To me, it seems that you accept your therapist's words as gospel -- That is, if your therapist says it, it must be so. Hence your referring to him in your post, to add credence and status to what you yourself think? I don't think that's very healthy, and in fact is another reason why I think attachment to a therapist can be "bad", or lead to results that can be bad. But maybe you and your therapist are working through that? Or something, I can't know -- maybe it will work out for your ultimate good, I can't know that either.

I beg to disagree with both you and your therapist. And I do disagree. That is not the same thing as feeling that you invalidate my experience with your response. However, I do feel activated -- insulted or invalidated? I'm not sure -- by your assumption that you have the ability to know what I feel. You don't. And yet you have stated it here as a fact. It's not.

I felt attachment with close family and friends, and was abandoned in various ways by most of them. It’s not my overreaction. They really were uncaring.

I wouldn’t dream of feeling attached to a therapist. Their caring affection is a professional relationship, not an authentic personal one.

I don’t know if my attachment issues are shame based. I don’t feel ashamed about attachment. I wasn’t shamed about attachment. My parents just weren’t physically hugging. My mom is more verbally affirming with shows of attention by conversation.

The whole family was not hugging. But I was with my sons. Still, I now have been abandoned by one and am terrified that the love from the other two is only a facade and they will also abandon me in time.

You know, whatever. You are somehow so invested in reading into my words and assigning whatever you like meanings to them and it's totally not under my control. If it makes you feel better, then just go ahead. I have no reason to fight with you or argue with you. It almost seems that you feel that I must be always talking about you but clearly that's not the case and why it even should be the case?

This makes me think of T1 and how he made assumptions and read into my words...
and one of his roles was to ''help'' me to reality test or whatever the words are...

I was amazingly naïve as maybe many who are new to therapy are... and some therapists want to foster that.. and the attachment, which they then on their schedule point the finger at as ''unhealthy dependency''

this is in no way directed at you or at here today, its just my uncensored thoughts from this post, re my sub optimal therapy. In fact I have not consulted a professional irl who has NOT read into my words and made wrong assumptions regarding them.. grrr

I debated raising one of the issues I did, but then thought that maybe it would help clarify the situation in some way, and therefore help with the question you asked.

I recently consulted another counselor and it was the same old, same old, and did not work out.

Nevertheless, others have obviously reported different results and I may, too, eventually -- though at this point I sincerely doubt it.

I wish you the best of luck, whatever you decide to do.

Grrrr. I'm sorry to hear that. I have had a few ''sessions'' - one session only - with a few counsellors, and most were ok. But I guess that would barely ''scratch the surface'' - but at least, it did no harm. Maybe that might ''work'' better for you too, idk, just one session and then ''run'' - as a GP said to me ''dump him before he dumps you'' - I didn't though, I stayed throughout the long termination process and attempt at ''reparation'' - I don't remember much of that year, strange, but I don't think there was ''significant change'' on his part since he refused to extend the therapy even when a (much) older relative was very sick and there would have been more ''fruit'' / food to explore (had he not already ''moved on'' from me..)

I think it is to some extent inevitable. Words are only a proxy of what we really mean and it's inevitable that the meanings of the words are somewhat different for different people because they are shaped by people's differing experiences.

It's bad if the professional stops there though and they have no awareness that the assumptions and meanings assigned could be totally wrong and are thus not clarified further.