Is it EVER possible to have a genuine, caring relationship with a therapist?

Again - I am not trying to convince anyone of my beliefs and experiences with those people both as a client and as an attorney who represents people they have harmed. Agree or disagree with me - either way is fine.

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Originally Posted by stopdog Again - I am not trying to convince anyone of my beliefs and experiences with those people both as a client and as an attorney who represents people they have harmed. Agree or disagree with me - either way is fine.

Actually, I'm not exactly disagreeing with you. I can't, because I don't know all therapists who exist, and I sometimes question the sincerity of therapists, in general. I'm suggesting that not every therapist is a paid monkey, though. Peer therapists, for example (substance use, war vets, etc.), do have my respect. In general, I would trust a peer over any other therapist.

I am not a therapist and never have been. I was a social worker some years ago, though; some similarities there. I worked with homeless teens. Yes, I was paid, but I did the work because I genuinely loved it. And I cared about those kids - with all my heart and soul. I still think about some of them (actually, many of them) today and wonder where they are, how their lives are going. Even some whose names I cannot recall, I would know their faces in a heartbeat.

I guess anything is possible but the fact remains that the majority will disappear from your life without payment never to be heard from again. That doesn't seem like the sort of relationship you're alluding to.

To add a bit of balance....my former T saw me for free for three years as she volunteered her time for an agency. No one paid her to be there, it was purely her motivation to contribute to a cause that she valued. She saw three clients, including me, once a week, and had no payment.

My very first T wrote off several months of fees that I was struggling to pay. She told me to 'pay me back when you can, which might take years.' It's now two decades on and she has never asked for the money even though we are in contact.

There are some wonderful therapists out there who only see money as a bare necessity for living, not the only reason for seeing clients.

I had a similar experience with my now long term counsellor. She initially supported me through a charitable organisation, and when funding was cut, I was able to become a private client. I know beyond a doubt that she cares about me. A couple of weeks ago, we were due to have a break, and just before I had a really hard session. She offered me an appointment on a different day, so that I wouldn't be without support.

I have that with my therapist, yes. We genuinely care about each other. Not in a transference or strange way.

I think I have a genuine and caring relationship with L. There's a very good chance I'll be running out of money next year. We've talked about how thay would work with fees. She said she believes that all her clients have to pay for sessions, but she can make her rate really low. She didn't say how much exactly, so we'll see. And she has told me that she will remain my therapist for as long as I want her to. I love her very much, and I know she loves me. She's done many things that go way above and beyond what she needed to do. I don't post a lot of it because I want to cherish parts of our relationship to myself. But one example is that she's going to do a session with me on my birthday, a Saturday, which she doesn't work on. Or she has been writing me reminder emails every day since the virus started. I have now shared two major secrets with her, and she hasn't left me.

Yes...as long as you keep paying.

We definitely care about each other. I haven’t paid him loads of times when I really can’t afford the fee, he doesn’t make a big deal about it. So it can’t be for money.

Yes I believe so

When reading this on the boards it makes me wonder. This us oy something that has ever come up for me. When I have meek concerned about being able to afford therapy, my husband has always made it clear he would do whatever it takes for me to continue going. He would get a second job if necessary. With long term T we had a period where I was concerned. She told me to never worry about the money I could pay her whenever.

The part of me who fears being a burden to others fears that if I didn't pay for the appointments I would become a burden. I often struggle with phone call between appointments. T has always said she does not bill for it, period. If she chooses to allow outside contact she is making the choice to accept it without cost.

My T offers contact between sessions and she spends her own time reading stuff that I have given her. She never charges for any of it.

My T and I drifted too far from a therapy relationship to a personal one, and it imploded. He said it is beaten into their heads that boundaries and several feet of emotional distance is sacrosanct. As we got into uncharted territory, we lost our way commensurate with how he lost objectivity. Do I think they can truly care, truly love, truly get blindsided by their own countertransference- yes. Do I think it is easy at all to maintain a perfect balance between authentically caring and not caring too much or in the wrong way? No.

I consider the money part to be a safety thing for the client. I certainly would never want one of those people to think they were doing me a favor by sitting there. I believe getting their egos stroked is a bigger part of it for those guys than the actual money part. Although some do really like money.

That is so interesting. I kinda agree, so it's reassuring that I'm not the only one who thinks so. Or at least I'd like to think that's the case, but I always worry I'm wrong and we're just a means to an end for them.

I believe it is possible. I really struggled with things like this when I started therapy. I would question how could someone really care if they are paid to do so, how could someone care about a whole caseload of clients, and why would anyone care about me specifically.... I talked about it with my T and that helped, but the biggest thing that helped me was a random comparison. See, I live on a farm and we frequently have kittens outside in the barns and whatnot. I absolutely love kittens and play with them all the time, but at the end of the day I still have to go and take care of my own stuff and I can’t spend all my time worrying about those kittens. That doesn’t mean I don’t care, it just means that it’s not my job to continually worry about their wellbeing, I can give them the tools they need to succeed and grow, but ultimately that is all I can do. I still love them and I cry if something happens to them, but in the end, I can only do so much to take care of them, the rest is on their mother or themselves to a certain extent..... I’m not sure if that helps or not, but it helped me so I thought I might share it.

Yes, I think you can have a genuine, caring relationship. But it is different from other relationships. In my experience it's a unique (strange?) thing unlike any other relationship.
And it's always the therapists responsibility to keep the relationship entirely safe, therapeutic and serving the needs of the client only. Otherwise it can go very, very wrong--with the client bearing the full brunt and weight of the disaster.

I posed this question to my betterhelp.com therapist. He said..

[I]Yes, I think that it is possible to have a genuine caring relationship with a therapist. However, I suppose it depends on how you define a genuine and caring relationship. A relationship with a therapist will always have boundaries like any professional relationship. Yes, one of these boundaries is that you are paying the therapist to provide a service. As a result, some may consider this relationship to be artificial. I do not find the relationship to be necessarily artificial, but it certainly is distinct from the more organic relationships in our personal lives.

Therapeutic relationships are also one-sided. The focal point is the client and not the therapist. Even when the focal point is the interaction between the client and the therapist, the focus remains on the client, their functioning within this relationship, and how this relates to their functioning outside in the "real world."/I]

Yes I do. I've been working with my therapist for 10 years. There's no way he'd work with me for that long if he didn't genuinely care!!

I think my t genuinely cares for me within the therapeutic framework, and probably does for all her clients (or at least most of them). My T has super firm boundaries around her work and I can't imagine her ever having a friendship with a client outside of the frame of therapy though.
But, robust therapeutic boundaries do not exclude genuine care. Personally I don't think it is appropriate to have a relationship with a therapist outside of the therapy room. The therapeutic relationship is very much a one way one. It's that way for a reason.