Is it ever love?

For those of you that have intense transference feelings or otherwise for their T's do you think some of it is ever 'real' love you are also feeling? I mean I know that transference is based on the past but do you think some of it is based on the here and now and the relationship that is in the room? Yes, yes I know we don't really 'know' our T's....but when do we ever fully know someone anyway when we fall for them.

In my opinion, all of our feelings are real and all of our feelings are based on a mixture of our past experiences and here-and-now feelings. (Not just in therapy but all of our feelings towards others).

Sometimes I can tell that an aspect of my feelings is based in my past experiences (for example if I feel something towards my T which is completely incongruent with how I experience him) but most of the time it's impossible to know exactly why we feel the way we feel. I think it's important to just accept them as my feelings.

I am sure that I love him, not only as a parental figure but as the genuine, wise, gentle person I know him to be.

yeah, i believe that it is real love that is being felt and that it also in the here and now, but perhaps not completly in the way we are believe we are perceiving it. what i came to eventually understand about my own strong 'transferred' feelings of love that i was experiencing and fully believed were for and towards my ex-T, was actually the love that i was needing for myself. experiencing those incredibly powerful feelings, of what i perceived and thought of as 'loving feelings' towards another person proved to me that i did have the strong desire and ability to actually deeply love and care, that i was not broken in this regard, as i had come to believe of myself due to failing to to form secure attachments to my parents and from feeling disconnected in relationships with others. for a long time while in therapy, i believed that i was suppose to be offering that love to others, including towards my ex-T, when all along that love truely was meant for me. this revelation was part of my own journey towards reaching an internal level of worthiness and unconditional love towards myself. as i started to work internally on 'integrating' the fragmented parts of myself (processing their memories and traumas) to become a more unified self, the strong transference towards my T faded and i was able to turn that love inward, towards the differnt parts of myself.

apologies if this was a bit confusing or difficult to understand, but i am coming from a background of DID and developmental trauma and a lot of my healing has been done internally through working with my parts/alters.

I have complained about this thread being moved to the subforum because the mods seem to have confused love with romantic feelings. Moving it here shuts it down to people who don't frequent the subforum. It's an odd decision.

Love is a versatile state and emotion. It can be romantic, familial, platonic...

My former therapist I loved a great deal because I sincerely wanted her to be happy, healthy, comfortable. When you spend so much consistent time with someone, it's hard not to develop feelings one way or another. Sometimes my feelings were negative, sometimes positive.

Even when I didn't like her, I had grown extremely comfortable with her and could talk about it. That was one of the ways I experienced love in that room. Growing up, I couldn't always talk to the adults around me (who I "loved" because I was told to love them). I think I partly chose a therapist older than I am so I could experience the feeling of expressing myself fully to a parental-type figure. It weirded me out at first, but now I simply accept it.

I'm pretty sure I had (maybe still have a bit of) genuine love for ex-marriage counselor. Some platonic, some not. Current T keeps comparing my rupture/termination to him to a romantic breakup, and I can't really contradict that. I don't feel it was just transference--I think it was stuff in the room, the present relationship. Sure, some stuff from my past came into play (but as Echos said, that's the case for all relationships in life, not just therapy), but the love felt genuine. The pain certainly did...

ETA: I also cared about him deeply--it wasn't just about what he gave me, but what I wish I could give him. When his wife passed away, it was like my heart broke for him. I think that reaction also is more suggestive of love.

I think there can be a component that is real. I think I love my therapist...but as a mother figure. I would hate to know what shape my love might take in the room with a male therapist..

If it can be love, does that also mean there is truly hate?

Thanks, it also bothered me that it was moved as not a lot of people seem to come into this sub-forum even though feelings with therapists are a big topic even on the main board! By moving it in here it does seem to slow down the conversation!

thanks for speaking up and saying something. i agree that it shuts the conversation down and also leads to confusion or shame about the feelings that clients may be experiencing in their therapy or in the relationship with their T.

All feelings are real, whether they are invoked in therapy or outside therapy. All of them to a lesser or a larger extend are transference, because, as you say, we don't fully know anyone, including ourselves.

The difference between feelings people develop for Ts though vs everyone else is just the degree to which they don't know the T vs the degree to which they don't know someone else. I'd definitely say that the difference in the amount of knowing is very significant, significant enough to conclude that feelings towards Ts originate from and develop through our imagination much more than our feelings towards other people. That's why it's usually not helpful to indulge in the fantasy that it's possible to have a romantic relationship or friendship with the T without getting harmed.

And the "past" is not really in the past. Our past events made mental imprints on us in the form of all kinds of feelings, thoughts and beliefs we hold about them, but those imprints live with us right now, in the present. So, nothing really comes from the past. Everything is originated in the present through the established mental patterns that we are able to change if we become aware of them. By the same principle the "future" also doesn't exist. What exists is our mental projections about what we assume might happen or what we want or don't want to happen or what we hope to have in life at some points. But all that only exists in our mind right now in the present. The present moment is the only thing that is real. It carries within it the mental imprints of past events and the mental projections of future events, but all this is right here and right now in the present.

I think some of it is (or at least can be) real love. And, yes, I think there can be real hate also.

Some of the feelings are real, whatever they are.

It's absolutely real, as are their feelings towards you. Hatred is very real too.