I Am Best Friends With My Therapist, Is That A Bad Thing?

[Ovo]

I do understand but you are asking if its a bad thing and I am answering that as yes in my opinion. What you do with it is on you. I would obtain another therapist if you dont have one and work with it with that therapist. I have abandonment issues too and i get it but its not healthy.

 

[Zagup]

Yes, I do understand and appreciate your candor. I'm really sorry, I guess I just don't understand why it is so bad if we are both getting our needs met. I do have another therapist and I have told her about the relationship and she doesn't think there is anything wrong with it.

 

[Acit]

Your right it probably is an issue. But I am caught in it and I don't want to stop it. I am being pulled towards it, if that makes sense. I can't let go and I really don't want to.

Yes I totally get this and I totally have complete empathy and compassion for the situation that you are in. I was pulled towards it and I couldn't and didn't want to let go either.

 

[Odogo]

When you say "blow up in your face", what do you mean by that?

On so many levels, I really don't have the words to describe it. I am still picking up the pieces from that blow up.

Because it started the way it did, does that mean it will blow up? Or could it just be a friendship?

In my opinion because of the way it started it means the "friendship" will blow up. I have seen this many, many times. It never ends well. And even after years of former clients saying if we are honest with each other it will be fine, it isn't fine. And the former clients are the ones that get screwed.

These are just a few questions I have.

I would encourage you to keep asking those questions.

 

[Zagup]

I'm sorry I don't mean to be difficult and I don't want to pry but I am just trying to understand. What happpend to your relationship?

 

[Gefufu]

"We have a lot of deep conversations, we talk everyday, several times a day, we say I love you to each other everyday (but I say that to most of my friends), I feel like I need to see her and talk to her and I want to see and talk to her as much as I can."

It sounds like you have gone beyond friendship and are into lover territory, but without the sex....but in time.... who knows??!

If you've talked to your second therapist and they're OK with it, there's something odd going on.... reminds me of Lady Bracknells comment on parents "To lose one parent, Mr Worthing, may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness."
(in Oscar Wilde's The Importance of being Earnest)

 

[Ugoh]

Why is your husband worried?

The attachment to her is not healthy. It's not secure. Being worried she will leave and needing daily contact is too regressed.

This sound less like an adult friendship and more like a regressed enmeshed relationship. Kids should be open with their mothers all the time and want to be closer to them than anyone. I'm guessing you don't have to reassure her that you won't leave her - do you?

Did you have good solid attachment to your parents as a child? Were they involved in any abuse or trauma? You and her could be somewhat recreating a parent-child relationship and trying to get needs met that you couldn't as a child.

I had a dual relationship with a therapist - it went from friendship to therapist and then back to friendship and it nearly ruined me. I nearly took my own life when it became too enmeshed and too unhealthy. When it fell apart, it destroyed the relationship with family members too. When it was super close and intensely deep, but going well, I didn't see any harm in it. I didn't see what we were really doing, which wasn't a healthy adult friendship.

It's good you are seeing a therapist. Is she aware of your worries this friend/ex therapist will leave you and your husbands concerns? Do they treat trauma and attachment issues?

 

[Zagup]

My husband is worried because he feels that it is happening so fast and that I am vulnerable because she knows everything.

No, I don't have to reassure her that I am not going anywhere. We are about the same age so I guess I don't see the mother child thing.

I was sexually abused by my grandfather beginning at a very young age. My parents were sort of neglectful due to three of us being severely abused physically and sexually and they did nothing. I don't think I have an attachment disorder. I have a lot of healthy relationships.

My new therapist is aware of how my husband feels and she knows how I feel. Yes she is a trauma therapist.

Thank you so much for talking, I am finding this very helpful. I feel something is not right but I also really want the relationship and don't feel I could stop it. I am just trying to figure things out.

 

[Etes]

How long have you been friends instead of therapist/client?

Have you told thia ex-therapist/friend about your husbands worry and your questions about the relationship? Other than your concern she will leave?

Here are some articles that help explain what might be going on that would help explain why this is so intense so fast - Desire for a personal friendship with my psychotherapist

Relationships after Therapy: Why They are Always Bad « Shrink Talk

Therapists can do a lot of sketchy things in therapy, and not lose their license. Dual roles like how this friendship started are illegal. Not just ill-advised, but flat out illegal. Part of why it's illegal is because sometimes therapists get caught up in their own stuff and it would feel like a good idea to be friends with a client while they are in therapy, and then to end the therapy so that they can be friends with a client. Even therapists need the reminder, the clear boundary, no don't go there.

But she went there, knowing it was against the law, knowing it could end her whole entire practice, and your therapy with her fell apart.

As would be expected.

You stayed friends, but it's not your best interest she always had in mind. Oh I'm sure you both feel like she has been good to you and been your helper and your friend - but there is likely a counter transference /transfeence dance occurring.

She isn't in a place of health. You two continuing this relationship at this depth and with this kind of enmeshed and almost obsessive intensity isn't good for her or you.

This isn't meant to put you down, but this isn't likely all about friendship for her. There are likely issues she is trying to work through as well, that she should be seeking out her own therapist to address. She listens to client issues all day, deals with intense closeness and emotions all day, and during her time off, she seeks out connection with a former client, requires honest openness about everything, tells the client she loves her and etc... ? Something is off for her and letting this go on and on just how it is isn't healthy for her or you.

Just the simple fact that at any point in time you could have her license taken from her by simply telling authorities how this relationship started puts weird elements into this relationship. The fact that she is requiring open honesty at all times without any legal backing of privacy like in therapy shows there are boundary issues running amok.

It is very hard to back out of relationships like this (which is part of why it's prohibited to be friend with your clients that you are treating in the first place.)

It can feel impossible and that is normal for this kind of relationship --- and it's why they are so problematic.

You are much more vulnerable of being taken advantage of in this relationship than others, and you are naturally worried and spend a lot of time in this relationship on very deep levels.

I would really suggest being as open and honest as you can with your therapist about how worried you and your husband are about the quick deep intensity of this relationship and stay connected to an outside professional. I continue to recommend taking a little space from this relationship. Don't get more addicted to the powerful feeling of false intimacy that comes with being so enmeshed with another. I've been there and it nearly cost me my life. Don't let her be your everything.

 

[Opu]

We have talked and she has told me the only way this will work is if I am open and honest with her. I feel I am am mostly open and honest with her. She knows how i worry about her leaving and she says that won't happen.

No, I don't have to reassure her that I am not going anywhere. We are about the same age so I guess I don't see the mother child thing.

She could even be younger than you and it could still be a parental type of relationship. Instead of neglect, you are now getting lots of attention, daily attention, from someone that you were in a 2 year long therapist / client relationship - which is the closest you can get to a parent / child relationship as an adult.

Just the fact that she has requirements on you, and she isn't worried you would leave her, while you are worried she will leave you, and you have to deal with her parental type of requirements --this suggests the therapist / client power differential is continuing.

I'm guessing that you don't place requirements on her to be open and honest in everything - do you?

Or do you have any boundaries you feel like you can hold with her?

 

[Zagup]

Can you tell me what changed in your relationship? What happened? I'm just trying understand.

We have been friends almost 2 years now. I have not told her about my husbands concerns because I don't want them to feel awkward.

I spoke to my therapist about this yesterday. We talked about abandonment from my childhood and why I am having these feelings with her. I told her the difficulty I am having and she feels like it is with the anandonment not the relationship itself.

I also work in the mental health field as an aside.

 

[Vilitu]

her. I told her the difficulty I am having and she feels like it is with the anandonment not the relationship itself.

That's transference in a nutshell.

Can you tell me what changed in your relationship? What happened? I'm just trying understand.

I'm still trying to understand that myself.

It got intense. I can't explain it. It wasn't one moment that went wrong or one boundary that was crossed where I can say oh, if that hadn't happened it would have been good. It was a slow slide, and just like watching paint dry, I didn't notice the change in me and in the dynamic. It felt like it suddenly went of kilter at the time. I can't even point to something that she or I did that was super wrong, other than starting off in a dual relationship role - but where it ended up was really awful. I didn't see it at the time. Others in my life encouraged the relationship. It ended up being just screwed up. It went off track long before either of us realized it. I had a new therpaist throughout it. Eventually, the friend who was an ex-therpaist pulled back because it was unhealthy, on her end, and because I was so enmeshed, I fell apart. She did too. She saw that I was falling apart and cut ties, knowing that this was bigger than either of us realized.

The fact that you work in mental health might explain why someone also in the field might think this is ok. Therapists don't like to think that others in the same profession could make mistakes with this stuff, but they do.

If you make the choice to stay in this friendship, please heed my input and make sure you can set boundaries within it. Make sure it is truly balanced in all ways. Make sure you can pull back (and reconnect.) If anything goes wrong, this will help tremendously to keep all parties a lot more ok. If nothing goes wrong, then you will have practiced a lot of good skills in the middle of a friendship.