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Page Contents: When you wonder if your psychotherapist likes you.                    

 

My treatment at the place I have been an inpatient at for over the last year has to end in the next couple of weeks. . . . [My psychotherapist] has started telling me some things about herself, personal things like how she coped in certain situations in her past. I want her to like me as much as I like her; the more she tells me about herself the more I think she does like me. Throughout my treatment she has been completely professional, and I feel I have been able to be truthful and real with her. Is it normal for a psychotherapist to give more away about themselves towards the end? I have told her I wish we could be friends, now I am wondering if she wants this too. . .

 
I have no way to know for certain what motivates your psychotherapist’s behavior, but I can guess that she has told you things about her coping skills as a way to encourage you in your continuing psychological work after you have terminated treatment with her.

This illustrates the fact that psychotherapists can experience genuine human caring about their clients. But caring about someone does not mean friendship. In fact, because of the dynamic I call the love-hate flip-flop, no psychotherapist can ever become a friend to a client without causing some sort of psychological damage.

So, if you want a friend, there are myriads of individuals in this world from which to choose. Just don’t expect your psychotherapist to be one of them.

Moreover, if you are honest with yourself, you will see that the desperate desire to want someone “to like me as much as I like” him or her is at the core of the psychological difficulties that sent you into treatment in the first place. As long as you remain stuck in the desperate desire to be liked, your fear of being abandoned will prevent you from being honest with anyone, and you will remain stuck in mental illness and unstable relationships. But if you learn how to give love instead of be loved, you will have nothing to fear. Real psychotherapy, therefore, will teach you how to overcome the illusions about your identity.

So it’s simple: as long as you want to be friends with your psychotherapist, you haven’t done real psychotherapy.

 


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Raymond Lloyd Richmond, Ph.D.
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