Conversely, I can't tell you how many clients express appreciation for having someone to talk to that is not personally involved. As for reciprocating feelings, it is because of the nature of the relationship that reciprocating feelings is not always possible/likely or ethical. As a client, you are the one with the emotional needs in the therapeutic relationship, hopefully not your therapist. While I express caring in the manner of expressing joy over a client's achievement or validate a client's feelings of distress, it does not mean that I feel happy or sad in the same way that a client's mother or partner might feel. Part of the reason for that is that I can't be effective if the outcome is more important to me than it is to the client. That goes for when clients make poor choices and it means I don't get angry with the client for doing so. It means that I don't try to talk a client into making a particular choice because it would make me happy, proud or what have you. I have had clients that routinely try to make me a replacement for the parent they never had, or repeatedly ask for hugs, to which I refuse. I may exchange hugs at the end of treatment with a client, depending on how I think the client is going to interpret that, but hugs are not part of my therapeutic repertoire, as it communicates something I do not intend to communicate, and cannot and should not feel for a client, which for me is love. I respect, care deeply about, and enjoy my clients, but do not love them in the sense of a personal relationship.
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