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Christian Counseling Connection
In recent years, the discussion has
broadened to some extent, but there
is still a pervasive attitude about love
as being something anti-therapeutic or
only related to other aspects of treat-
ment (“real relationship” or therapeutic
alliance; Leffert, 2013). There is some-
thing very important about loving and
being loved that impacts our work, our
clients, and ourselves. Olthuis (2001)
argues, “Loving is of the essence of being
human, the connective tissue of reality,
the oxygen of life” (p. 69).
Leffert argues this love is more in
line with the mother-infant relationship,
stating, “... the implications of attach-
ment theory and research for adult
psychotherapy describes the therapist’s
caring for patients as being parts of the
caregiving system analogous to moth-
er and child. It ‘implies an emotional
connection that flows from therapist
to patient as well as from patient to
therapist’” (p. 107). As Fairbairn (1952)
points out, many clients did not receive
the love they needed simply for being
themselves; this is the type of love to
aspire to in our therapeutic work, as well
as encountering emotions that are less
pleasant, including the screaming, rage-
ful baby who can’t be soothed, analogous
to emotional displays we must contain
and process with our patients.
Our clients, too, try their best to
love us in their own ways. Our aim
should not be solely for them to love us,
as it seems to be an unconscious desire
on many of our parts when we begin
doing this work, but also process these
loving feelings in a way that will move
the treatment in a direction benefitting
the client.
From a psychodynamic or analytic
perspective, Searles (1979) argues all
babies seek to be “psychotherapists” to
their mothers, to heal them in order to
be cared for. A client experiences healing
as he or she heals the therapist through
attempts at repair. In addition to these
attempts, the therapist must experi-
ence these repairs as something deep
and intentional, resulting in a sense of
gratitude. Clients do help us heal from
personal wounds, as they heal through
our help, which results in mutual expe-
riences of working through old pains.
This impact must, at some level, be
acknowledged as something the patient
is trying to tell us or do with/to us. The
process can be profound, pointing out
areas of needed growth the therapist
might not be aware of otherwise (Jacobs,
2013). This allows the client to both be
seen and also see in a way possibly never
experienced before.
Love makes all affect, including
rage, terror, sadness, joy, and ecstasy safe
rather than threatening, at least once
they have been contained and processed.
Doing this is a gift to the client, although
often a very painful one. To react ends an
opportunity to understand the mean-
ing of the experience where a literal,
legitimate explanation could foreclose
on something very important. Howev-
er, this shutting down of anger can run
both ways. The client, too, can try to
“love” the therapist by not expressing
those feelings, but this does something
to disrupt the intimacy. An attempt to
keep from hurting is an act of love by
the client, but one that is out of fear of
the loss of love from the therapist. This
is likely unconsciously communicated by
all parties involved.
As therapists, we try to give our
clients space, while also building space
together. This is a form of giving love,
allowing for the client to be in the space
created, whether in closeness or distance.
We also give the gift of understanding.
Sometimes we give clients our reflection
on what’s going on, when they lose their
ability for reflective functioning, typically
when the affect is too heightened. The
gift of attending to the clients’ thoughts,
feelings, fantasies, desires, and physical
presentation are analogous to the gift
of tending to our children’s ideas/func-
tioning/bodies. This fosters a growing of
mind… a development of curiosity with
how one’s own mind works, ultimate-
ly leading to the gift of putting words
to things that have long been held in
the unconscious, often tormenting the
CLINICAL PRACTICE