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person or child if left misunderstood or ignored. For instance,
if we give an interpretation, but it is done without a sense of
loving consideration, an otherwise “accurate” understanding of
what the client is experiencing can be felt as an attack.
Clients, too, give to us. They seek us to help them and
give us their thoughts and feelings. They share their most in-
timate fantasies—a gift of trust and love and an expectation of
safety. Trust, in its truest sense, is an act of giving love. As ther-
apists, we must notice these gifts, like parents who are given
a piece of art by a young child that is so profoundly beautiful.
We ask questions about these gifts of love to appreciate them
even more and understand what they mean to the patient.
Receiving love from clients is important for therapists to
be willing to accept. If left unmet in a chronic way, this can
lead to a confusion of love—whether it is the smile in the
greeting that is more than simply a reflexive social act or the
way a client listens to what we say in a manner that shows true
interest… like a child hanging on his or her mother’s every
sound. Not noticing these types of emotional communications
of love can result in a feeling of being unseen, invisible, or even
not existing when in the extreme.
Therapists also have to be able to love clients in a with-
holding way, akin to the earlier quote from Ferenzci about
giving the love the client actually needs, not the love the client
thinks he or she needs and demands. For instance, therapists
do not burden clients with their own problems, at least overtly.
This can also happen in less obvious ways, too. Some clients
try to take on their therapists’ burdens, replicating the moth-
er-child relationship of taking care of the parent in a reversal of
roles. Withholding from the client can be a frustrating experi-
ence for those therapists driven to dig deep, but also see quick
results. Clients have a right to their secrets and withholding,
and should be respected for the pace in which they choose
to reveal their emotional worlds. Through love, we allow our
clients’ stories to develop to accommodate them, and not the
other way around.
Love comes in many shapes and sizes, even in the coun-
seling room. How we love our clients and receive love from
them can greatly impact the effectiveness of treatment. In a
world where we recognize that therapist and client interactions
impact treatment, it is a natural progression to begin to be
more open to how love affects both individuals, toward and
with each other, and the importance of this in the therapeutic
milieu.
;
Scott Hickman, Psy.D.,
is a clinical psy-
chologist and psychoanalyst in Southlake,
Texas. He was a member of the inaugural co-
hort of the Brookhaven Institute for Psycho-
analysis and Christian Theology (BIPACT),
where he now serves as faculty and chair of
the curriculum committee. Dr. Hickman is
the current president of the Dallas Society for Psychoanalytic
Psychology, a board member and instructor for the Postgrad-
uate Program in Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy, and current
member of the Dallas Psychoanalytic Center Board. Primarily,
Dr. Hickman has a private practice in Southlake,Texas, where
he works psychoanalytically with adults from all walks of life.
References
Fairbairn, W. R. D. (1952).
Psychoanalytic studies of the personality.
London,
England: Tavistock Publications Limited.
Hoffman, M. T. (2011).
Toward mutual recognition: Relational psychoanalysis and
the Christian narrative.
New York, NY: Routledge.
Jacobs, T. J. (2013).
The possible profession: The analytic process of change.
New
York, NY: Routledge.
Leffert, M. (2013).
The therapeutic situation in the 21st century.
New York, NY:
Routledge.
McWilliams, N. (2004).
Psychoanalytic psychotherapy: A practitioner’s guide.
New
York, NY: The Guilford Press.
Olthuis, J. H. (2001).
The beautiful risk: A new psychology of loving and being loved.
Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock Publishers.
Shaw, D. (2003). On the therapeutic action of analytic love.
Contemporary
Psychoanalysis, 39
, 251-278.
Searles, H. F. (1979). “The patient as therapist to his analyst.” In
Countertrans-
ference and related subjects: Selected papers.
New York, NY: International
Universities Press, Inc.
CLINICAL PRACTICE
“Love comes in many shapes and sizes, even in the counseling room.”