How Falling In Love With My Therapist Was The Worst And Best Thing That's Ever Happened To Me

I fell in love with my therapist. The forbidden fruit I had to hold myself back from taking a bite. I was twenty years old, him not much older. 

Between flipping from “33 Ways To Up Your Flirt Game” to a pityful excuse for a recipe of flourless, low-carb zucchini bread in a trashy magazine, it hit me. I had been going to my sessions every week for around four months and been in complete denial almost the entire time.

Now listen, I consider myself to be a rather tough and quick-witted girl, which is exactly why it bothered me so much to think that a feeling like this could just creep up on me without me noticing. Talk about running head-first into the biggest cliché ever!

But I couldn't help it. The way my body reacted when he looked at me was out of my control. I would cross and re-cross my legs in frustration, palms sweaty, the inner sides of my thighs rubbing against each other with the force of tectonic plates. I never knew you could want someone quite as physically as I did him, thinking I would explode if I didn't feel the weight of his body pressed up on mine soon.

All those hours spent behind closed doors with my therapist, a stranger, separated only by post-it notes in clean handwriting and numerous cups of tea that had cooled during our conversations; ran through my me daily. Who would’ve known that every chuckle he breathed over the rim of his peppermint tea would find a soft spot beneath my sweater or that with every time he would ruffle through his hair I was resisting the urge to touch him.

The sexual tension that surged through me was very distracting in therapy, let me fucking tell you ladies. Multiply your steamy daydreams and fantasies about next door’s gardener with Mr. I-have-a-Ph.D.-and-a-jawline-you-might-cut-yourself-on plus the fact that the forbiddenness of the whole situation was tantalizing.

My therapy sessions were suffering, both hormones and (what I thought at the time were) love’s disorienting effects made me keep on seeing my therapist. Hoping, one day of some grand Hollywood-like exchange of “I’ve secretly been in love with you all along”, leaving our lips. The reaction I got though when I confessed what had been on my mind lately was a soft smile and a long talk headed in an entirely different direction.

Turns out this is not at all uncommon to happen in therapy. “Transference”, a phenomenon where the patient redirects feelings and desires (especially those unconsciously retained from childhood, past relationships etc.) toward the therapist, is a very well-known effect of psychotherapy that can be evoked in patients. Most importantly, not at all any reason to be ashamed! Oddly enough, it made absolute sense in my situation. 

The first time I went to see my therapist was after this girl I had been seeing for a couple of months, even though the relationship wasn’t exactly what I’d call stable, broke up with me. What had me shaken up about that at the time wasn’t actually the fact that it was over, but that I wanted to be in love so badly. Against my better judgement, I had obsessed about us and after the break-up felt horribly empty without the chance of butterflies anywhere on the horizon.

Deep down I think I had known all along that with her, and with my therapist after, I had been trying to thinly disguise some entirely different issues with the superficial veil of common heartbreak. In letting me re-live my behavioral pattern of diving headfirst into relationship-chaos, my therapist had made me realize this on my own. It was the most rewarding and empowering feeling ever. Much hotter than sex on a shrink’s couch I’m sure. (Although I will never know now…)

One and a half years later, it still feels a little nostalgic to think about my obsession with crazy complicated love stories and being stuck in the cynicism and sadness of unrequited love. But now I can see all the red flags that mark the beginning of going down that old path way clearer and feel equipped to guide my whirlwind of emotions in a much more constructive way.

And apart from that ladies, those four months of therapy provided me with so much sexual build-up that it will last a lifetime of late-night red-wine-fueled bathtub masturbation. ;)

Next up, what to do when you've fallen for a former womanizer