Does My Therapist Care About Me?

Does my therapist care about me? Is it normal to care if they do or don’t? What is a reasonable expectation here? What happens with the therapy relationship when I stop coming?

Yes, We Absolutely Do Care About You

The short answer here is yes, a good therapist will genuinely care about you as a person and it is not unreasonable to have this expectation that they will authentically demonstrate empathy and emotional support throughout the therapy process.

Further, your therapist doesn’t stop caring about you when you stop coming in. The therapeutic relationship goes beyond the office and we will forever hold a space for you in our hearts, hoping for you to achieve all that you came looking for when we met you and more.

Boundaries Are Because We Care

Good therapists know that it isn’t always appropriate for us to reach out and check in, to see if you plan on coming back, or to encourage you to continue to see us or someone else. Even when we may really want to make contact, stopping ourselves from doing so is at times actually because of how much we care for you and your process. A good therapist fully understands the importance of these boundaries. This process is about you, what you want and need, and not about what we may want in these moments.

For a variety of reasons, we understand that it is often in your best interest to allow you the personal autonomy to make these decisions for yourself, to tell us if and when you need us, to go elsewhere for therapy, or to take a break if that is what your mind and body is telling you to do right now. I hope that during my time with my clients I am helping to foster this autonomy. We do not always know why you left, but we know that it isn’t our place to force this information from you, we hope that if it’s something you want to speak about that you will reach out to us or another professional when you are ready.

Can I Go Back to My Old Therapist?

Sometimes we have to fill spaces and are unable to hold physical space on our schedules after a period of time, we may experience life changes that mean we reduce case loads, or we need to refer out for other reasons, etc. Your therapist may not always be available to re-establish the therapy relationship due to a number of different reasons, but know that this may be difficult and disappointing for us as well and that you are often not alone if this is how you are feeling. We attempt to maintain our own boundaries just as we encourage you to maintain yours and most of us attempt to re-engage with past clients whenever we are able. My clients know that as long as I believe it is still in their best interest for us to work together, I will do everything in my power to accommodate them back onto my schedule after a lapse in treatment.

Ending Therapy - What Happens to the Therapeutic Relationship?

As therapists, we want you to know that our silence after you leave or an inability to re-establish care after a period of time does not mean we don’t care about you as a person. It doesn’t mean we don’t think of reaching out, aren’t wondering how you are doing or if we will see you again, aren’t hoping to hear from you at some point, and aren’t out there rooting for you from afar wherever you are at this time, we absolutely are. There are also often many times where a therapist may think that if they’d met you under different circumstances, they would have liked to have been friends and able to maintain contact. However, this isn’t generally appropriate and a good therapist will not ever shift the dynamics of the relationship in that way after they’ve seen you as a client.

This all being said, we are always out there caring about you and hoping for the best for you. If you do not feel that this is the relationship you have with your therapist, I believe it might be worth discussing it with them or looking elsewhere for your care. A skilled and confident therapist will be able to manage this discussion and help provide you with the understanding and reassurance you need to make an informed decision about moving forward.

For more information on scheduling individual counseling with me, an EMDR therapist in Greenville, South Carolina, please message me below. I look forward to speaking with you soon!

*This website (healingvalleyscounseling.com) and the information it contains are not a substitute for therapy. This site is not meant to provide treatment advice, only to share general psychoeducational information. Please see the disclaimer section for more information.