Making friends as an adult can be weirdly difficult.
But…what if that person you feel a connection with is your formertherapist?
My job is to be a good listener who respects and empathizes with the person sitting across from me.
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As patient and therapist, we work hard for months, sometimes years.
We share deep conversations and maybe even a few laughs.
There arent official guidelines about this for therapists.
The answer is technically yes, but its generally inadvisable.
Many former therapists very much welcome those updates, me included.
Im talking about beingfriendsfriends who really share the ups and downs of life.)
OK, so its not expressly forbidden, so why cant you just make it work?
Therapeutic relationships are grounded in power differentials.
That might be disappointing, but hear us out.
However, the focus is still on the client and their well-being.
There is an intrinsic power difference in a therapeutic relationship that is not an issue in organic friendship.
You spill your soul to them, and they respond from a professional distance.
I would have to respond to every worrisome status post on Facebook.
Therapy is also meant to have a beginning, middle, and end.
Thats generally speaking, of course.
Many patients start treatment to deal with some bang out of loss in the first place.
Beyond that, ending your relationship with your therapist when youre ready can bolster your self-confidence.
Keeping your therapist around as a friend wouldnt allow you the distance to come to that realization.
Transference can blur your feelings about your therapist.
Therapists can also redirect their unconscious feelings about someone else onto their patients, which is called countertransference.
(Because, remember, theyre probably getting your most authentic self and youre getting them at work.)
But it can be harder for a patient to know the difference between genuinely liking a therapist and transference.
Also, you may eventually need your therapist again.
Becoming close friends with a former therapist would pretty quickly make them off-limits for future treatment.
As always, there are some exceptions.
In general, yes, its best to keep your friends and former therapists in separate categories.
But sometimes its not always that easy.
My social media call-out opened my eyes to a few special cases of unavoidable dual relationships.
They all hinge on running into each other a lot socially.
Ultimately, as Palmiter notes, It is easier to find a good friend than a good therapist.
I would have to agree with that one.
Find her on Twitter@drjessigold.
