Does My Therapist Like Me? (Why It REALLY Matters)
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If you’ve ever wondered, “Does my therapist like me?” but were too embarrassed to ask, you’re not alone. Many people Google this question hoping to find a universal answer so they don’t have to awkwardly ask their therapist.
The good news is that there are some one-size-fits all answers to this question. We can tell you a lot about how your therapist probably feels about you based on some pretty universal things we know about therapy and therapists.
The bad news, though, is that you’ll probably never get a real and satisfying enough answer until you actually ask your therapist this awkward question.
Don’t worry, your therapist won’t think it’s stupid. They’ll be delighted you asked, even if they don’t give you a straight answer. It’s a surprisingly deep question and perfect fodder for therapy—exploring it with your therapist can even lead to major breakthroughs.
Still, though, we want to help. Hopefully, after reading this article, you’ll feel a lot better about how your therapist probably feels about you—and comfortable and empowered enough to ask them this question in your next session.
How Do Therapists Feel About Their Clients?
The vast majority of therapists come into the profession because they care about people and want to help them.
They think healing and growth are important. They respect people who want those things and who put in the effort to make them happen.
And they don’t just think what you’re doing is brave—they know it’s brave because, in most cases, they’ve done it themselves.
There's a good chance they're still doing it, too. Many therapists engage in long-term therapy for themselves.
Therapists know what it’s like to be in the other chair. They know how awkward therapy can feel even for people who’ve studied it and who understand why therapists do all the weird stuff they do.
They know that some things never get easier, no matter how much you do them—and that one of those things is talking openly about your deepest, darkest, most painful secrets and issues.
They know it’s still hard even if the person you’re telling is a warm, trustworthy therapist who cares about you and won’t tell anyone else.
Most therapists find it a deep honor to be the one you’re opening up to and are profoundly moved by it. Many talk about how grateful they feel to their clients for trusting them and for being so open, honest, and real. Bearing witness to you when you reveal your innermost world is a task they find sacred.
Your therapist sees you in the raw, naked truth of who you are. And in you, they see more than just you. They see the human condition. They see who we all are when we stop hiding and lying and pretending.
The way therapists feel about their clients—the way your therapist feels about you—is deep, powerful, and unique. Being seen and known in the way only a therapist can see and know someone is one of the special gifts of therapy.
That human connection is essential to the process. Your therapist couldn’t do their job if they didn’t feel those feelings for, with, and about you.
Therapy wouldn’t work if your therapist just sat there feeling vaguely bored and irritated, disliking you and having all those mundane reactions people have to one another in normal, everyday situations.
So, as long as therapy is working, you can trust that your therapist isn’t just phoning it in and waiting for the hour to be over. At minimum, they’re curious about you and care how things work out for you. They’re invested in your growth, progress, and healing.
What Kind of Relationship Is This, Anyway?
The thing is, therapy isn’t normal. It isn’t a normal situation or a normal relationship. And since the way they relate to you is so different, therapists don’t have most of the reasons to dislike you that other people might have (or that you might have for disliking others).
You’re not holding them up in line. You’re not competing with them for the same promotion. You’re not putting on a show and using them to try to make something happen with someone else. You’re not saying a lot of fake stuff to try to look smarter (or dumber) or more successful.
In therapy, the social taboos that cause friction in daily life fall away. It doesn’t matter if you don’t ask your therapist about themselves or if you stay focused on you—that’s actually what your therapist wants to happen; that’s what therapy is about. It’s how it works.
You pour your heart and soul out to your therapist. You tell them everything about who you’d like to be, who you’re afraid you really might be, and how hard it is to feel stuck in the space in between.
It’s hard to sit there and listen to someone do that and feel neutral or negative toward them. It’s hard to be a therapist and feel blank, blah, or bored when a client is sharing deep, authentic things with you.
But for all the beauty there can be in therapy, it’s not all so simple and lovely. Your relationship with your therapist is complicated. You’re paying them, for one thing. For another, they can’t tell you much about themselves. And then they have all those weird therapeutic boundaries and restrictions they have to observe.
For example, it’s against the code of ethics your therapist must follow to hang out with you outside of therapy, get into a friendly or romantic relationship with you, or in any other way confuse you about the real nature of your relationship with them. If a therapist does any of these things, they risk losing their license.
DEEP DIVE
How Does My Therapist See Me?
What is the real nature of the therapy relationship, then?
Honestly, it’s hard to put into words. In some ways, it’s more limited and less intimate than romantic, family, or friend relationships. In other ways, it’s less limited and more intimate.
You tell your therapist things you don’t tell anyone else. They see you in a pure, clear light that most other people don’t get to see you in. They learn what most deeply moves and inspires you. They know the dreams you wish were real. They see you at your bravest as you face the demons and defenses that hold you back. This fills most therapists with respect, if not a little awe.
On the other hand, your therapist looks down on you. Not in a mean or condescending way, but in the sense that they hold power that you don’t in the relationship and are able to float above it all in their clinical detachment.
They’re there to help you figure yourself out, so they’re taking notes, and they’re analyzing you, and this creates a little distance even when they have powerfully warm feelings toward you.
They don’t have to be raw or vulnerable with you—in fact, they shouldn’t. One of the signs of a bad therapist is that they talk too much about themselves. A little self-disclosure is fine—even good—but too much tips the delicate balance of therapy and renders it ineffective. If your therapist was sharing as much with you as you were with them, therapy wouldn’t work.
Not everything about therapy is so special and elevated, though. It’s possible for you and your therapist to like one another in at least a slightly more normal way. In other words, you might think each other’s taste in music or books is cool, or like each other’s sense of humor.
You might wish you could be friends with your therapist, and they might wish they could be friends with you. But it’s just not going to happen. Not if your therapist is ethical, and values their license and career—and most importantly, values the special, extraordinary relationship they get to have with you. Because the only reason they get to have that special relationship is because they’re not your friend.
Does My Therapist Care About Me?
Therapists are more likely than other people to be empathetic, and the way you share yourself in therapy would make most people feel warm and empathetic toward you.
So, therapy is like a double whammy of empathy. To be with a therapist who’s not empathetic with you would be rare, and frankly bizarre (and a red flag that maybe they’re not such a great therapist).
Think about the times someone has opened up and shared something really vulnerable with you—a fear or hope or longing—without any ulterior motive. They told you just because they wanted to tell someone they felt safe to tell. They just needed someone to listen—and hopefully, care.
It’s hard to dislike someone in that moment of vulnerability. It would be hard even if they were your worst enemy. Unless you’ve intentionally closed your heart off to them, you naturally feel care toward someone who shares their pain with you.
The nature of the therapy relationship—the way you interact with your therapist—invites care. It makes it hard for your therapist not to care.
So yes, in their own way, your therapist cares about you, and they feel positive feelings toward you.
Just understand it’s a different kind of caring, and they’re different kinds of feelings, than the caring you experience for and from friends, lovers, family members, or partners.
But while what your therapist feels for you is not the same as the liking and caring and loving you normally yearn for and seek, it’s real. It means something to your therapist—and hopefully, to you, too.
Does My Therapist Love Me?
We’ve talked about all the warm, fuzzy feelings therapists have for their clients. Some of these feelings might seem kind of deep and intense. So, you might have wondered: does this mean therapists love their clients? Does this mean your therapist loves you?
Well…
Yes.
Sort of.
But not the way you think.
First, not all good therapists—and not even all warm, caring, emotionally expressive therapists—would say they feel love for their clients. Some therapists agree that they feel something that is deep and rich and that definitely isn’t neutral; they just don’t call it love.
Other therapists do call it love.
Don’t get us wrong—you’ll only hear that in therapist-to-therapist talk. They won’t tell you that. It’s too dangerous.
A therapist will almost never say, “I love you,” even if they feel or think it.
Therapists know that the therapy relationship can be confusing, and it’s not unusual for clients to get the wrong idea and fall in love with their therapists. Your therapist doesn’t want to put you through that, or plant the seed of an idea, or inflame a misguided passion.
The therapists who do feel and call that unique therapy feeling love don’t feel that kind of love for their clients (at least not most of the time—read the inset box below for what happens when they do). They don’t think of you as a friend or want you as a lover.
This isn’t because you’re not likable or attractive, but because therapist-love is mutually exclusive from friend-love or romantic love. If they did start loving you like that, they couldn’t function as your therapist anymore.
DEEP DIVE
Do Therapists Ever Fall in Love with Their Clients?
Sometimes, therapists feel attracted to clients. You might feel attracted to your therapist. It’s not a big deal when it happens.
The big deal is when your therapist tells you that and puts you on the spot about it, forcing you to know, and therefore deal with, their attraction to you....
Sometimes, therapists feel attracted to clients. You might feel attracted to your therapist. It’s not a big deal when it happens.
The big deal is when your therapist tells you that and puts you on the spot about it, forcing you to know, and therefore deal with, their attraction to you.
Unfortunately, while it’s rare, some therapists do cross that line.
To some, a therapist falling in love with a client and starting a relationship with them might seem romantic. In reality, it’s a nightmare. It’s messy, even dangerous, and nearly always implodes into something destructive for all involved.
The reason it’s so forbidden and taboo is the same reason things that are forbidden and taboo everywhere else are welcomed and encouraged in the therapy room. The way you relate to, and with, your therapist, is almost the opposite of what you do in all of your other relationships.
The one-sided nature of the therapy relationship is what makes it work. But one-sidedness doesn’t work in friendships or romantic relationships. In fact, it destroys them.
But it can be deceptive. You feel all these wonderful things in therapy—heard, seen, cared for, even loved—because your therapist zeroes in on you and focuses on you so intently. You feel like they understand and care so much—how wonderful would it be to be with them?
But these wonderful feelings come from those weird boundaries that make the therapy relationship what it is. They come from the fact that your therapist is acting like a therapist.
As soon as you leave the therapy relationship behind in favor of a romantic relationship or friendship, those boundaries are gone, and suddenly your therapist is someone with needs and opinions contrary to yours—someone capable of disapproving of you, disliking you, and fighting with you just like any other partner you’ve had.
And the fact that your therapist, despite all their years of training and practice, somehow forgot that therapy feelings can be misinterpreted, and decided to put their license and career on the line for a relationship that is unlikely to work or be good—is sketchy.
So, while it does happen sometimes, we strongly recommend walking away if it does. It almost never ends well, and that messy situation can have the negative effect of making you lose trust in therapy altogether.
The relationship you have with your therapist gives them a unique power over you. Most therapists are aware of and respect that and don’t want to hurt you.
That’s why they maintain all of those boundaries and make sure to protect the relationship they have with you by not letting it become anything else.
That’s why some of them feel uncomfortable calling the deep affinity and caring that can arise between therapists and clients “love.”
It’s not that they don’t see—or feel—how powerful it can be. It’s just that they feel gross using a word that invites so much confusion. They know it’s not the same thing people usually mean by that word, so they look for different ones.
While the nature of the therapy relationship makes it hard for your therapist not to feel positive feelings toward you, what it means for your therapist to “like” you is very different from what it means for anyone else to like you.
Ultimately, it doesn’t matter, because most good therapists, no matter how they feel about that word, will never say that they love you. It’s a conversation that’s just too loaded—and potentially misleading—for most good, ethical therapists to allow.
But even though your therapist will probably never say, “I love you,” you can rest assured that they care about what happens to you, are rooting for you, and want to help you work through all of the issues keeping you from being known and loved in all the ways you hope to be.
What Should I Do If My Therapist Actually Doesn't Like Me… Or I Don't Like Them?
So, we’ve established that it’s rare for your therapist to not like you. But what if they don’t?
There are times when a client can push a particular therapist’s buttons so hard—that is, push hard into their unhealed places—that the therapist starts to dislike them.
Good therapists see this as fodder for supervision or their own therapy. Most of the time, they can work through it and come back to liking the client they briefly didn’t like so much.
Rarely, though, a therapist might not be able to work through it. An ethical therapist in this situation wouldn’t tell you they don’t like you, but they would let you know that they don’t think they’re a good match for you and that they want to refer you to another therapist who would be a better match—one who wouldn’t have this weird, specific problem with you.
DEEP DIVE
What Would Make a Therapist Dislike a Client?
On the rare occasions when therapists dislike clients, the reasons usually have to do with the therapists, not the clients. Why? For as many reasons as there are to dislike people in everyday circumstances, the unique nature of the therapy relationship removes most of those reasons.
When a therapist feels str...
On the rare occasions when therapists dislike clients, the reasons usually have to do with the therapists, not the clients. Why? For as many reasons as there are to dislike people in everyday circumstances, the unique nature of the therapy relationship removes most of those reasons.
When a therapist feels strong feelings toward a client—negative or positive—that have to do with their own issues from the past, therapists call it countertransference.
Therapists are trained to recognize countertransference and to work through it in supervision or their own therapy. In many cases, it is possible for them to work through it and continue working with the client that triggered it. After all, it’s their issue, not the client’s.
That said, there are some cases where therapists can have negative feelings toward clients for reasons that are more universal and don’t necessarily reflect countertransference.
For example, they might be working with a client who committed a heinous crime and feels no remorse for it. They might be working with a client who’s mandated to therapy, doesn’t want to be there, is intentionally giving the therapist a hard time, and isn’t actively engaging in therapy.
But therapists can be surprisingly open-minded with anyone who truly wants to deal with their past. Usually, when there is one, the issue has less to do with a client’s past and more to do with their present: whether they actually want to be in therapy and are doing the work.
The desire to heal in the client draws out the desire to help in the therapist. Open, vulnerable sharing invites caring. These simple but powerful reactions are some of the driving forces that make therapy work. And they’re why we feel so comfortable telling you that it’s really unlikely your therapist dislikes you.
The same thing applies for you. If you’ve just started therapy and don’t like your therapist, we encourage you to give it some time—and give your therapist a chance. Therapy can feel weird at first, and some of the odd ways therapists interact with you can be off-putting until you get used to it.
But if those uncomfortable and negative feelings don’t resolve after those first few “getting to know you” sessions, it might be a sign you’re with a therapist who’s not a good match—or simply a bad therapist.
In either case, the solution is to let your therapist know that things aren’t clicking with them and that you want to look for another therapist. Most therapists will understand and won’t take it personally; many will even try to help you find a therapist who’s a better match.
DEEP DIVE
What Does a Therapist Do If They Have a Negative Reaction to a Client?
Therapists look out for negative feelings as invitations to go deeper.
For example, a therapist might notice that after being focused and interested all session, their attention is drifting. They might notice that they’re feeling irritation instead of tenderness.
A good therapist knows that this probably means something just shifted in the room between you and will try to figure out what that is.
Usually, it’s a defense. It’s some inner protective part of you trying to push away what you really feel and express something else instead. (The therapist’s bored or irritated reaction is ultimately to the defense, not the real you.)
A good therapist will see this as an opening and want to explore it with you. And usually, after digging a little bit, you’ll hit up against something real; authentic feelings will come back into the room; and that temporary blip of dislike or boredom your therapist felt will go away.
Why Should I Ask My Therapist If They Like Me?
If you feel like your therapist doesn’t like you, it probably isn’t because your therapist actually doesn’t like you. It’s probably because of one of the same wounds, distortions, or symptoms you came to therapy to address.
Usually, if you feel like your therapist doesn’t like you, it’s because you have a hard time feeling like anyone likes you. That may come from negative self-talk, low self-esteem, or painful memories of destructive social situations or relationships you experienced in the past.
In fact, the reasons you might want to ask your therapist this question—”Do you like me?”—can go pretty deep. And exploring them can lead to breakthroughs in therapy.
If you ask your therapist, “Do you like me?” they probably won’t answer directly. Instead, they’ll probably want to turn things around to explore why you’re asking this question.
They might simply ask, “Why do you think you’re asking that?” Or they might engage in Socratic dialogue with you and ask if there was anything that happened in therapy that made you think they might not like you. Usually, you’ll find there wasn’t, which gives your therapist an “in” to explore how often you feel unlikable—and why you feel that way.
However your therapist responds, you can be sure your willingness to go through the awkward process of exploring the feelings–the longing and hope and fear and shame—behind the question will pay off. And you’ll find out so many important things about yourself as you do.
Conclusion
It’s natural and human to want to be liked. In most cases, there isn’t anything profound behind the question when you ask if someone likes you.
In therapy, though, it’s a little different. Sure, it’s just as natural to wonder if your therapist likes you, but why are you asking? Usually, it’s not because of something your therapist said or did, but some deep way you feel about yourself. And your therapist knows that.
Therapists like to go deep. One of the things that made going into therapy appealing to them was the chance to get real with people all day long. They know it's rare and precious, and they love it.
When they say, “Tell me more,” they really mean it. They want you to tell them more. They’re curious. They can’t believe they get to hear you say the things many of us think and feel but that we rarely feel safe enough to say. They get to hear the hidden truth, and it means a lot to them.
They want to know—but they want to understand, too. And in order to understand you, they can’t just think about you and your problems. They have to feel their way through them right along with you.
We can tell you from experience—it’s almost impossible to feel along with someone and follow them through the deepest chambers of the human heart and not like them, or care.
So, does your therapist like you? Probably. Almost necessarily, by virtue of the way you’re working together. They like you because you’re there, doing the work, being brave, sharing yourself with them.
That said, there are some rare cases where a therapist dislikes a client. Usually, this lasts only briefly, until the therapist figures out the reason why—usually, it’s countertransference, or an unresolved issue from their past that something you said or did reminded them of—and works through it.
In the rare cases where that feeling of dislike persists, a good therapist will refer you to a colleague who won’t have their weird, specific reason for not clicking with you.
But please, don’t worry—this almost never happens. Because therapists aren’t in the business of disliking their clients.
In the end, there isn’t a huge need to ask your therapist if they like you—especially if you’re making progress in therapy. Because you wouldn’t be making progress if there wasn’t some sort of positive connection between you.
But it’s actually a good thing to ask them. Because when you do, it will give you a chance to go deeper than you usually do and figure out why you’re asking.
The reason might surprise you. It might be pretty primal and raw—and exploring it might lead to breakthroughs in your healing. It might help you get to a place where you don’t worry so much whether your therapist, or anyone else likes you—because you do.