Why cant I stop thinking about counsellor between sessions?
07.06.2025 21:19
If you only knew how many of us have asked this exact same question! It's the reason I found Quora.
In the early years with my therapist, I thought constantly about her between sessions. I had very, very little ability to manage my emotions, and thinking about being with her calmed me. Plus, I felt emotionally hungry all the time, and her focused attention and care was greatly nourishing and comforting. I craved it. Every night, when I would lie down in bed, my anxiety and longing would intensify to an almost unbearable level, as it had done every night for my entire life. But thoughts of her soothed me, made me feel safe and secure, and helped me drift off to sleep.
All this thinking about her created a lot of distress, too, and maybe that's why you've come to Quora and asked this question. So much of my distress was caused by not understanding why it was happening and feeling like there was something extremely wrong with me. I feared what she would think if she knew. I had so much shame. And I couldn't see the point of all this longing and aching - how was this going to help anything? I just felt certain that it would end in rejection like so many relationships in which I had repeated this pattern of intense and anxious attachment and obsessive thinking.
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I think what I would most like you to know is that it's nothing to worry about, though not everyone experiences it. I think it's more common among people whose needs were not adequately met in childhood.
I hope you are as fortunate as I have been. Not every therapist understands this; many of them do not. But if yours doesn't, now you know they're out there.
I'm very happy to report that by finding a way to tell her, I began an amazing journey with her. I came out of this therapy with no more longing, no more seeking rescue in every relationship. Our work helped me grow up an internal adult who now gives parental love and nourishment to fill up those aspects of myself that sometimes still feel small and afraid and hungry. I know how to comfort myself, and I can regulate my emotions and thoughts. I know my needs and how to find many ways to get them met.
I can't really think of a better way to answer the why than the answer written by Elinor Greenberg some time ago.
The difference, in this case, was that she had a framework for understanding what was happening. It wasn't weird or scary to her. It made perfect sense to her, from a perspective based on attachment theory. Still, it took me many months to finally trust her enough to fully reveal what I was experiencing.
My experience