One SHM Community forum member shared concern about another member's sudden relationship break down with her therapist, and continuous struggle to like her next therapist.  Dini said:

Alice,

Welcome and glad to meet you. I haven't been around long but have found that if you bring honesty to the table around here, as you have, there's plenty of insight, experience and support in these parts. A few good chuckles too. I hope you stick around.

In some ways, but not all, you and I have had similar experiences with an old and new therapist. I was with the same therapist for about six and a half years and (although I didn't know it when we started out – though I should have), she was very inexperienced and I was one of her first clients. Yet she was very open and worked outside of the box. That seemed to work for me since I had little or no idea what "therapy" was really about anyway. I started therapy to unearth old demons and wounds and look them in the eye and take their power away. It was not the sort of therapy you describe, but there were times at the end of a session, (before things went horribly south) that we would nonsexually hug or more often give a hand squeeze on the way out the door.

I developed a strong attachment (co-dependence to be more honest) and in the end, the therapist turned out to be someone full of hubris and narcissism and took advantage of what had become a severe depression for me and turned the whole thing into a horror show. Despite that, after I terminated the therapy with her, at first I really missed her. In some ways it felt like losing a lover. But what I think I missed was not actually reality; it was the false promise of a certain reality she had made to me, encouraged me to accept and which simply wasn't there and was a form of narcissism and manipulation on her part. I missed something I hoped for, but which didn't exist, though I was told it did. (I'm not throwing all the blame at her, though I could recount many instances of breaches of confidentiality, boundary violations and misrepresentations to myself and the general public (via the web) about her experience – I most certainly played my part and could have won an Oscar for it). It was so bad, that once the psychiatrist who was kind of acting as a mediator to keep the therapy going realized what was really going on, he had the decency and honesty to apologize to me and say he should never have been trying to hold that therapy together.

I diverge from the subject: feelings. Despite the negative feelings I had, I had STRONG feelings of loss, grieving and missing this therapist at first, and still do on occasion. But I now recognize that I miss what was never there to begin with; I miss a mirage, a wish that I had for a certain reality to be real. Obviously, there's "stuff" in there about me for me to look at, feel, and own.

Back to the similarities; I've been seeing a new therapist for a few months now who I instantly felt safe and comfortable with; she is older and has decades of experience. I went to her for two reasons; because I needed help undoing the trauma that had been done by the prior therapy (which ironically was trauma caused by the actual acting out of my childhood fears which never actually happened in my childhood, but did in the prior therapy). As Joanne says, trauma on trauma and I had formed a "trauma bond" or "betrayal bond" with the first therapist I found difficult and painful to extricate myself from. I don't have the strong feelings toward the new therapist that I did with the prior one; part of that may be a matter of time, and I am certainly open to it and hope for it. But I am confident that this new therapist is "safe" and isn't using me to work on her issues or her agenda. The difference is night and day. Though I have not developed all the feelings and transferences (yet) that I had for the prior therapist, I feel much safer, accepted and hopeful and it FEELS like therapy, not an unhealthy relationship. In fact, the first few sessions I found myself thinking, and finally said "so THIS is what therapy feels like."

Live and learn. And the new one has yet to exhibit any inclination or fear of going anywhere I need to go; in fact she often asks. She feels like a wise and caring guide and skilled ally, rather than some sort of adversary. I don't know that I'll develop the same feelings, the same "love" I once had for the prior therapist; actually, I hope not. I hope for something different and far more healthy, an empowering sort of alliance, feeling and "love." And I am hopeful that it will happen, in time. It feels very much like the potential is there. I feel BETTER when I leave her office.

Interestingly, she's been on vacation the past couple of weeks (though I've seen "psych doc" who is a real peach -I'd recommend him 150% to anybody; insightful, listening, caring, experienced and honest.

Anyway, don't know if any of that is helpful or even really addresses your questions, but I was struck by some of the similarities in our experiences of old and new therapists (and some of the differences).

On that "trauma bond"/"betrayal bond" thing, which I think Joanne mentioned as well; it can be a VERY powerful bond, but it's not a healthy one. It took a serious toll on me in a number of ways. A book that was suggested to me and that I found VERY helpful in sorting out what happened in the prior therapy is "The Betrayal Bond: Breaking Free of Exploitive Relationships" by Patrick Carnes. I also found "Hall of Mirrors" (can't recall the author) about narcissism (as in the prior therapist) very helpful as well. Perhaps there may be something in those books useful to you.

Anyway, glad you're "aboard."