Clinical Work . Reflections

Reflections On Therapeutic Love

On March 2, 2026 by sarmientoverano

By: Lucia Sarmiento Verano

^{Featured photo credit: Pourya Gohari}

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“I found myself an object among other objects” (Fanon, 2021, p.89)

Beyond western boundaries and notions of “professionalism”, lies a world of possibilities. BEING as a helper in the room, goes beyond the conduct and qualities known to characterise a professional counsellor or therapist; beyond the proper trousers and blouse, in the sanitised room decorated in muted colours; beyond the distant stare of a ‘neutral’ therapist who skilfully questions, paraphrases and reflects back; beyond the emotional register and intensity we are allowed to express; and beyond the skills and the knowledge baggage we can bring to the room.

Not to say all these things are bad, they have a place in the process, depending on the context, the modality, or the client’s needs. But they are not THE WORK. As therapists, we all know that therapeutic relationships are the single most important factor in therapy and their quality will predict the outcome of the process to a greater extent than other factors such as modalities or skills used. However, we still find so many therapy services focusing on technical skills. Thera are also stark differences in experience and outcomes of therapy for marginalised groups, including increased risk of harm.

All of this makes me wonder how, as a profession, we don’t seem to truly understand what this relationship is. This is particularly visible across differences, when the tenets and needs for safety and trust are not the ones we learn about in training. However, for it to be most visible across social and cultural difference does not mean the quality of the relationship is there when the therapist and client share similar positionalities. I’d like to hold the following questions as crucial for this work:

If the underlying assumptions of most of our theories and practices state that the self is a contained unit separated from the world that surrounds it and others, how are we, then, sitting in the presence of others and ‘building relationships’ that are meant to heal, help, support?

If we are all part of this society that alienates us as subjects (Sanders, 2006), how are we trying to disalienate ourselves, and relate differently?

How boundaried and self-contained are we striving to be? Or, how much of ourselves are we giving and how are we letting ourselves be transformed by the other?

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Ethics of care in therapy

Instead of only focusing on abstract concepts like rights or justice, the ethics of care as a moral framework invite us to pay attention to relationships, interdependence and context in ethical decision-making. What does this mean?

Well, instead of assuming humans are unitary individuals separated from others and the world as a starting point, we acknowledge our interconnectedness. Humans are semi-permeable beings that are constantly being shaped and deeply impacted by others and the environment, as they also shape them in return. Not only this, but we are interdependent, meaning we need each other and this mutual shaping to survive and thrive.

The popular stances of: “I don’t owe anyone anything” or “I don’t need anyone” are both part of a neoliberal illusion that corrodes our society, alienating people from others and themselves. As therapists, we owe our clients so much. Without them, we wouldn’t be able to call ourselves therapists and to shape our lives accordingly. I will invite you to consider some ways of developing your awareness of interconnectedness as a therapist in the following section. For now, let’s continue considering the ethics of care.

To put it simply, the ethics of care focus on contextual decisions and actions. This means that each situation is to be taken separately and our response to it will depend in the specific details of the situation, including the relationships affected. There’s no one size fits all approach when applying ethics of care. There is no “treating all clients equally” without considering their specific needs or challenges. That’s not justice, nor is it equity. Caring means knowing each person might need us to show up differently, and doing our best do respond accordingly (without harming ourselves, of course).

This is our responsibility. And we make the conscious decision to take this responsibility on when we agree to work with someone. Therapy is not just “a service” we provide for a fee. It is ground for a transformative experience, and as such, it also has potential to harm. How are we, as professionals, taking on, embodying even, such responsibility?

Now, a parenthesis to introduce a caveat, in case someone choses to misread what I am writing. The fact that our work is a responsibility does not mean we need to treat it as a vocation, as our entire life, or that we need to provide it for free (or any other arrangement and stretching of ourselves that would harm us). Within this we also have a responsibility to care for ourselves, both because we are worthy of care, and because self-care is the way we ensure we can keep showing up fully for our clients. Closing parenthesis.

To start the practice of embodying our responsibility, and because I’ve written so much about how we can attend to context already, I’d like to offer some reflections on interconnectedness, from the therapist perspective.

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Relationship as transformation

“It is the unwillingness to be transformed by the other that is fascist.” (Shomron-Atar, 2018, p. 61)

To start the process, let’s address one of the questions I invited readers to consider on my last piece: are we letting these relationships transform us? To even begin to consider this, we need to challenge the assumptions that depict humans as self-contained whole units of conscience. Seeing ourselves as semipermeable bodies open to transformation in relationship to others and the environment has, in turn, the potential to transform our way of being with said others. This of course, includes clients.

A simple question to start with: In which ways meeting with my clients is changing me as a person? Have we ever been invited to reflect on this? It might be easier to think about long-term changes and transformations than to think about specific people to begin with. The person we were at the beginning of our journey as helpers is most likely not the same person we are today. And this transformation is still ongoing.

For example, I am no one’s therapists other than my clients’. I can confidently say I have not adopted a therapy stance outside of my work hours, because it would be absolutely unsustainable. However, in doing this work with a number of people who have trusted me, I do feel how I’ve slowly learned to pace myself, to engage with others, beauty, and knowledge slightly differently. I now tend to enter in dialogue with the world more openly. And I am definitely learning to find meaning and joy in the process and the journey rather than being focused on the result. To be fair, I’ve most likely picked up some bad habits and unhelpful mindsets as well, you know, for balance! Over time, working with so many people who are trying to make a better life for themselves, even in moments of vulnerability and pain, has led to a shrinking of my patience for those around me who I perceive as excessively passive (this is most likely only my perception and not their reality I must admit!). Why yes, I have my faults as a human. Who wants to be perfect anyway?

These changes would have never happened in the way they have, if it weren’t for the hours upon hours I’ve sat with others, doing my best to understand and support them. The discomfort of stretching oneself to hold the other, and to do our best to stay attuned to their subtle emotional and embodied lives, opens our pores to their experiences. Through these semipermeable boundaries new selves are slowly alchemised, and emerge richer than before.

I know many will argue that the therapeutic relationship is not a space to focus on ourselves, at least not during the work. This is absolutely true, and not what I am saying we should do. I’d like to invite readers to consider in their own time, the impact such relationships have on them. Our selves and identities are shaped by our relations to others and the world. So how are these so very intimate and powerful relationships shaping us as therapists and as people?

Before I close this invitation, I feel it’s important to state why I am choosing this route here. I deeply believe it is important to step beyond the dynamics of recognition and this is what I’m inviting you to do. Not because recognition and identity affirmation are not important. However, it is only a first step. We can recognise clients and their experiences of injustice thanks to the knowledge and the commitment to justice we hold. However, if I can more easily SEE you, does that mean I can BE WITH you? Practicing new ways of relating involves recognition, witnessing and affirmation, but it also needs to move beyond these.

It is my humble opinion that serious explorations of relational ontology within therapeutic work might offer generative avenues for developing truly caring relationships, based on the non-defensive sharing of power. Even though our roles as therapist or clients are well defined, transformation is not limited to the client’s experience. Therapists would do well to remember this humbling truth, in order to examine their role in this relational giving and receiving.

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Decolonial resistance & love

In his reflections about the Coloniality of Being, Nelson Maldonado-Torres reminds us how this colonial world is basically closed off from humanity by fostering violence and the ‘non-ethics of war’ mainly applied to dehumanised bodies (2007). Relations across otherness are marked by separation between self and other along social categories, producing a world in which exceptions to ethical relationship become the norm. By these non-ethics, human logics of generous gift-giving and receiving, so central to self/other relations, to building community (and thus human survival) are erased.

This world, he argues, is structured on the basis of the lack of recognition of humanity as givers, legitimising dynamics of possession instead of generous exchange. He takes inspiration in Chela Sandoval’s ‘Decolonial Love’ to remind us that decoloniality can be about practicing different ways of relating to the other, restoring the logic of gift through practicing receptive generosity.

The questions I am inviting you to consider for yourself in this piece relate to this dynamic. Giving and receiving means both client and therapist are allowing themselves to be transformed by the other. What can it mean then, to love our clients? What are we giving to them (other than professionalism) and what are they giving to us?

bell hooks also taught us about loving others. Considering love an active ethical practice instead of just a feeling, she defines it as care, recognition, respect, trust and commitment. Love is a decision much more ample than what society often regards as romance (2000). For hooks, love is connected to justice, and our commitment to fight for it.

Part of this may mean questioning our way of life outside the therapy room. If we are somewhat privileged, what are we doing outside of our therapeutic work to dismantle the systems that continue harming the people we support?

Therapeutic love then, can mean a deep commitment to walking alongside our clients, and, as I’ve written in the past, having their back. Being in our clients’ corner is different from reaching out from our safe position and ‘rescuing’ them. It’s holding space WITH them, and allowing ourselves to be deeply impacted.

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REFERENCES

Fanon F. (2021) Black Skin, White Masks. Penguin Books.

hooks, b. (2000). All about love: New visions. William Morrow.

Maldonado-Torres N. (2007) On the Coloniality of Being. Cultural Studies Vol. 21, Nos. 2-3 March/May 2007, pp. 240-270

Sanders, P. (2006) The Spectacular Self: Alienation as the lifestyle choice of the free world, endorsed by psychotherapists. In Proctor G, Cooper M, Sanders P, Malcolm B. (eds.) Politicizing the Person-centred Approach, an agenda for social change. Monmouth: PCCS Books.

Shomron-Atar, E. N. (2018). Psychoanalysis against fascism: Fascism, terrorism, and the fascist and terrorist within. Psychoanalytic Perspectives, 15(1), 48–63.

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