Told my therapist I felt unhealthily attached to them and that I felt I wanted them to be my friend and.....

[onlyyooooo]

....long story short, went to therapy for a while (private) therapist helped me to deal with a lot of traumatic stuff. Realised I felt unhealthily attached to therapist as in I wanted them to be a friend (DEFINITELY not sexual on my part).

All the advice said speak to therapist about this. I terminated therapy then sent an email explaining this was why.

Therapist replied along the lines of great idea!! Let's be friends.

What?

Anyone experienced ANYTHING remotely like this?

I agree it’s an awkward topic, but an experienced qualified therapist will be very familiar with transference and should welcome it being mentioned. The more you talk about it, the easier it becomes and ultimately it is processed into a manageable issue. It’s a normal part of therapy.

Very creepy, I have self disclosed once I was swapped, I don't usually work with this patient group due to my own past trauma. I
was leaving the company and and patient said they wanted to be a nurse one day but they didn't think it was possible as they were in hospital. I self disclosed and said it was possible as I had been in hospital a long time ago and I'm now a nurse. I didn't really go into my past it's not appropriate and not about me they wrote me a lovely letter. I hope I helped even though it's controversial in some circles. I would never want to be friends though or contact.

@Unfortunatelyunknown well done for raising it. Did this happen recently, have you seen her since mentioning it? If not - she may come back to it. It's important to respond sensitively to such a difficult disclosure and she might have said the minimum if caught off guard. If she doesn't come back to it, maybe you can raise it again?
I said a similar thing to my therapist more than once and was sometimes hurt by her offhand responses, but we did keep talking about it on and off. Looking back they would often be "doorknob disclosures" from me, like I would say it just before leaving the room.... so added degree of difficulty for her ...
Working through transference is about reflecting on the attachment, what it says about your emotional needs, and how you can use what you learn about these feelings outside therapy. And of course your therapist helping you experience them safely (ie not exploit them!) and without shame.

As a therapist I'd be encouraging us to talk about what the client feels they gain from our relation, support, someone to talk to someone that listens etc then discuss this. We'd then look to see where else the client could gain this important element from and work on them starting to gain this from outside of therapy instead of from within therapy. You can learn a lot about how you relate to people by how you relate to your therapist as this at the end of the day is just another relationship you've entered into isn't it x