True Love? Exploring Therapeutic Love Dynamics Utilizing a Positive Dialogical Autoethnography Approach

Authors

• Madalena Grobbelaar, Edith Cowan University, Perth, Western Australia, AustraliaFollow
• Elizabeth Reid Boyd, Edith Cowan University, Perth, Western Australia, AustraliaFollow

Abstract

Questions about whether therapists genuinely feel love for their clients sit at the heart of ongoing debates about relational depth, emotional authenticity, and ethical connection in therapeutic practice. While therapeutic love has long been discussed in professional literature, conversations typically focus on client idealisation, transference, or the management of boundaries. Less attention has been given to therapists’ own emotional landscapes, and how they understand, experience, and name the feelings that arise in their work, including those they might describe as love. Using Therapeutic Positive Autoethnography (ThePosAE), the study employs interlocution as a dialogical autoethnographic method in which one author poses reflective questions to the therapist‑autoethnographer. These questions act as prompts that elicit emotional insight, surface tacit knowledge, and support an exploration of how therapists make sense of love in their everyday clinical work. Through this collaborative inquiry using combined guided questioning, the therapist’s voice emerges as central data, revealing how love functions as a sustaining, motivating, and ethically nuanced dimension of therapeutic care. This study highlights the therapeutic practitioner as a meaning-maker. It demonstrates how ThePosAE provides a structured and generative method for exploring clinically grounded positive emotional experiences, deepening understanding of how therapists hold love, and re‑positioning therapeutic affection as a legitimate and valuable component of healing work and yielding valuable insights for therapeutic engagement. Rooted in therapeutic practice, the article contributes to emerging scholarship that recognises love not as a boundary violation, but as an ethical, optimistic and relationally potent dynamic in therapeutic care.

Keywords

therapeutic love, relational, Therapeutic Positive Autoethnography, dialogic autoethnography, authenticity

Author Bio(s)

Madalena Grobbelaar (she/her) is an academic at Edith Cowan University, Australia, a clinical psychologist and clinical psychosexual therapist in private practice (http://www.wom-ensexualityaustralia.com.au/). Madalena’s area of interest and research is in sexuality, intimate relationships, and interpersonal violence. Her therapeutic orientation is informed by the role of dysfunctional attachments in adult sexuality and intimacy, including the intergenerational cycle of intimate partner violence. ORCID: 0000-0002-2749-2944 Please direct correspondence to [email protected]

Elizabeth Reid Boyd is a Senior Lecturer at Edith Cowan University, Australia. Her research spans interpersonal skills, emotional literacy, and love studies, with a focus on strengths-based approaches to wellbeing. She is co-founder of the Love Studies Research Network and has published widely on relational scholarship. Elizabeth also writes fiction under the name Eliza Redgold, exploring themes of identity and resilience. Her recent work examines therapeutic communication and IPV prevention. ORCID: 0000-0003-1374-5960 Please direct correspondence to [email protected]

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank our colleague and co-founder of Love Studies Research Group, Associate Professor Debra Dudek for reviewing our paper.

Publication Date

11-10-2026

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 4.0 International License.

Recommended APA Citation

Grobbelaar, M., & Reid Boyd, E. (2026). True love? Exploring therapeutic love dynamics utilizing a positive dialogical autoethnography approach. The Qualitative Report, 31(11), 7194-7218.

ORCID ID

ORCID: 0000-0002-2749-2944

ResearcherID

ORCID: 0000-0002-2749-2944