Medication Counseling: Is There Any Way I Can Ask My Psychiatrist for a Hug Without Being Embarrassed/feeling Awkward?

Question by Stephanie: Is there any way I can ask my psychiatrist for a hug without being embarrassed/feeling awkward?
Also posted this in psychology, but not getting much luck with answers…

I’ve been going to her once a week for about six months now. She not only manages my medication like my former psychiatrists, but she also told me that she’d be happy to “counsel” me (for the lack of a better word) in a way that I guess a psychologist usually would. Her office is in a clinical hospital setting. She’s young-ish, maybe mid-thirties; I’m nineteen.

It hasn’t been long, but she’s already seen me cry twice and agreed to see me twice in one week in addition to our regularly scheduled session when I was in a very bad way… She tells me every session to call her if I need anything at all. She also calls me the morning after a session during which I was very emotional to see if I’m okay. She’s taken the time to speak with my former doctors and my nurses/social workers when I was in the hospital, and she even called my mom (with my permission), as she said, to get to know me to the best of her ability. Given all of this, I definitely know she truly cares about her patients.

I know there are some who believe that hugs should be reserved for family and friends, but I am one who thinks otherwise. I know I don’t always come off as the tactile type, but I literally crave hugs as fighting OCD and depression alone at university gets pretty dark sometimes. I have a lot of deep, existential feelings and my sadness is so profound at times that I cannot cope. I know I have my family and friends, but I haven’t shared with some of them what I shared with my psychiatrist, and if I did, the people in my daily life are not in a position to be unbiased about it. My psychiatrist will literally listen to me say anything and not judge me (I guess all good ones do), and when I cry she tells me that she’s always going to be here for me and wants so badly to help me get better. I haven’t felt this open with my therapists in the past; but around my current doctor, I feel like I can say anything and she does nothing but speak calmly back to me. I feel almost like she’s hugging me with her words.

But I kind of want an actual hug… My parents hug me, but it always feels like a “I’m hugging you because you’re my kid so I guess I love you” hug, and when I hug my friends, even my best friends, it just feels quick and empty for some reason… maybe since I don’t open up with them to the level I open up with my psychiatrist.

Of course, I wouldn’t hug her without asking first or if she felt uncomfortable with it, but I want to get over the embarrassment that comes with asking (I get embarrassed, not that it’s objectively embarrassing to ask; it’s courageous). I know ethically that it shouldn’t be an issue as we are both heterosexual women, but I don’t know how to dodge the weirdness if she tells me that something like that is beyond her personal boundaries. Help?

P.S. Sorry for the length; I tend to be wordy.

Best answer:

Answer by Christine
I would most definitely ask for a hug. I know I would.

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