Is it normal for the therapist to casually say "you're cute" during the session?

What was the context? Was it about something you said or did or about your looks? If it was about your looks, it is inappropriate and I would challenge him or her next time if you can. At the very least, look out for more red flags.

It was something I said, but I was just blabbing on and on so it was nothing specific. They responded with something relevant and quickly added a short “you’re cute” before completing their sentence which was about how I can get better but these two words didn’t fit grammatically in the sentence itself which kind of made it stand out and took all of my attention to it, made me uncomfortable, and I forgot what they were actually saying, I just started blabbing again to brush it under the rug.

If the idea of being challenging is too scary for you, maybe you could just ask next time, “Why did you say, “you’re cute” to me last time?” See what they say. But the bottom line is that if you don’t feel comfortable with this therapist, it’s time to find a different one.

IMHO therapist stepped “over the line”. Not professional. I probably would not trust this person.

Personal opinion: Some therapists will blow smoke up your ass to keep you coming to sessions and paying their lofty price. I have yet to meet an effective therapist personally. The few times I went I felt I was helping them sort out their own shit or they just wanted to collect my cash.

Was it something you said? I can see where someone might say that after something mentioned. Or a way of making you feel liked, to make you more relaxed, more accepted, more understood. More like a friend. To make you open up and divulge more information.
I wouldn’t be concerned about it.

@ARE_you_kidding_me That’s not my experience or that of many other people I know. A good therapist can be a lifesaver.

It’s unwise,IMO.

My assumption is (with some confidence, based on your description) that they were referring to something you said (or the way you said it) when you were “just blabbing on and on”, and that if you could get the context and the way they meant it, you would get that it was normal and not anything you need to be concerned about.

I think you just didn’t follow what the psychiatrist meant because, as you wrote, you “cannot read between the lines due to Aspergers”.

Psychiatrists listen to us from an outside perspective, which will often see irony, insights, or otherwise remark at what we say.

So I would suggest that next time you see them, you say something like, “I am curious to understand what you meant last time when I was blabbing on and on, and you said I was cute. I don’t know what prompted that or how to interpret it.”

This is clearly part of your experience of life too, good to share and relevant, and they may have some valuable ideas for you about that sort of thing in other situations.

“It was something I said, but I was just blabbing on and on…”

Possibly your therapist wanted to disrupt your train of thought in babbling on?

Perhaps he was trying to get you to focus in the present and thus interrupted with that ?
He was trying to get your attention and he succeeded .

No, it’s far from normal.

@janbb I have not had good experiences with therapists and that is unfortunate. The good news is I don’t really need them at this point in my life.

Sounds fishy, but it could be reasonably innocent in the right context. Since you struggle with interpreting social cues, it’s really difficult to know how it was intended. You should be on guard though for any hints of the therapist trying to engage in anything inappropriate with you. It would be completely illegal, unethical and malpractice for him to attempt any interaction of a sexual or romantic nature with any patient under his care. If he crosses any boundaries you feel are inappropriate, you should immediately speak up. If he is a predator, it’s possible he may be testing you to gauge your response.

If the response is to something you said, my impulse would be to take “you’re cute” for “that’s cute”.