1. My T is about my age. I had intense feelings of wanting her to mother me when I first stared therapy 3+ years ago. That was about me, came from within me, about needing secure attachment. I don't feel so intensely about that now, it doesn't feel like needing 'mothering' now (I was just telling her this yesterday). I think getting to a place of solid trust of my therapist, and having experienced times I thought she surely would 'ditch me', as I call it, or would want to, and yet she didn't. We talk about that and I let her know what I think she is thinking and feeling, then she lets me know what her real thoughts and feelings are. So, I think it is about where you 'are', and of course you start where you are and go from there.

2. Because it is an important developmental need for every person. I also think because somewhere along the line, from witnessing other mother/child relationships in real life, on tv, in books, we realize that this special relationship of attunement and attachment existed and we didn't have it. We want to be cared for, cared about, to be heard, to have our pain acknowledged and comforted, to have our joy acknowledged and celebrated (for a tiny baby, that can be a mother smiling back), we want to matter. It's how we learn about ourselves, about what's important to us, about how to matter to ourselves.

3. I don't know, but mine has. It was a struggle, and I think I still sometimes struggle with the mothering need/fantasy, but the relationship has changed. I haven't lost anything, I have gained security. She allowed me to be who I was then as she does now. I am able to communicate better, it is slowly becoming easier to be myself and to bring out things that matter to me to be looked at and explored. We have also talked about how normal it is to want some of those things we call mothering, that everyone wants them and looks for those qualities in spouses, etc.

4. Transference is part of all relationships. I think with a therapist, it fades as the real therapy relationship grows and we get comfortable with it. We still have times of feeling as if we are being 'held' in therapy, of being nurtured, loved, cared about. But those things become real things we can take in, in the moment. The craving lessens. The real relationship begins to feel as good as or even better than the wished for relationship. When it feels real, then the energies spent on the wishing and craving are freed up and peacefulness can take their place.

5. I don't know. It sounds like something negative, hurtful, sinister. But it could mean many things, I suppose. My T allows phone calls between sessions. No limits on them. (Boundaries apply and return calls from T are nearly always very brief). She gives her cell phone number to patients for urgent calls, when I need to speak to her immediately. Maybe to some, that could be interpretted as manipulating the transference, I don't know.

You ask such good questions