Here are my thoughts on transference. I am going to speak in terms of Parental transference and how it has played out for myself.

A couple of years ago I started therapy and I was just like stopdog. My very first question in my mind as I sat across the room from t for an intake was, "I wonder what this a**hole can do to help manage my anger. I wish he would shut the hell up and give me some worksheets."

Then it was like he worked his therapy magic. I was resolved to be finished by 6 sessions and that is where he thought we had just begun. By that time the talk in my head as I sat across from him was, "What is happening? Why do I like this a**hole?" I tried my real best to hate him and keep him at arms length. I just wanted my darn worksheets.

I have had so so SO many conversations with him over the last 2+ years of therapy regarding this so called transference. Here is an example of the context of a conversation I had with him recently. I told him that I felt completely bamboozeled. I was completely ignorant of what was in pandora's box and if he would have been straight forward I would have ran like the wind. He didn't disclose how hard it was going to be until there was enough investment on both sides. I told him I was tricked into "developing an attachment to him." It was something that was fostered by him and his stupid psycho techniques that he learned in graduate school. I myself took most of the blame because I was in the wrong place. He asked me where I should be then and I told him I should be spending my time at an adoption agency in China getting a profile built so I could have a family. I am now over 18 so in America you don't get adopted but I have heard in China they do proceed with adult adoptions. Cool huh?

He said that yes, he agreed a different family would have been the best option but since that is not going to happen that maybe therapy is the right place for me. I told him it didn't seem right that I wanted something from him that he could never give me and that I got angry at him for things that are not even logical. I mean really, is it fair that I go to a therapist for "therapy" and then change the game? Oh, by the way I don't want you to be my therapist anymore, I want you to be my dad, my family. I wan't to be in your life more than 2 50min sessions a week. Yah, I know I came for therapy and you provide therapy. I put you in a position where you can not succeed because that is not what you are for. And isn't that truly unfair to you?

So apparently it is a process of grief. You don't know what it is that has hurt you. You figure it out. And then you talk and cry about it. You exhaust yourself and your therapist. Then the good things happen.............ready? This is important................................................................................pay attention, here is the hope.

My journey has been one where I grieve what I never had. I find the harsh reality is, that t can not give me a redo and take me home and tuck me in at night. I go through all the stages of grief and in and out and back through them. You have to grieve with someone to witness to truly grieve. And then after all of that you start to see that there are certain special things that a t can do for you and you accept and treasure that as well. Something was indeed missed and you can never get it back. My t has been a true gift to me and has been amazingly supportive. He can not take me home but he does tell me I am special. He tells me he has missed me. He reminds me to take my medication when I am off. He comforts me. He has given me a hug "side hug" when I am really hurting. He calls me back and understands I need to have frequent contact. He validates me like a champion. He's my stability when all else seems chaotic. He has even said that he truly loves me and I believe him. He is my t and not my dad. He is my t and that is also a special relationship that can be honored in and of itself.

This will make some people's toes curl and that is ok. This transference does not happen to everyone. And if it doesn't apply in your specific relationship with your t more power to you. You are side stepping a lot of pain that anyone who has would surely trade. People are in therapy for many different reasons. People who have had a neglegent abusive upbringing and find there way to therapy inevitably need a different type of treatment than someone who was reared as a child and are having difficulties with a particular aspect of one's life. Also, someone who has found an intimate partner in real life that is safe may not have issues of erotic transference that some others endure. That doesn't mean one therapy is better than the other, or off course, or had by an incompetent therapist. It simply means that it is different. Thank goodness there is a balance at least for t's.