Quote:
Originally Posted by Asiablue
The transference i *think* came from her being the first therapist i had that took time with me, seemed to like me and seemed very caring, she kinda looked after me a lot, the boundaries got messed up and she took the space of maternal person in my life. She was what i wished my mum would have been, sort of. She was protective of me and seemed to care a lot for me. We feel into a parent child dynamic.
Psychologically speaking, i think i put her in that role because i desperately needed and wanted a "good enough mother" in my life and it seemed she was willing to be that for me. I think i did it because i was trying to avoid the grief of accepting that I didn't get the mothering i needed and worst still, i'll never have the mothering i need and want. I literally wasn't able to accept that or even connect with that pain.
After it all went wrong, i was forced to accept that therapists cannot and should not take that role, not in a literal way at least. So part of that hope died in me and then i was able to face the sadness and grief with my new T of my reality of a motherless existence. It feels good to access that grief finally even tho it hurts a lot and it feels good not to constantly chase a dream that simply cannot be or to be putting women in a role they cannot sustain or want to be in. I don't need to worry about them becoming a precious commodity that i might lose at any minute, another maternal abandonment. That feels really good and healthy.
But i guess maybe i'm feeling the hole of where my mother/a mother should be. MAybe this feeling i have isn't about attachment and actually about grief?
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It feels to me like you've made it an "either/or" when it needn't be. You can grieve the unmet maternal needs of the past and simultaneously experience those transferential needs being fulfilled through the T relationship. Maybe that's what made my paternal transference with my T work rather than lead to that pain of unfulfillment: it's true he did fill those needs and didn't abandon me, but also my needs never became overwhelming, and I didn't fear abandonment because the grief of the original unmet needs was always front and center. The T relationship didn't substitute for or hide the original pain, it revealed and healed it.