A number of people have suggested my problems with Madame T are just transfers of my problems with my mother. This is plausible and orthodox.

And yet...
1. I was intimate with this woman for nearly ten years. Couldn't she be a problem in her own right?
2. If it was pure transference, wouldn't we have resolved it? The fact that we didn't resolve it suggests that Madame T was no mere catalyst or blank slate. She was a participant.