everybody engages in transference: whether they are aware of it or not. whether they like it or not.
our early relationships with our parents are formative with respect to the patterns of inter-relating that we have throughout the rest of our lifespan. that relationship with our parents has a significant role to play with respect to:
- what kinds of people we seek as friends
- what kinds of people we seek as lovers
we are often attracted to people who either remind us of the positive qualities of our parents or who seem to fit in well with our patterns of inter-relating. someone who is willing to play a complimentary role.
most people go through life without being terribly reflective about this. some people find that their patterns of inter-relating are destructive and / or cause them pain and so they try and gain some understanding of what they are contributing to this process.
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if you see transference as morally and spiritually problematic then you are less likely to be able to be aware of the patterns of inter-relating that are aparent in your life. it can indeed be incredibly painful to become aware of something that one finds to be both morally and spiritually problematic.
i feel... shame. guilt. fear. disgust. i feel that way about myself when i'm aware of my transference and patterns of inter-relating. well... sometimes i feel that way so i hear what you are saying.
trouble is that viewing it that way means i'll just repress the awareness of what i'm doing which means i won't be able to work through the transference and have different ways of interrelating available to me.
so... while it is hard... the notion is that transference responses are involountary. they just happen. while we can control how we behave we can't always control how we feel. not judging ourself for the feelings we are having can mean that we can become more aware of our feelings, however. it is a bit of a process huh...
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