Quote:
Originally Posted by Favorite Jeans
Soccer Mom, the way you describe coming to understand your unmet emotional needs through experiencing overwhelming transference is very similar to my experience. I have also had to go back and reconsider a childhood that really did not seem so bad in light of this powerful neediness I was experiencing. It's been quite dizzying really.
How/why did you decide to terminate with your T? Do you think you would be able to work though some of these feelings within your current therapeutic relationship? Is it too uncomfortable to even try? Or is your T not willing to go there with you?
I have noticed, in the year or more since I started this thread originally, that while I still feel needy and I still find the neediness quite uncomfortable, I do not feel quite as desperate about it as I used to. I feel slightly more confident that T will see this through with me (though I still feel like I'm tempting fate by writing those words) and that I might some day emerge okay.
Another thing that has happened for me is that I have limited my intense maternal transference to my T. Which is advantageous because it means that it's not oozing out into other relationships in inappropriate or potentially embarrassing ways. My T seems capable of not withering under the intensity of it, doesn't shame me for it and seems not completely surprised or overwhelmed by it. So in that way it's safer than having the need manifest with people who are not equipped or paid to deal with it and who do not have the same responsibility to keep their own issues under control.
That said, I do still go to great lengths to keep a lid on it so as not to overwhelm or alienate her. Also, I suppose I'm trying to maintain some kind of dignity in all this. So there's really no telling what would happen if I just went balls out needy little monster on her. But I won't do it because it's not my style.
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When I look back and posts and emails to my brother, I've questioned our relationship since October. I read a lot about transference. Overall, I think she's too much like my mom so I just keep replaying my childhood in the room. But, she gives me enough (attunement/connection) that I keep going back. There are things she has said to me that have hurt and shown that she really doesn't understand transference. I'm constantly scared I'm going to make her mad and lose her and that is what has happened.
In May she suggested spacing my sessions because I told her I was feeling trapped - therapy was painful but I wanted to see her. I disagreed with spacing but she did it anyway. She mentioned referring that month so I started contacting other T's. One T said that with my background, my T. will end up validating one part of me (space sessions because I feel trapped) which will end up invalidating others (wanting to be close). I don't think my T. sees this. So, I told myself I would give the spacing thing a try and reevaluate in August. I found out a coworker is seeing her and I got very upset. I traced it to my mom but my T. got upset that I know even though we all share calendars. That was the great divide. I left that session knowing the end was coming and I was right. She says that therapy shouldn't be this intense and my brother feels that while it might be intense, the T. should keep it from being painful. I think if my T. would react differently, it wouldn't be so painful. This is where she's too much like my mom.
So, the termination was initiated by her but I've thought about it for months. Maybe it's best that she did it knowing I couldn't pull the plug.