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Originally Posted by Favorite Jeans
I'm sorry it went so badly for you BF. I wonder all the time if it's prudent or wise to reawaken these needs. I will say though that prior to this round of therapy, I was semi-aware of those needs and had a nasty habit of forming crazy attachments to people who were not strong enough and not properly positioned to help me. It was a kind of pathetic and humiliating little pattern. It was also puzzling because I really didn't get what was going on. I forced myself to grow up and stop doing it for a number of years but I was always looking and always hopeful that some new person I'd met would be my next magical mother figure. Now at least the need is channelled toward one person, it's not just out there attaching to any damn thing, and at least it's attached to someone who is pretty safe, who is paid good money to address it and who is willing to unpack it with me.
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Yeah I can see how there is potential for it to be reparative. I felt some sense of this with my ex T, until things fell apart. And I have heard of people having some measure of progress with this. But have heard, and experienced myself, the other side of this (abandonment leading to deepening of the wounds). Sounds like you have good self awareness and yea better to have it channeled in a focused and hopefully safe way.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Favorite Jeans
While this type of intense transference is quite common here, it does seem like quite a number of people on PC have said that they have good, close, helpful relationships with their T but have not invested the relationship with the magical intensity of parental and/or romantic love. I often wonder what separates these two groups.
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Hmmm, not sure, but maybe the extent of the deprivation in one's childhood. But also what about one's present life circumstances. All the focus is on childhood wounds, but if the adult has experienced a lot of loss in recent years, of their family and support network has shrunk, if they are suffering from depression or illness… maybe the attachment and neediness is more intense. Plus, if the T is doing things to provoke or even seduce the client into dependency or intense feelings, another factor. For me it was all of this.