Uglyducky thank you for the well-informed response. You underline a very important aspect of (erotic) transference, actually, and that is that how one experiences and tries to deal with transference (potentially working through it with a T) differs a lot from person to person.

I brought up briefly in my post that what might work for me may not work for someone else and to please dismiss any of my suggestions that may not be helpful to anyone else and share your own experience and suggestions. However, you are completely right that my post may appear to be in contrast with what would be a structural part of 'working through transference' with a T: just giving in to those feelings of abandonment, rejection etc. and working through them instead of trying to alleviate the pain of them by using 'avoidance strategies'. The latter was not the intention of my post, however I certainly understand it may have appeared to be that way.

I've made only a few posts on the forum, in which I guess I more or less clarified my viewpoint. And my viewpoint with regard to working through (erotic) transference with T may be a bit less optimistic in general. I certainly don't mean to imply it can't be done. I just feel that lots of T's appear to have little experience with the phenomenon, or are unwilling to work with ET, or they even worsen it by first letting the patient attach to them and then (out of fear) taking distance causing more feelings of anxiety and rejection, or even abandoning patients. The plethora of anecdotal posts from patients struggling with transference among others illustrates this to me. Some patients have tried to 'work through' transference for many years, spending a lot of their time, life, finances, attention, to therapy and their T and arguably noticing little to no improvement. They describe the transference as immensely painful, among others, and describe not being able to focus anymore on other areas of their life that would also need to be worked on in therapy. Or even getting into financial trouble since they don't want to leave their T – meanwhile seeing little improvement when it comes to these intense feelings. Imagine going through that for (many) years. It would be like going through those first very intense moments of infatuation that you can experience when you are heavily in love, over and over and over again: for years. But then magnified, since there is no reciprocation in feelings, there is a power imbalance, and in addition the T shares little to no personal information so illusion and fantasy are taking a grip on the patient. And that for years. This can be destructive to some of us, even when working with 'a good T'.
I read a study about patients that were working through transference with their T and, according to the text as a result of (not clearcut/vague) minor “mistakes” in therapy (that imho any therapist could make) the patients felt rejected and undertook suicide attempts. Of course I could not speak for anyone else, but I would without a doubt be one of those persons that can become fatalistic with the hint of being rejected if I experience strong transference.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that although I am happy to read that some persons (such as you) can succesfully work through transference with a T, that is not a given. I do believe it is fantastic that you are succesfully doing this, I believe these are very important experiences for all of us to know about, and I do hope they are more common than they appear to be to me.

However, I believe there are few T's that can help a patient work through transference succesfully. It is also not a given to be able to find such a T to work with. I also believe that even if you are lucky enough to have found a good T that can help you to work through transference it can be a process that can take many years, and that can make it impossible for the patient to properly focus on their lives meanwhile. (After all if the patient experiences strong transference they may direct all their attention to their T., meanwhile constantly dealing with feelings of fear, pain, abandonment, anxiety, isolation, feelings of being worthless, mental and even physical pain). Of course, not everyone experiences transference to the same extent with their T but this is what strong transference can do and for some of us for many years (I've been there twice). As a consequence of this intense transference sometimes little is accomplished in your own personal life for years (it can put your life on a halt) – which can add to the feeling of being worthless and thus to the intensity of transference, since it may contribute to the inclination to put the T on a pedestal. I feel it can almost be a catch 22. Blanche a member here, described that to a T: I could completely recognize it and I could absolutely not have voiced it any better.

So understandably those suggestions I shared in my first post may appear to be 'avoidance strategies' to not experience those feelings of pain, abandonment, rejection. However, they were actually meant to be a way to deal with those feelings that for some of us are literally taking over our lives for years (with what may be fatalistic consequences). As said: I completely agree, however, that what would work for one person does not have to work for the other person. I also understand that experiencing these painful feelings of rejection/abandonment ought to be a fundamental part of 'working through transference' in therapy. But some of us may need 'handles' while working through transference with a T to be able to get through this. And also to be able to take a step back every now and then, to look at this from a distance and ask ourselves if we are really making progress, or if we are just staying in therapy with a T since we are so attached/infatuated with him/her – meanwhile focusing years of our lives on this which can add to the feeling of being worthless and the infatuation/transference. And those 'handles' may include trying to take the edge of these feelings of pain/abandonment a bit to be able to get through this, cope with this. (Others of us may even opt out of working through transference with a T since they may not be able to get through such work with their T).

I hope that explains why I posted this, with indeed the footnote that some may need handles to work through transference or even to survive the pain of intense transference, and others may not.

Edit: please don't mind the massive amount of grammar errors - English is not my native language. Thanks!