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Originally Posted by Pennster
I stand by my statement that I believe there is likely to be a wide variety of opinion on this. Surely you can acknowledge that there is bound to be diversity of thought?
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I'm not saying there is no diversity of thought. I'm saying the transference construct dominates. And I don't mean just those who use the jargon explicitly. Can you think of any other concept that is so ubiquitous in the profession? I can't. It's mentioned in every book and article. For many of them it's like a nervous tic or mantra. Of course there will be exceptions and outliers, and I get that there are decent therapists who do not spout the nonsense.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Pennster
I googled "malignant erotic transference" with the words in quotes and came up with 17 results (Google having omitted duplicate results), most of them referring to the Akhtar article. The top result was from an Italian researcher who seems unaware of the Akhtar article and uses the term in a different sense. If I google without the quotes, the top result is about "malignant erotic countertransference", which is depicted as a very bad thing and which is clearly a different problem altogether.
This really doesn't seem a widely-used term at all. I suspect one reason for the lack of therapists denouncing it is that many of them have never heard of it.
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I didn't say widely used. I said it appears to be an established term. Big difference.
Some guy named Richard Chessick PhD MD wrote a scholarly article with the title "Malignant Eroticized Countertransference", and there are a few dozen pages referring to it. I found other sources as well.
I also found similar references on various therapy sites:
"Erotic Transference & Malignant Bonding"
"In the grip of a malignant regression, the transference loses its representational, or as if status"
"malignant seduction"
Also, there is a huge mass of other writings that are only slightly less warped on the subject of transference and erotic stuff.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Pennster
Yeah, but you say that like it's a bad thing!  I want my therapist to stuff down all his personal crap for our session time. I don't believe it's a con because we both openly acknowledge that he's doing it, and I understand it's necessary for the whole construct to work. This is like the best part of seeing a therapist for me - an hour of someone willing to put aside his own crap and focus on me, me, me... but I digress.  |
I understand some people like it and that it might even be helpful. But that doesn't change the fact that many therapists are charging people big money and in return giving them a staged performance, a contrived persona, feigned caring, artificial empathy. And then they talk about it in a very different way, as if the whole thing is pure as the driven snow. It's deeply dishonest. I don't expect them to compromise their livelihood by admitting their fakery, but among therapy consumers/peers I think there ought to be honest and frank discussion.
Also, presenting something contrived as something authentic, especially with vulnerable people, is risky and clearly in no small number of cases leads to serious emotional disfigurement when the client comes to grips with various deceptions that have been taking place outside conscious awareness. Some people are just not going to be in a position to untangle the therapist's games, and thus they get burned to a crisp.