i dont know for sure what she meant.. but it does sound like she was asking about who you turned to for care and comfort... even if you did squirt your knee with the garden hose Who was the person you turned to when you needed more than you could give yourself? When you were very afraid.. who did you seek help from? It may very well be that by a certain age you had learned not to seek comfort and care.. but all children seek it at some point and it's usually a parent we turn to... if you were afraid or hurt, etc.. did you try to get your mother to comfrt you? (that was rhetorical)

Whomever taught you is not entirely the point, i think connecting with how you developed this rigidity is more the point. You seek out how it came to be, talk about it, explore it and try to make peace with it.. you trace out how it has repeated itself in your adult relationships and interactions ... and finally you try to find new ways to interact that operate outside the current ones. It's tough work.. and what drives me nuts is that i *get* a lot of it conceptually, but i haven't the foggiest %#@&#! clue how to apply it.

i'm glad the transference idea is making more sense... it's the sort of thing i think T's should really work to explain to the clients... but most dont unless you bring it up. i found it SO freaking helpful when i discovered the concept. i had developed a really intense romantic transference for my first T and i was so mortified. It was torture.. and i dont think he knew i felt that per se, but he knew i was deeply attached.. i told him in my last session than had he talked about transference with me he could have saved me six months of suffering... i mean, it made perfect sense to me that i would experience that given my situation.. and i was so relieved that it really wasn't about romantic feelings at all.

that is another good example mckell... my former T.. i wasn't transferring feelings for another specific person.. i was transferring my need to feel loved, to have attention and affection and my feeling of being unlovable and rejected. i knew nothing about him as a person.. what i knew was that he listened to me, paid complete attention, gave me respect... i created an ideal that i transferred upon.. he just happened to be the embodiment of that ideal to me... get what i mean?

i'll stop now.. i'm just rambling