T Thursday. Won't go into all the details here (honestly, much of it is kind of fuzzy, which is unusual for me!), but much of it was about the concept of forgiving myself for not be the child my mom wanted me to be, which had come up Monday. Which led to T saying something like, "The way I try to approach parenting is..." and then talked about accepting one's child completely for who they are, but also letting them know you can help them improve in certain areas if they want. Like in my case, struggling with anxiety, if my parents had fully accepted that (they didn't) and also said they could help me with that so I didn't struggle so much (they didn't, aside from brief period seeing psychiatrist, but I think it was more because they didn't know how to deal with me, not out of compassion). He didn't specifically talk about anything with his son. And I wasn't aware of this hitting me at the time. But when I left, I felt this almost overwhelming wave of paternal transference, to the point that I started crying while walking in the parking lot to my car (I hadn't shed a tear in session, which is unusual lately).

After confirming that I wasn't near the email limit, I typed up an email to him that evening. But then sat on it until the next morning, when I sent this:
"Hi Dr. T,
Obviously I asked about the color for a reason...Been feeling some pretty intense emotions since session. It can be really difficult when you (or Dr. ex-MC) talk about how you try to be as a parent. It sets off this sort of paternal transference thing, leading to a sense of...longing almost. The young, emotional part of my brain sort of centers that (paternal) longing on you, but the adult, rational part of my brain knows that it's not actually about you at all, that I'm longing for something I missed out on 30-40 years ago. And can never have in the same way that I needed it then. It also feels like grief--for the childhood I didn't have and the person I could have been if I'd received what I needed.

I wrote this last night. I listened to music through headphones before bed, which is like meditation for me. I slept some. But I still feel this need to share these feelings with you. So, here you go.

Thanks,
LT"
He wrote back an hour later (morning is his typical time to reply) with this:

"Thank you for sharing, and I think you're wise to think of this as needing to grieve for something you missed out on years ago and continue to having longings for. I like how you found a controllable and individual coping strategy to manage your feelings, and how you waited to send the email. I think you're showing real growth in how you manage your emotions and I hope that you're feeling positive and aware of that self growth.

It's interesting to me that you wrote "how you (meaning me) try to be as a parent." When discussing parenting I was trying to deliberately be very matter-of-fact and not talk about my parenting, but parenting as a concept and what Psychologists have come to generally understand about effective parenting. If you're comfortable doing so, I'd like to talk a bit about how that connection (that I was talking about my parenting and not parenting as a whole) got made in your mind because it may be important as we think about transference."

At first I was kind of bothered by the second part, because it felt almost defensive, and I *know* he mentioned something about how he approaches parenting. But then I thought about it more, and I think he's just trying to understand. The thing is, I think even if he hadn't referred to himself at all, the transference feelings likely still would have happened. Because he is a father, so it would have been natural, the way my mind works, to assume that's how he is as a dad, too. When who knows really? Plus I think it could say something about how I attribute things to people in general. So, hopefully, should be a good discussion today... And yeah, I know my T tends to suck at transference stuff, but he seems to be understanding it more lately (and that's also why I'm posting this shortly before session, to avoid any "Don't do it, are you crazy?" comments...)

ETA: And no, I don't know why he capitalized "Psychologists"! (annoying editor things...)