I know this is a weird thing to put on the Couch, but I just sent my T this email and am feeling vulnerable about it so I'm posting it here to get some feedback from y'all.

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Dear [T],

You asked me to try to think about the ways in which erotic transference may be playing out in our relationship (right?).

I’m finding it difficult to know what to write. I agree that it’s hard to ignore the potentially erotic undercurrents in some of the things that I shared with you—wondering what your children are like, for example, or comparing the relative “compellingness” of my romantic relationship with [this guy I'm seeing] with our therapeutic relationship. Especially the bit about being afraid that you would find me repulsive as a potential object of desire (though I wonder if that has more to do with how I react to men in general). However, I don’t find myself experiencing any explicitly erotic fantasies or desires about you. I know that if this were the case I’d have a hell of a time talking about it (because I’d feel ashamed about wanting something so obviously inappropriate; because it’s always difficult to talk about unfulfillable desires, especially with the object of those desires), but it isn’t.

Regarding the actual content of what I mean when I say I felt that I “missed you” when I was [on vacation for two weeks] — I think what I mean is that I thought about you a lot, and wished I could talk with you. Like, I’d hear a song on the radio and wonder if you’d like it or not; I’d see my best friend make a parenting decision and wonder what you’d think about it; I’d get an email and hope that it would be from you. It felt like a near-constant rumble in the background, almost intrusive sometimes. I remember experiencing this with [former T] when she and I didn’t see each other for a month due to offset vacation schedules. It felt like a yearning or a longing for connection. It was intense as hell and I hated it.

Or, um… I promised myself that I’d never tell you this, but I suppose that’s a stupid thing to do in therapy: I took my copy your book [on vacation] with me, as a sort of transitional object. I hope that doesn’t bother you—I imagine you might think it silly, or even creepy. I didn’t read it again, just wanted to have it with me as a sort of moral support. I won’t do it again if you’d rather I didn’t.

I don’t know, does this clarify anything at all? I think I might need more structure in order to think about this productively—maybe in our next session you and I could come up with some specific questions for me to think about so I can’t forget or get squirrelly?

-[c]