[BlueJeans00]

Why would Transference-focused therapy make someone worse?

[amandalouise]

Originally Posted by BlueJeans00

Why would Transference-focused therapy make someone worse?

to answer your question Im going to need to give you a little info...

any kind of therapy has its good points and its bad points. tfp is a kind of therapy used with personality disorders (borderline, anti-social, and so on) where a person transfers problems to being parts of their self (not talking about alters with DID, this is different kind of alters)

its like splitting like if I believed I had a good self and a bad self, Im the good self where I do no wrong and the bad self does all the drinking, drugs, or other getting into trouble. any time something bad happens I pass that bad stuff off as happening to someone else (the bad side of me) I literally do not accept that the bad side is part of me and I totally do not accept the consequences of the bad self's behaviors. (this is an actual situation a friend of mine had)

TFP works on changing beliefs, thoughts and behaviors. learning to accept that the bad self is really me and accepting whats happening instead of passing off blame on the bad self (this is called integration in TFP and is the main goal and purpose of TFP)

now to your question ... change is hard for some people, accepting everything that is being transferred to "the bad self" is part of everything (no one is just good or just bad, humans are both good and bad depending on the behavior and so on..)

anyway one of many ways someone can get worse when someone is in therapy because of things like not doing the homework or self sabotaging ...

example... a friend of mine was in this kind of therapy because they were blaming their drinking on "a bad self" and my friend was the good self. this friend got worse with therapy because they did not follow the treatment plan outside of therapy, even though they knew they should not be drinking and they had a contract to not drink they did it anyway which sabotaged the TFP process

if you are getting worse with TFP talk with your treatment provider, they can help you to figure out why you are getting worse not better. maybe you and your treatment provider can have one of your TFP contracts around what ever it is that is causing you to get worse.

[Thunder Bow]

Need more details. But it does make you aware of your own feelings, and helps you own them. Thus you may feel them.

[Fuzzybear]

If there isn’t a good “fit” between the therapist and the client, this could be one reason. Therapists should refer someone on, in my opinion, if this happens.