attachment/transference and gender of T

i have had several ts over the years. my longterm ts were female as is my current t. something i've noticed is that i don't have the attachment that some of you describe having for your ts. i get along great with them and trust them but i can skip a week or two of therapy and it really is no biggie. but, i briefly had a male coach/t and i started getting the erotic transference. and then i have my male friend that i sorta help out spiritually and i have the good ole et with him. so, does anyone else who's had ts of both genders notice a pattern for themselves? i have a generally good relationship with my mom but my relationship with my dad was not exactly warm and fuzzy so i'm guessing that is why i seem to need more attachment from the men. thoughts?

First of all, I'm a female. My first T was a male, and we didn't connect that well. He was male, he was old, and he just wasn't a good fit for me.

My new, and current T is a female, she's young, and we connect 15048753X better! For comfort reasons, i prefer to have a female T. My old pdoc was male, but he was a bit younger, so things were more comfortable with him than with old T. But NO ONE is more comfortable than current T!

I would assume erotic transference is directly related to sexual preference. But then again maybe not. I'm attracted to women, first T was woman had terrible transference with her when I felt like I'd die not seeing her and was always calling her up all the time. Yet at same time I got nothing out of therapy and actually got worse PTSD. So felt like I wasted a whole year in therapy with absolutely no benefit. I started going to my current T and she has helped me more. I have absolutely no attraction to her and seldom want to call her in between visits, mainly only when my cat died did I ever call her. I kinda missed her when she was on vacation, but when I was on vacation for 3 weeks I didn't miss her at all. Sometimes I loathe going to see T and I feel much healthier in our relationship versus the other option of desperately needing her so much I have to call all hours of the day and night. I saw a male T in highschool he was a real jerk to put it nicely. I refuse to ever go to a male T again. Though I did see a male neuropsych who was very nice and I thought he was cool. He was gay too I think so probably why he was cool as he was not the critical type about anything just all matter of fact.

I have a male T but do not have transference with him. I am strongly and securely attached to him, and we often connect deeply in session.

My first T was female, was very nice, and we did some helpful work together, but I had no attachment or connection to her.

aren't attachment and a positive transference basically the same thing? that is how i've understood it thus far. i'm not speaking strictly of erotic transference, just a positive transference in general. i just happen to have the stupid et. :P

I don't think of them as the same, but different people have different definitions for all these words, so there are varying views. I think of transference as when you have feelings to the T that are really not about the T but about someone else in your life, for example a parent. In my case, I do have positive feelings for my T, but they are based on him and me in the here and now. Attachment is a pattern of being able to bond with another human being. We develop a specific pattern of attachment behavior throughout out lives. Some people have secure attachment and some people have various types of insecure attachment. I am very proud that I have achieved secure attachment with my T, as I haven't always done that with others in my life. (Also, attachment is not always a positive thing, so wouldn't necessarily correlate with positive transference.) I am taking developmental psych right now and they talk a lot about attachment and bonding in infants, object relations theory, etc., but they never mention transference at all in this context. In adults, I can imagine situations where transference could get in the way of a secure attachment.

oh my, this is all getting kinda complicated and confusing. maybe i'm seeing attachment and positive/love transference as the same or similar. i'll have to think on that. let me rephrase the question for you sunny, i'm curious have you ever had another male t and if so were you attached to him?

lol, i don't think an infant/newborn with an intact family would have transference.

I had a male therapist that I was strongly attached to. I love him very much. I really do not like to use the word transference to describe my feelings for him. I also believe the feelings to be real and for him in the here and now. I feel this is a secure attachment now. I do think that it took me a while to get there as I normally attach in an anxious/insecure manner. And now, even though I no longer see him, the attachment is as strong as ever and held in my heart.

When choosing my T, I made sure it was a male T. I don't know why I don't want a female T, and that's something that I was going to explore in therapy with my current T. We just haven't gotten around to talking about it, even though my T knows about it.

As far as transference goes, I do have some kind of attachment to my T, but I don't understand my feelings enough to define it.

I've only had one T, and I'm ridiculously attached to him. I'm female, he is male.

I picked a male T because I was scared to death of dealing with a female "authority figure" (main ongoing abuser growing up was my mom). When I started therapy, I thought "well, I'll see a man for a while and get over this mom stuff and then switch to a female". LOL I had NO idea how therapy worked, or that my attachment to T would be so deep.

AND I've been in T for 20 months twice a week and we still haven't talked about the "mom stuff" Eeek

My attachment to my t has been very strong, but in an insecure way. There has been alot of transference and working through. Based on my issues, if i was seeing a male, i think i would have just as many transference issues with him. Maybe because my relationships with both my parents were less than ideal. So transference feelings would come up in both contexts.

I don't think this is necessarily true...Straight women have reported getting erotic transference with their female T's, and of course, that leaves room for much confusion on their part; however, it's a perfectly normal part of therapy, regardless of the gender of the T and the client.

If that is the case, those of us who are attracted to both genders are screwed.

I was the exact opposite. I understand where you're coming from, though.

I wanted a female because for me, it would be less awkward to talk with her about certain things that I felt would come up. Especially in adolescence, I figure talking about sex and things like that would be easier with a female. Also, I've never been able to trust the men in my life, so that was another thing that influenced my decision.

I'm really happy that I switched to my current T, because I couldn't see myself where I am without her.

I've only seen women Ts and I think I've had erotic transference for some of them. I'm straight, so it has nothing to do with sexual orientation. I never wanted to see a man, because I thought the transference would be much worse.

That was my point! Attachment and transference are not the same, as evidenced by infants, who attach but have no transference. I believe some of the earliest attachment research was done in infants and these ideas were later extended to adults.

I have only had one male T (2.75 yrs) and one female T (6-9 mos). I think part of why I attached to my male T was his therapeutic approach rather than because he was male. The way he works encourages attachment, I think, as he knows it can have great healing power. The way my female T worked did not encourage attachment. She was more about telling me stuff I could do to feel better and cope with life (get more sleep, build a support system of friends and family, etc.) and then we would review my progress on those things. She never really did anything to encourage a close therapeutic relationship, much less attachment.

I'm the same way. I've never acted the same to my dad as I did to my mom, ever since I was little. I've always wondered why this is...

I understand what you mean when you say you don't have the same attachment that some people on here have with their T's. This makes me sad, though. I'd love for my T to say to me some of the things that I've read on here...I just want, no, I need, that kind of attachment. I want her to care about me in this way I'm sorry, I'm going off topic here.

I have a male pdoc...at least, I will (I meet him next month). I'm wondering if I will form the same type of relationship with him that I have with my T. When I think about having a male T or pdoc, it seems that they would fill a seperate part of me...like they would be more of a father figure. Where as my T, she fills the part of me that needs someone to admire, to look up to. I mean, it's not as if my parents weren't there for me during my childhood. I just never opened up to them.

Interesting thread I've wondered if I should bring this up in T, but I've put it off in the last few sessions