mother/father figures

i also know a lot of you guys have said that your T is a mother/father figure to you, and i was hoping someone could explain a bit. and if it is ok to be having these ppl playing those roles. i'm seeing pdoc tomorrow and i'm feeling a bit sick about seeing him after last week, and i need to do some processing outside of his office first, so i can go in and be deli-the-wall again.

following might trigger, i'm not sure - don't think so but putting a warning anyway:

pdoc told me last week i have a pattern of needing strong approval from male figures that i looked up to. he was relating this to why i was upset with austin-t (before i gave him the letter), and i must've looked confused a bit, because he reminded me of how i used to try and barter "love" from my preschool teacher by offering to do... things. i felt like such a slut when he said that. but we both let the comment slide.
then i gave him the letter and he called me and he was wonderful . and at the end of the call he said he suspected he was more of a father figure to me than my own dad was/is. and i've never thought about it that way before but i also know it sits true with me.
and putting it all together, i'm sad because i think over my life and how much i used to try and get close to the men in my life (teachers, mainly) and i kind of feel bad. i think it's nice that pdoc said what he did, because at least it means he's willing to acknowledge it, but i also feel like "WOAHHHH that's really creepy" that i manufactured this relationship into being something it wasn't meant to be. i feel like i've cheated pdoc somehow, it feels really gross. i feel like i need to apologise for casting him in that role. i feel so sad.
but the other part is that pdoc said he's sticking with me, so (unless we change the relationship) it looks like i've got my father-figure. reminds me of that children's book "are you my mommy?" (atrocious american spelling and all ). and now i've found pdoc and it feels like the search is over a bit so now what?

someone tell me how this is meant to work. pdoc rarely says something i havent reflected on before, but this one has really thrown me. it makes sense but it also feels like . i want to distance myself from it.

Why creepy? That's what we do. As children. With needs so great that we have to make it come out to be something that feels good even when our judgement is not good enough to tell when something is going to turn out right or not.

And, what is wrong with "mommy"? It's "mum" that is strange!!!

(Now, mama really is strange. That is what I called the monster...)

but i'm no longer a child. it feels creepy that i did it with pdoc - turned him into a (good) father figure. i can get doing it as a kid, but i feel wrong for doing it as an adult. i didn't intend to, but it's turned out the way it has, and i feel bad, like i somehow cheated pdoc into being something he's not meant to be.

mama is strange, you're right. but "mommy" makes people sound like a cow . lolol i hope this doesn't turn into a "you speak funny" flaming war .

Deli you said >>> it feels creepy that i did it with pdoc - turned him into a (good) father figure. i can get doing it as a kid, but i feel wrong for doing it as an adult. i didn't intend to, but it's turned out the way it has, and i feel bad, like i somehow cheated pdoc into being something he's not meant to be.

but isn't he precisely meant to be that for you, Deli? Isn't this one of the basic events in therapy? I don't know about all therapies, but yours, apparently, and mine on the "mommy" side

Your attachment patterns were formed in preverbal years but are hurting you, and so in a therapeutic situation pdoc becomes that figure for you, until you re-develop a good pattern - yes?
SAWE

PS - as far as I know a mummy is a taped up Egyptian lol, and here I was thinking you were an Aussie Deli Funny you never know people

Deli, good discussion.

Isn't it just transference (the general concept, not the sexual connotation)? (Yes, primary objects are parents, others secondary through which we play out some of our earlier issues/parental relationships). It's normal, it's expected--it's actually desirable in therapy, and we "transfer" to people throughout our whole lives. It's healthy in therapy because whereas with our parents (for many of us) we couldn't work through the conflicts with them (they're unable; other reasons) but we get to explicitly work through them with our T's/pdocs; it's the intention of therapy.

Your experiences all sound very normal to me. Not creepy.

(((deli)))

I agree with the others that it is normal, and even healthy to project parental roles on our therapists.

What is creepy is realizing that we ALL do it. We all project unfinished business onto people around us. I see it a lot while driving -- people getting really upset at other drivers. They aren't really getting upset at the person, they are projecting their frustration, anger, anxiety onto an anonymous object.

The beauty of realizing transference in the therapy room, is that you can take it apart and learn from it and heal.

thanks for the reassurance, guys. it helps to hear that this is normal .

i guess the big concern is that i'm doing this with pdoc. pdoc is a psychiatrist, he only had 40hrs of elective training in psychotherapy, and even that not very good training (by his own admission). pdoc knows how to prescribe meds, and then he found deli and started doing therapy with her because she required it to be that way. i'm lucky he was prepared to talk to me (our first year together was definitely meds only!) because i would never have gone to a psychologist without trusting pdoc first. but i do feel bad that i've taken pdoc out of the speciality he was trained for. if he was a therapist i wouldn't feel so bad because they would be prepared for it, but i don't think pdoc ever understood what he was getting himself in for (nor did i, actually). he actually told me last week he never really understood what the big deal was with therapy, why or how it would work, but then he attended a lecture by a psychiatrist likening it to physiotherapy and that now he kind of gets it, because he also can see that our relationship is helping me take bigger steps elsewhere.

i guess i just want to check with him that it's ok he's become some father figure to me. i feel weird about it myself, but i worry it's this unintended consequence of our relationship and that it's something he regrets. but i'm also hesitant to bring it up and talk about it honestly, because i know pdoc lost his dad very young, and i dont want to bring this up if it will be hard for him too.

You know what I have found hard to get used to....that we often make almost EVERYONE into someone else a part of the family drama we grew up with. WIth dysfunctional families it is hard not to see other people as mommy, daddy, brother, sister, abusive neighbor, etc. I think, well, for me its been this way, I have to be very mindful of my feelings and how the abuse effected me to not put other people in those roles. And learning about it in therapy is so weird and SO HARD. It has made me feel even dirtier, more ashamed and more unworthy.

But it looks like pdoc is learning lots thru you, too

I have grown up always looking for a father and mother figure - it took me a fairly long time to work it out and acknowledge it.
And I come from a pretty normal background, parents who are still happily married after 30 odd years and we did do family things- I just never felt close to them nor would I go and talk about intimate or important issues with either of my parents.

I've pretty much always had older people that I put in the mother or father role (I like to call them mentors). I could discuss anything with them and I do feel they had a great influence in my formative years.
Now that I'm a bit older and more mature (well, all of 24 years ) it does bug me that I have avoided building a relationship with the most obvious people in my life.
My first pdoc and I had a VERY professional setup - he'd only take about 15 minutes, work out what I needed and hand me a new script. I have only been to the new p-doc once, and she seems a lot more empathetic.

I really can empathise with you, putting other people in mother/father roles. When I was 22, a work colleague who was 16 my senior partially took on the "mother" figure. Except it become more than that and we landed up in a relationship - it was "twisted". Even my boyfriend is 13 years my senior, but after 4.5 years I can safely say it is genuine love for each other that has kept us together. I have a new "mother figure" at work now, who again is +-15 years my senior. No emotional feelings, just someone who has been there and can offer a supportive shoulder and words of encouragment

My Pdoc is my T. I like it that way. One less person to turn into a father figure I guess. I get that that is the way transference is suppose to work, but I agree with you that it is creepy.

Love the concept of the Deli Wall. Gives a great visual.

And we are Mama and Mum folk around here. It's Mommy and Mummy that are way out there.

hmm, interesting that teachers were always the ones you tried to get close to, my situation also. I always thought of it as looking for substitute parents, I did not understand it as transference.

Funny thing is, when I really dwell on that core need for comfort, it comes across as needing mothering/fathering.
Asked my T, what is that all about? And I project it all on to him, that he should fill that need for me! So, he represents my ideal parent?
OH.
yeah, maybe. Well, not entirely.

good luck, let me know what you figure out!

Deli, you write about turning pdoc (or others) into a father/parental figure and then having guilt about it (all who've posted agree it's normal and that we, too, do it) and about putting pdoc into "this position."

Remember, it's all in your head, this framing of pdoc etc. as fatherly figure. You don't really make him into anything other than in the way you relate to him. You don't change his behavior; you don't affect his life in other ways, etc. I know you know this, but there's a framing issue that I see, where you're sort of reified the idea of him as a father figure; taking the mental construct and mixing it with performative reality. Whatever he's done that has him actually acting in that way (and this is only with you) is by his choice. He's a strong, mature adult, he has volition; you're not pulling his strings. We all (even people without mental health issues) make others in our lives into parental figures--teachers, Profs, bosses, boyfriends, girlfriends, etc. I think there's a too-literal view about the roles that you're taking responsibility for and feeling bad about. A good T or pdoc controls their own behavior and makes sure proper boundaries are kept, and it sounds like pdoc & Austin-T do well at that.

A highly abstract, and complicated point (am I making any sense?), but I don't want to see you beat yourself up over it like you seem to be doing. Bring it up with him. I can't imagine his parents being deceased will make it difficult for him.