transference and age and lots of questions

do you think that the type and intensity of transference with T has anything to do with age of client?

so for example --
i am 20 now and T is like 50s and the transference that is going on is mostly positive mother transference. However there is also alot of expecting to be kicked out because T doesnt want to work with me (foster care transference thing)

So....

1. if I was older and T was closer to my age, would i have transference that is more like friend or like sibling?

2. why would i have positive mother transference when i had no positive mother experience? is it because that is what i want? like i want T to be my mom because she is so nice even though i don't really know what a "good mom" is???

3. does transference change with time? so if i stayed with T for lots of years, would i stop having mother transference and have something else?

4. does transference go away? is that the point of therapy--to make it go away?

5. does a T know and manipulate the transference? so does a T do things to keep the transference positive in the beginning to build a relationship and then later does things to let it go however it wants? see what i mean?

thanks smart people of PC!

One has transference to a certain extent with everyone one meets. The closer the person is to other life situations (like you point out with parent child pair being about the same age apart as therapist client) the more possibility I think there might be for a strong transference. But, with therapist and client, I think that's a good thing because most of my problems were during my early years where there was/was the need for, more intense parenting but transference is a very personal thing. My T was not that much older than I was and was a different nationality and background from mine and still, we had a good working transference.

Solar, I don't think anyone can make you have any kind of transference with them, it just happens, I think the point of therapy is not to make it go away, but to bring it out, to look at it and understand it and then help heal the areas that have gone unmet. Yes I am an adoptee and struggle with the "I need you, but will you reject me because thats my first experience", but if you get a sound therapist all this will be resolved.

1. My T is about my age. I had intense feelings of wanting her to mother me when I first stared therapy 3+ years ago. That was about me, came from within me, about needing secure attachment. I don't feel so intensely about that now, it doesn't feel like needing 'mothering' now (I was just telling her this yesterday). I think getting to a place of solid trust of my therapist, and having experienced times I thought she surely would 'ditch me', as I call it, or would want to, and yet she didn't. We talk about that and I let her know what I think she is thinking and feeling, then she lets me know what her real thoughts and feelings are. So, I think it is about where you 'are', and of course you start where you are and go from there.

2. Because it is an important developmental need for every person. I also think because somewhere along the line, from witnessing other mother/child relationships in real life, on tv, in books, we realize that this special relationship of attunement and attachment existed and we didn't have it. We want to be cared for, cared about, to be heard, to have our pain acknowledged and comforted, to have our joy acknowledged and celebrated (for a tiny baby, that can be a mother smiling back), we want to matter. It's how we learn about ourselves, about what's important to us, about how to matter to ourselves.

3. I don't know, but mine has. It was a struggle, and I think I still sometimes struggle with the mothering need/fantasy, but the relationship has changed. I haven't lost anything, I have gained security. She allowed me to be who I was then as she does now. I am able to communicate better, it is slowly becoming easier to be myself and to bring out things that matter to me to be looked at and explored. We have also talked about how normal it is to want some of those things we call mothering, that everyone wants them and looks for those qualities in spouses, etc.

4. Transference is part of all relationships. I think with a therapist, it fades as the real therapy relationship grows and we get comfortable with it. We still have times of feeling as if we are being 'held' in therapy, of being nurtured, loved, cared about. But those things become real things we can take in, in the moment. The craving lessens. The real relationship begins to feel as good as or even better than the wished for relationship. When it feels real, then the energies spent on the wishing and craving are freed up and peacefulness can take their place.

5. I don't know. It sounds like something negative, hurtful, sinister. But it could mean many things, I suppose. My T allows phone calls between sessions. No limits on them. (Boundaries apply and return calls from T are nearly always very brief). She gives her cell phone number to patients for urgent calls, when I need to speak to her immediately. Maybe to some, that could be interpretted as manipulating the transference, I don't know.

You ask such good questions

thanks for asking these questions and sorry it i take over the post by asking more questions but i really am curious and these were great questions.i have always looked at transferance as a not so good thing.but reading about it here it seems like it is an almost positive and important part of therapy.i guess i dont understand it a lot yet.but my question is what happens if this transferance never happens or is unable to happen for whatever reason.i dont mean with just one T that you dont connect with but with anyone.i dont think that kind of relationship with any T is possible for me.is therapy still possible without this?

1. I'm basically the same age as my male T, yet my initial transference experience was just like when I was 20 and "loved" my professor (married, 50 yr old, 2 teenagers, etc).
2. For me, my transference is entirely about finding replacement parents.
3. My transference with my T has mellowed quite a bit - last spring it was all goofy-girly, in the fall it was pure love and then it became deep trust.
4. With my HS teachers or college prof, it faded over time because I didn't see them anymore. I'm glad that with my T it has mellowed because it really felt BIZARRO since I am married! The point of therapy is to work on your issues - for me, one of my issues is not having a close relationship with my parents and wishing it was different.
5. My T is completely clueless about how to use the positive transference/attachment. He seems able to handle it when I get angry with negative transference, bleah. If your T is OR is not using the transference relationship as a tool in therapy, it should be something you are told (ex: I'm going to try this to use the transference or I'm not sure what to do with transference, but I'd like to try this instead since I'm good at this)

Solarwind,

I thought I would share a link to a site that I have visited many many times for many reasons. The Questions & Answers section has helped me. There is a Q&A section about Transference here: http://www.guidetopsychology.com/que...ions.htm#trans.

SW, those are really good questions. I haven't had much positive transference with my T. Sometimes I have thought what sort of person in my life my relationship with him most resembles, and I think I would say a brother (an ideal brother, not the one I now have LOL). I feel close to my T like I would to a very close relatively-the-same-age male family member. I have not had positive mother (or father) transference to him. We have a very positive and warm relationship, but most of that is based on our own history together, not transference.

Fairly recently, I had some negative mother transference on him, and I hated that. We talked about it.

I think a T can try to be positive and supportive and empathetic to build the relationship. I don't think transference has to necessarily be there, but the positivity and support are important. I think "manipulate" is a negative word, but yes, I think the therapist can "use" the positive relationship (either transferential or real) to help the client. I think the T can ask the client to do more if there is that solid and positive foundation for the client to fall back on. There are times I had to do something difficult and T asked me to do X, and I was able to just rely on our strong relationship without questioning too much, because I trusted him so much. If a person with whom I had a weaker and more negative relationship made the same suggestions, I would probably not do them, because of the lack of trust and understanding. So I think the T can use the strong relationship with the client to empower and help motivate the client. I don't think this is necessarily a bad thing. With time in therapy, the ego strength of the client can increase, and self-motivation becomes stronger, rather than using the T to motivate.

Solar, I'm glad to see you still posting.

1. I don't think age matters. I have been older or the same age as my female Ts, and I've had mother transference for them.

2. My understanding is that the transference could be about what you expect the person to be like, or what you want them to be like. So you want a mother, therefore the mother transference feelings.

3. Sometimes I have reacted to my Ts as peers, so i guess it changed somewhat.

4. I wish it would go away! Those feelings of wanting T to be everything to me haven't gone away. But ECHOES' experience may be more common than mine:

ECHOES, I LOVE what you said here! That's what I wish would happen to me in therapy.

5. I know that Freud believed that transference was the essence of the therapy and the T used it to make the therapy work. My Ts basically accepted it, but I don't think they "used it."

I think I have an issue with transference. I grew up in a happy home, but for some reason did not develop a bond with my family. I know there were some issues close to my birth, which I may need to work thro with a T, but that's a different story altogether.
I tend to have mainly older friends, and especially with females, i think i tend to look up to them to "mother" me.
To a certain extent, I think if I could have this kind of relationship with a T, it may make it easier for me to open up, and at the same stage I think it may hamper my therapy.
I look forward to other replies on this topic, as I too battle with this.
Transference makes me needy, clingy and jealous, and I really hate it.