Transference Rant

wheeler · Oct 18, 2011, 11:59 AM

Please rant away! I was in total push-pull with my t yesterday, saw her today, and even though it went well, I told her at the end that I still hated her. She said I can't, because right now I need her.

Damn, I hate when she's right.

SeaBreeze · Oct 18, 2011, 12:16 PM

I'll add to the rant. Am so struggling with the transference thing too. Especially since my T has been away for 3 weeks and and I'm abt to go away for a week myself. It is seriously doing my head in.

Mine is very much mom transference, I have a female therapist and I am female. My beloved mother is a narcissist, so as a child I'd experience wonderful love and affection from her only for it to be cruelly taken away. It was devastating to experience. Her love was very much conditional so to experience non-judgement and unconditional love from my T is simply sublime. But now of course I can't get enough of it!!!

Ygrec23 · Oct 18, 2011, 12:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by hankster

That is an excellent question, and I think the answer may be gender RELATED, but not DIRECTLY? I am with granite (and others) in this, I cringe when anyone here says they want their mommy (sorry, that's the least offensive I can be about it!). HATE IT!!! I wonder if it can be broken down by types of attachment: the securely and insecurely attached do want their mom, but the others of us - the dismissives - say no whey, Hose A? And then what characteristics did those babies have in common? I was big - too heavy to be cuddled much? There really is a huge difference in a 5lb & a 9 lb infant. Does a big girl seem less endearing, less feminine from the beginning? Just thinking of my baby pictures compared to my tiny favored younger cousins (M & F).

Hankster, I would have to think that it had nothing at all to do with you at any weight, but with some internal problem of Mom's. I was a less than five-pound preemie and got the same treatment you did. That's the reason T and I have spent so much time on building up an accurate and detailed picture of my Mom and her birth and upbringing and her parents and her sibs and their children, etc. To find out who she really was. And for us it wasn't all that terribly hard because she was so rigid. She was the same person when she died at 86 as she was when she had me at age 25. The same. The same dissociation, the same chilliness, the same distance, etc., etc.

With that picture of Mom (and the observations of my sibs who all had similar pathology) it was relatively easy to figure out what had happened. She just couldn't handle any intimacy with anyone at all, including babies. So she zoned out when supposedly "caring" for her children. Cooked good food. Kept us in clean clothes. Made sure we took a bath every day. Went to sleep on time. But a million miles away and not paying attention. Take care.

Ygrec23 · Oct 18, 2011, 12:27 PM

I'm so sorry, treehouse! Without thinking at all, I hijacked your thread! I'll never do it again, to you or anyone else. I was just sleepwalking, I assure you! Take care!

Quote:

Originally Posted by treehouse

I went though a phase in therapy where this was SO. RIDICULOUSLY. PAINFUL. I actually read an old post of mine yesterday recapping a session with T where I told him that it felt SO UNFAIR...that I wasn't loved as a child, and now here I was in another situation where I wouldn't be loved, at least not in that adoring, all-encompassing, parent-child way. And that it just sucked that I was sitting there hurting in that way all over again. T was like "it DOES suck"...because it DOES.

It flares up from time to time, but way less often than it used to. Completely one of the mysteries of therapy for me...where did it GO? I do love T, but not in that LONGING kind of way that I used to. I wish I knew why or how it changed, so I could tell you and give you some hope.

It really stinks that in some twisted way, pain and healing so often go hand in hand.

Oct 18, 2011, 12:34 PM

Getting in on this baby discussion. I had a stroke at birth and spent my first 6 months in the hospital (including a surgery for an organ prob). My therapist thinks that I lost this crucial time to bond with my mom, who had ambivalent feelings toward me because she was perhaps afraid to form an attachment to a baby that might die. I also missed out on cuddle time I'm sure. This was a really interesting insight for me - my current therapist is my 6th therapist over the last 18 years and no one else thought of it. It explains a lot, I think. My mom wasn't ready to be a mom anyway and had a difficult upbringing, but my illness certainly added to our difficultly bonding.

Oct 18, 2011, 01:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ygrec23

I'm so sorry, treehouse! Without thinking at all, I hijacked your thread! I'll never do it again, to you or anyone else. I was just sleepwalking, I assure you! Take care!

No, no, no! Not my thread

I'm just visiting too

Oct 18, 2011, 05:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by treehouse

I have a male T. I'm not looking for a mom substitute (like you, ygrec, I would head for the hills. just the THOUGHT of seeing a female T completely freaks me out). I think I'm just looking for someone safe, who sees me.

But at the same time, there is what feels like parental transference. Not "mom" transference or "dad" transference. Just this big longing that someone will cherish me in a safe way.

I. SO. GET. THIS.

I have had two males and one female T and I couldn't agree more.

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