[sweepy62]

why is it that therapists dont tell you when you are going through transference with them? my t is female i am female so its no bad transference just that last week i was talking about childhood trauma a bit i have started this after a year, but i felt afraid like a kid like i was afraid to ask her something thinking she would be pissed but i have no reason to think like that my t is very empathic

also why doesnt she let me know when my inner child is coming out in our therapy sessions

[roads]

Therapists are different &have different reasons for doing or not doing things. That may even change from client to client.

Rather that guess--or ask others to--just ask her. She won't mind. It's stuff most of us talk about at some point anyway.

[mcl6136]

I honestly believe it is a power thing. Probably that says a lot about me, but I am convinced, based on the ts that I have dealt with...it's a power thing.

Which kind of sucks, I guess.

[stopdog]

Originally Posted by mcl6136

I honestly believe it is a power thing. Probably that says a lot about me, but I am convinced, based on the ts that I have dealt with...it's a power thing.

Which kind of sucks, I guess.

I agree.

I think you might be assuming that a T actually knows that you are going through transference, which I think is a lot to assume because transference is based (at least I think) on your feelings. If you hide your feelings (I'm pretty good at it) and/or don't let your T know what you're feeling, then I'm not sure there's any way they can possibly know. They might be able to observe that every time a certain dynamic appears in session, you seem to be experiencing some kind of change in emotion, but they can't necessarily identify what you're feeling or what's going on with you if you don't clue them in. Some T's probably need more cluing in than others.

Assuming they believe they have identified that you're somehow in transference, then the question is whether to say it. In an insight model of psychotherapy (which I think most T's draw from to some extent), directly telling the client anything that labels her own experience counteracts the possibility that she could discover it for herself. Kind of like, if you give a person a fish . . . . if you teach a person how to fish.

As someone else said in this thread, it depends on the client. If my T announced that I was going through transference, I'm pretty sure I would look around for something sharp to plunge between his eyes. I don't go to therapy to hear my T tell me about my life or label my experience or what I'm feeling for him or whatever. I go to T so *I* can tell him these things. I'm not interested in his analysis or his explanations or his diagnosis or any of his pronouncements about pretty much anything.

Anne

[Chopin99]

Originally Posted by 3rdTimesTheCharm

I think you might be assuming that a T actually knows that you are going through transference, which I think is a lot to assume because transference is based (at least I think) on your feelings. If you hide your feelings (I'm pretty good at it) and/or don't let your T know what you're feeling, then I'm not sure there's any way they can possibly know. They might be able to observe that every time a certain dynamic appears in session, you seem to be experiencing some kind of change in emotion, but they can't necessarily identify what you're feeling or what's going on with you if you don't clue them in. Some T's probably need more cluing in than others.

I agree with this. You need to discuss the transference. I don't necessarily think all feelings toward T are transference, but I think they certainly can be.