yet another question about transference

wondering what would be record time, for development of transference.

how long before you became aware of it? (pls specify positive or negative)

my own $0.02... this is with T1... negative, just under 2 yrs (but then it took me 18 months to say anything much); positive, never really.

With my last T, I think it took me about 5 sessions to recognize that I'd developed positive transference. I never really told him.

With my current one, I'm not sure that what I feel for him is transference. I have a hard time distinguishing that from the feelings of being relieved, grateful and appreciative of someone who gives me unconditional acceptance. This time around, I want to keep my T informed of how I'm feeling. If, as I've read, some of the most important work in therapy comes out of working through transference, I want to make sure I tackle it this time.

Transference is like dreams; it's there whether you realize it or not. An expression, mannerism, turn-of-phrase, anything might remind you of your mother, father, sibling, abuser, boss, someone and be positive or negative depending on your initial reaction to that "first" expression/mannerism. Transference is talked about in therapy because we literally don't know much about the other person, the therapist, so it can't be the other person we react to, but something else from our past.

Especially in the first couple years, before you get a good working relationship with your T, no matter what your T does, your head is filtering it through your old defenses. My T would ask questions, to get a better understanding of me and where I was coming from and my history, etc. and I converted it into an interrogation, thought she was trying to trap me because that's what my stepmother use to do. Especially "Why" questions as I never had the "right" answer for my stepmother, they were always double bind questions and I couldn't get there from here. That's the purpose of transference and working with it, to realize that each person you interact with is themselves, not whoever you are in the habit of working with growing up; yes, my therapist could technically have been trying to trap me but I needed to learn to question and figure that out, for each interaction, not "assume" or do the default, why-question-must-always-feel-bad.

If you think about it, it is all in our head; that I decided that my stepmother was always out to get me instead of looking at each interaction (such that later she had to say, "that's an observation, not a criticism" -- I could no longer tell the difference, everything was a criticism), that happens with our head and what we view as "positive". That I view my stepmother as not listening and my T as listening, that's positive transference; I called my T on that once; it was during our silent years, I couldn't talk and while we were just sitting there by the half hour, she started to doodle one day I guess I thought she should be "listening" or "working" or something on my behalf when I was not saying/doing anything myself; it was busy in my head why was it not busy in hers, LOL. But it is all what we "imagine" in our little heads and therapy is about learning to do reality checks and engage in each interaction, independently of the other or of who it is or what happened "last time".

With my last therapist, I was "hooked" after the second session... With my last one, I saw her for a bit more then a year and I don't recall having transference, but that is probably impossible.

I think we must have a record, two sessions. Thanks Carla! and to everyone else who answered.

For me, I guess it took about 6 months! I was so resistant that I didn't even think about liking her. Once it kicked in, it was not a good thing. I thought I was losing it! I told her about it, we talked about it, she was okay with it and didn't get creeped out. More than a year later, I am still not over it by any means. I wish I was.

I don't want to think of her other than just being my therapist. I don't have any weird feelings for my MD or any other professional in my life, so why her?

I think that I am thinking transference always means 'sexual or sensual feelings', but I know that its not. That's just what I have experienced for the most part.

i don't really understand much about trasference.to me it seems if i feel somthing about a person (my T)then this is how i feel no matter what the reason is.if something she said or does terrifies me does it matter the reason why ?the reality is that i am terrified.even it is is because she is just sitting in a room with me sitting in a chair and it feels to much like something the mother did

(((((((((( granite ))))))))) the "why" does matter. At some point we may notice that the person in that other chair, whom we are scared of (because they did or said something the mother did or said, maybe long years ago) is, in fact, NOT HER. and then one day we might wonder whether every other person has to be identical to the mother (not very likely)... and if not, hey, maybe the risk isn't so great after all....? and after a while, if that person hasn't followed up with the other hurtful things the mother said or did, then maybe we begin to wonder if we might not trust them?

For me, transference with my current comes and goes. I would say it took around 6 months. But that's because I went into her office, announced that I wasn't going to let myself experience transference and that she was my practice as to not let myself look upon ANOTHER person as a mother figure. I told her I didn't want that, didn't need that and was not going to let it happen. Then 6 months elapsed, and it happened, but that's where I pull back. I told her I rely on the sessions, but I never told her I rely on HER. I've been seeing her about 2 years.

This one is very difficult to answer.

I'd say the baby formed an instant like and the teenager formed an instant dislike. (T is very like my mother and that's not just my imagination.) But the adult was very sceptical and didn't attach properly until the second year.

Since I do not experience any of the 'motherly' feelings, I am wondering if my issue is transference at all? I don't want her to be my mother. I don't want her to be anything but my therapist. I am not in love with her, either. I just have these weird sexual feelings when I think about her. Not about 'me' being with her, but about her in general. Does that make sense?

I am not wanting her to hug me or hold my hand in sessions. We have never 'touched' at all. Nothing. Ever. I am okay with that. I am not bi-sexual. So what gives?

If you did not have the motherly mother, and motherly can be sexual (tell me sucking on a breast is not sexual to an adult?) then it's going to transfer into something you can understand, at whatever age you are starting with trying to understand. It is all part of the unconscious and how you experience dreams, that's going to be similar to transference.

I had a dream about my therapist and a former group therapist (also a female) and the two of them were lesbians standing in the doorway of their two identical town houses as I walked down the sidewalk past them. That looks "sexual" but was actually not, in my subconscious shorthand they were my mother (who died when I was 3) and my stepmother, "identical" and very all the same sex, mother/daughter, need-to-look-here at "mothers"/pair.

I had my mothers merged; I wanted a/my mother so badly when my father remarried that I just lumped them together psychologically. Until I was 50+ I could not call my stepmother, "stepmother", she was "Mom" and my poor, dead mother was my "biological mother".

I had dreams for 2-3 years, several almost every night, where there were "pairs" of things; one night it was the lesbian therapists standing in for my two mothers, another night it was wedding dresses, my mother's 1940 wedding dress (I had at the time) getting "spoiled" after I tried it on for fit and came back for a second fitting.

In another dream, my father was remarrying my stepmother, a second time (1955), and the entire dream was in sepia colors, just like the photos I have of my parents 1940 marriage (now that was freaky!) and my uncle, my father's brother was my father's best man in the 1940's wedding (not sure who was in the 1955 one?) and he was in the dream, organizing the second wedding, etc.

I think transference is very much like that; our head does a "conscious" story, just like day dreaming? One thinks sexual thoughts of one's T symbolically of something else (or could be sexual) just like one would dream a story with T in it? If you don't work much with your dreams, don't remember them or want to work with them, the subconscious has to figure out other ways out and your "imagination" and the stories/thoughts you have while awake can be like that.

Perna: great analysis of the lesbian therapists dream! The brain is so cool sometimes. As for the original question concerning how long...mine was 5 session before I got really hot for her and then a whole year before I identified the mother transference. My mother would never accept me as a sexual being. My T does. She knows I am in love with her and I want her. She won't act on it but she accepts it because she accepts me as a sexual being! It is a breath of fresh air!

So part 2 of question: which comes first? The erotic component or the mother component?
AND, when I realized the mother transference part, after around a year, my T and I talked about it, then she looked down--usually we make eye contact--LOOKED DOWN and asked me "Would you sleep with your mother?" And she meant in a sex way. I thought about it for a couple of seconds and answered in the affirmative.

What does any of this mean?

It means humans have needs and love takes many forms.