Able To Resolve Transference Within Therapy?

When I developed feelings for my therapist it was one of the most painful and confusing experiences of my life. I had never experienced feelings that were so painful and intense and it scared me to death. I confided in my therapist and acknowledged that I had what felt like romantic feelings for him but he didn't see it as an issue to resolve. I researched the subject of romantic feelings/transference within a therapy relationship on my own to find answers as to what was happening to me. I wondered, what do you do if the feelings don't dissipate over time and what if the therapist seems uninterested in resolving or ending the feelings/transference? What if the therapist also experiences feelings toward the client?

My questions to anyone who wants to respond to this are-

Was your therapist informative and/or helpful (in that they seem open to an honest and open discussion) if you experienced feelings toward him/her-whether the feelings were positive, negative, romantic, happy, sad, angry-whatever the feelings?

Were you able to ever resolve/work through these feelings with the same therapist to the point that you felt the feelings were not interfering with your healing process and not causing you to feel pain or anxiety or confusion?

The answer to these questions for me is no, it has been a horrible process for many reasons. But I wondered if other people feel that they have had a successful resolution with the same therapist or that things ended in a neutral or better place than from where things were in the beginning. Thank you for reading.

I think if the T expresses feelings towards the client that's massively unethical and the client should stop seeing the T.

If my T ever reciprocated my feelings for him it would complicate my life and turn it upside down. As much as I want him to feel for me the way I feel for him I know it would be the worst thing ever. When I get a glimpse of him outside of therapy my heart drops.....I hate how I feel....so painful.

Thank you for your responses. That is one of the things that happened in my case, a therapist describing their feelings for me and I did leave. But it was, as I wrote, so painful that it nearly destroyed me. The back and forth of the therapist and how they acted with me-one day loving, the next day distant and cold.

One of the things that I have been struggling with is a sense of failure. I feel like I should have been able to work through my feelings and I just wasn't able to. I battle with the feeling that other people would have managed better than I. I feel like a loser.

You are not a loser. You were smart to leave. That is hard when you have such strong feelings and want them to care about you too. To walk away from that because you know it isn't healthy takes courage.

The therapist should be your guide and manager thru the process, not a jerk-off. Honestly I'm beginning to wonder how many have worked these things out themselves. These conversations are prone to more misunderstandings than the usual conversation in t. But I would say I'm an example of where it has been worked out satisfactorily. And we are now using the positive relationship to help me make real changes in my life.

Sorry to hear that you've had such a hard time with this. I've also had a horrible time in this area and I feel for you.

The therapist that I had been with would have been very open at discussing my feelings. Unfortunately, I was forced to terminate with her before we were able to have that discussion because our relationship was deemed "unethical." The new therapist I went to tried to get me to talk about my feelings for old t (which still exist) but it was a horrible experience. i felt like I was being judged. She was also very vocal about her disapproval of my old t, which made things even more uncomfortable. So in that sense, she was not helpful in helping me resolve those feelings. I still have the feelings and it's even worse now because I feel like i can't talk to her about it.

Thank you Nerak67-I really appreciate your kind words. I try to remind myself that it was smart to leave but that inner critic, the self-doubt and self-blame, starts to kick in and I have a hard time convincing myself. Your words truly mean a lot to me.

Hello hankster-Thank you for your response-it is exactly what I have wondered. How many people have been left to their own devices to figure out what happened in the therapy relationship? It is heartening to hear that you have a helpful therapist. I'm glad that is working out for you.

Hello Miswimmy1-I am so sorry to hear that you have also had to deal with this painful situation. And, I am sorry to hear that the new therapist was also unhelpful. It is very puzzling (and upsetting) to me why it is that such an important and painful aspect of therapy, for may clients, is often handled so poorly by many therapists. You don't have to say but who deemed the therapy as unethical with the therapist that you have feelings for? Was it the therapist and did they even try to talk to you about such a huge decision-ending the therapy-before doing so? Thank you for your response and I wish you all the best.

Loser? Hardly--you were incredibly smart and brave to take care of yourself by leaving. You didn't fail to resolve the feelings--he failed by not resolving his counter transference in an appropriate and ethical way for your benefit. The fact that he would swing from warm to distant with you shows he wasn't in control of himself and would not have been able to help you.

From what I understand, maintaining neutrality through a romantic transference can be appropriate. It serves to not intensify it, but also not leave the client feeling rejected. To respond in kind is, of course, inapropriate and unethical. For the T to terminate is a judgement call; I think there are times when that action can be appropriate, but not all times. A really secure and skillful T should have created a space in which any feelings, including romantic ones, can be explored, while not being indulged.

Other types of transference, even when counter transference is involved, can also be resolved: but it takes a skillful and stable T and a client who is willing to withstand the intense emotions involved. In the case of a parental transference and counter transference, for myself, I can say it's not easy, but it was ultimately the most beneficial part of therapy.

With Madame T, I had excellent transference and lousy resolution.
Very little transference with Mr T.

Hello feralkittymom-Thank you so much for your words. I felt like I was losing my mind with his personality swings because he would typically insist that I was imagining the changes-even though they were so blatant-and that my imagination came from the abuse in my past, not what he was doing. And then sometimes he would admit that he was acting differently around me because he was struggling with being in a therapy relationship with me and that we weren't together as a couple. Other times he would forget that he had made this admission. I kept saying to myself-a mental health professional would never act this way-it MUST be that I am losing my mind. I am clearly still trying to work through this. I appreciate your response. I am glad that you found a skillful and stable therapist to be helpful for you. I wish you all the best.

Hello CantExplain-Thank you for your response. It sounds like you have had mixed results. If you are in therapy now I hope you are having a helpful experience.

I'm sorry to hear about your negative experiences in this area.

For me, it has been mixed. I told my T of my feelings for her, and she has taken it very well. She has been very willing to discuss things with me. I have not yet told her of some negative transference reactions, so we will see how that goes eventually, but I imagine she will also handle that well. I will say that my T is not informative about transference, or at least hasn't really tried to explain the "why's." But maybe that's because it's very apparent in my situation.

In terms of a resolution, I don't think that will ever happen until I leave her, as distressing as it is. The experience has been very painful for me, but I think it will also be the most beneficial aspect of my therapy in the long-run.

Hello purplemystery-I want to thank you for responding to me. I would like to respond back to you intelligently but unfortunately I am in a really bad place right now. I just wanted you to know that I appreciate that you took the time to respond and I wish you all the best in your therapy. Take care.

Ugh! This doesn't leave me feeling very hopeful about resolving my transference for p-doc. But I guess the only way to know is to try...right? Will bring it up with new T Friday...

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Hi purplemystery-Thank you again for your response and for sharing your experience with this. Although your therapist hasn't been informative on the subject and you do experience pain it sounds like your therapist has helped to make things tolerable and-as you wrote-might end up being the most beneficial aspect of the therapy. I wish you all the best and hope that you continue to have a healing experience in therapy.

Hi MELISSSAD81-Thank you for responding. I hope you will return and let us know how things went-did you tell the therapist about what you were thinking and feeling? I certainly hope that it was helpful in some way. Take care.

I was fairly new to therapy three years ago. I had a severe intimacy problem with my husband and he was ready to end our long-term marriage. I had seen a few therapists in the past, but never connected and ended the relationships quickly. Then I met my T. I was very comfortable with him, and felt I could tell him anything and learned so much from him. The fix with my husband came quickly, and our marriage has never been better. Now, I have to deal with my attachment to my therapist. It's been a rollercoaster of feelings! Initially I really liked him, then I loved him, then I read up on everything out there and got over the love thing, and now I am just attached! It's really annoying because I don't want to spend this insane amount of money. I also grapple with this whole T/Client relationship thing. It's frustrating to want to talk to T (like he's a friend), but I can't because it's outside the boundaries if we are not in session. It's not a friendship I tell myself, he's like a doctor, I would not call my OBGYN when I thought of something funny?

So, in answer to your questions, did my therapist seem uninterested in helping me with my feelings toward him? Yes, kind of. I had so many discussions typed up and ready to go when I went into his office, but could never pull them out. So, I just said what I was feeling. I did not tell him I was in love with him, just suffered through that one on my own. But, I did confront him with my attachment/dependency on him and he explained this was due to my Mother's disassociation with me when I was younger. Guess I am going after something I never got in the past. This was helpful, but I wanted to get help eradicating this extremely annoying fixation on him. This is where he was not helpful! He would not go into full detail. I often wonder, is it because this is part of my therapy (torture if you ask me) or is it because I am a good paying client?

Actually crimson blues I did talk to my new T about the transference with old pdoc and I found having a better understanding of where it is coming from was really helpful in diminishing those feelings. It didn't get rid of them but definitely made it more manageable.

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My T kind of missed the first few times I brought up my attachment to her. Finally I just told her that we couldn't go any further until she at least acknowledged my feelings. She actually took the time to understand me and why it felt "wrong" to me (she's younger than me). When the conversation was over she told me that it would be one of those issue that we will have to keep addressing. I wasn't looking for a solution or explanation. I just didnt want to be ashamed of my feelings. I'm still just as attached to her (if not more), but at least I don't feel ashamed or like I have a secret anymore. I don't know if I will ever not feel attached to her, but I figure that it doesn't matter atm since it's helping me open up and trust her.

My T is very open to discussing transference.....I find it very difficult. But I have all kinds of conflicting feelings going on regarding my T. I have found it easier to talk about my anger than the attachment, although still very difficult to be so angry at my T. He strongly encourages me to talk about it but I find it incredibly embarrassing, and sometimes I worry that I will misplace my trust in him and then he will pull the rug out from under me.

I think transference is very very challenging to resolve and I'm hoping and praying it doesn't go on too much longer. I try my best to bring it into the therapy room to talk about it and work through it. I'm just hoping it isn't there still when it comes time for me to leave.....

My pdoc who I;ve had feelings for responded that it's best not to dig deep into the issue unless you want something to change in the relationship - like it's too painful to talk anymore. Even though I didn't say it was him directly, I'm sure he knows it is. I didn't let on about the amount of distress I sometimes feel. Sometimes it's minimal, once in a while it is tough and I obsess. But as many others have said, unfortunately if feelings were to become so unbearable, I would probably have find a new doctor. I don't think I'd ever take the initiative though, it would be too hard for me. I don't think this is very helpful, but I understand how you feel.

I hope that my next Therapist is able to work through any transference issues with me and not be like my last Therapist who just reports me to her supervisor and decides that she wants to stop seeing me.

My shrink told me about a colleague of his not in our town. He realized he had countertransference when his patient announced her transference. He referred her out instead of making a blunder of trying to work it out. He was trying to be very ethical, but instead he got slapped with a law suit because he had refused to treat her. Of course he did the right thing, but it cost him big bucks in legal payments to deal with it. It is a delicate issue for all involved. Sometimes it's better to try to work it out. Sometimes not. Really depends.

I wonder if Ts can get legal insurance?

Yes, they usually buy their own professional liability insurance - especially if they are private practice.

Hello always_wondering-

Thank you for your response and for sharing your experiences. I agree with you-it is torture as far as I'm concerned. I did the same thing as you, I read everything I could find on the subject of the client/therapist relationship-although I wasn't able to eliminate my loving feelings for the therapist. From everything that I have come to understand about transference in therapy relationships I believe that the therapist's response, or lack thereof, differs depending on the therapist. In some cases it might be that they don't have enough knowledge to be able to be helpful. It may be that they believe that for the therapy to be truly effective it's helpful for the client to feel attached to them. It may be that they enjoy the feelings connected to knowing that people feel so attached or dependent on them. It may be that a therapist is experiencing feelings of attachment toward the client. It may be all or some of these things. It's nearly impossible to know because the answers depend on each therapist being open about their true beliefs and feelings on the subject of feelings/transference in therapy. All I know is that everything I learned about this subject I learned on my own, outside of therapy and while spending a great deal of time thinking there was something drastically wrong with me.

I wish you all the best.