Maternal transference and unmet needs

When I look back and posts and emails to my brother, I've questioned our relationship since October. I read a lot about transference. Overall, I think she's too much like my mom so I just keep replaying my childhood in the room. But, she gives me enough (attunement/connection) that I keep going back. There are things she has said to me that have hurt and shown that she really doesn't understand transference. I'm constantly scared I'm going to make her mad and lose her and that is what has happened.

In May she suggested spacing my sessions because I told her I was feeling trapped - therapy was painful but I wanted to see her. I disagreed with spacing but she did it anyway. She mentioned referring that month so I started contacting other T's. One T said that with my background, my T. will end up validating one part of me (space sessions because I feel trapped) which will end up invalidating others (wanting to be close). I don't think my T. sees this. So, I told myself I would give the spacing thing a try and reevaluate in August. I found out a coworker is seeing her and I got very upset. I traced it to my mom but my T. got upset that I know even though we all share calendars. That was the great divide. I left that session knowing the end was coming and I was right. She says that therapy shouldn't be this intense and my brother feels that while it might be intense, the T. should keep it from being painful. I think if my T. would react differently, it wouldn't be so painful. This is where she's too much like my mom.

So, the termination was initiated by her but I've thought about it for months. Maybe it's best that she did it knowing I couldn't pull the plug.

Good questions. I believe my parenting was pretty troubled, especially my mother. Lot of emotional neglect and a lot of emptiness. Last year a female T who was very attuned to me seemed to unleash old longing. It was mixed in with very real adult attraction and feelings for her, so pretty muddy picture, but I do think I was responding from a place of deep unmet needs. This was a singular experience in my life. I was not able to work thru it, because we terminated and then things went very badly.

I find attachment theory quite interesting and helpful but I think ideas about how it manifests in therapy are pretty speculative. I also wonder how much of the intense attachment or dependence in therapy is induced by the process, out of proportion to the client's personal history or wounds. And also how healthy or prudent it is to reawaken such needs in an artificial quasi-parental relationship.

I've wondered this for a year now. I think I will be better off with a T who doesn't provoke the transference by being similar to my mom. I'm going to pick the opposite and see if it works.

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I'm sorry it went so badly for you BF. I wonder all the time if it's prudent or wise to reawaken these needs. I will say though that prior to this round of therapy, I was semi-aware of those needs and had a nasty habit of forming crazy attachments to people who were not strong enough and not properly positioned to help me. It was a kind of pathetic and humiliating little pattern. It was also puzzling because I really didn't get what was going on. I forced myself to grow up and stop doing it for a number of years but I was always looking and always hopeful that some new person I'd met would be my next magical mother figure. Now at least the need is channelled toward one person, it's not just out there attaching to any damn thing, and at least it's attached to someone who is pretty safe, who is paid good money to address it and who is willing to unpack it with me.

While this type of intense transference is quite common here, it does seem like quite a number of people on PC have said that they have good, close, helpful relationships with their T but have not invested the relationship with the magical intensity of parental and/or romantic love. I often wonder what separates these two groups.

I know that the therapeutic explanation is that the intensity of the transference is itself evidence of an early unmet need. But it's kind of circular reasoning: Your trauma has created the need and the need is evidence of trauma--whether you can remember or articulate the trauma or not.

Good topic. I've wondered the same thing. Aren't all parents faulty just for the fact that they are human beings? If we examine any parent, aren't we going to find something they weren't very good at? Can any parent be that "perfect"? I would think they answer would be, of course not!

I was raised by my Mother and Grandmother. Most of my life I really believed I had a Happy childhood. I felt loved by my parents and would put them in the 'good' category. They had their issues but were never outright abusive or mean to me (excluding the debatable topic of spanking- but that's another thread.)

That being said, my Mother has dealt with depression and bitterness her whole life. My Grandmother, while supporting us and helping to raise her Daughter's two kids, could also be very critical of her and made my Mother miserable at times. While they were both very affectionate with me and my brother, they only exchanged "I love you"s to each other on christmas and birthday cards. Their relationship was strained.

After dealing with my own relationship woes, I went into therapy for depression, anxiety, self-esteem issues and feeling of ambivalence. Turns out, I'm learning, that I've internalized the tensions between Mom and Grama and am coming to terms with the fact that there was some foundational lack of attunement in my childhood. I had to work through some disillusionment with my parents; realizing that although they loved me, there was some lack.

I have transference with my Therapist for a number of reasons but there is maternal stuff there. It's understandable. My Mom was depressed. I got what I needed to be social, basically functional, but I suffered some fearful attachment stuff. This is exacerbated by relationship fears and stress. Sometimes my Mom just can't be what I need.

As I learn more about myself, I'm learning to talk more to my Mom about her stuff and in turn learning more about My Grandmother's own stuff. It's making more sense to me and I have more ... room.. to see them as whole people.

So what about the idea that the best way to work through these issues is in a therapy relationship that brings them to the surface, where your core vulnerabilities are directly accessible? NOt saying I believe in this or not, but some theorists talk about it.

Yeah I can see how there is potential for it to be reparative. I felt some sense of this with my ex T, until things fell apart. And I have heard of people having some measure of progress with this. But have heard, and experienced myself, the other side of this (abandonment leading to deepening of the wounds). Sounds like you have good self awareness and yea better to have it channeled in a focused and hopefully safe way.

Hmmm, not sure, but maybe the extent of the deprivation in one's childhood. But also what about one's present life circumstances. All the focus is on childhood wounds, but if the adult has experienced a lot of loss in recent years, of their family and support network has shrunk, if they are suffering from depression or illness… maybe the attachment and neediness is more intense. Plus, if the T is doing things to provoke or even seduce the client into dependency or intense feelings, another factor. For me it was all of this.

This for me as well, except through my male marriage counselor, who is 12 years older than me. I've been seeing my individual T for about 4 years and MC for about 2, but it wasn't until I started having a mix of erotic and paternal transference for my MC about 9 months ago that I was able to make some realizations about my childhood. Same here with generally decent parents who didn't meet my emotional needs. I had anxiety and OCD as a kid, plus depression in my late teens, which my parents didn't understand and in some cases were critical of me for. Plus it felt like my mom didn't let me make mistakes, and if I did, she wouldn't let me live it down (from forgetting to turn in homework as a kid to getting a speeding ticket and later a DWI in my 20s--I'm late 30s now).

MC is very caring and empathic, which has made me realize I didn't really get that as a kid. He's told me he won't reject me or push me away no matter what I say/do, and he's stayed true to that (including telling him I love him, texting him at 3 a.m. a couple nights ago, etc.)--and yeah, that's his job, but he could very easily opt to refer H and I or tell me I'm not allowed to contact him outside of sessions. We had a bit of a falling out at one point, but got through that, and I think it's helped me understand more about myself and my needs (and what will and won't help me). There's definitely pain in transference (some of the more intense emotional pain I've felt in a long time, with old fears of abandonment coming out), but I think it's helping me understand myself better along with reasons I've had relationship (romantic and otherwise) issues in the past. And will ultimately be healing (at least I hope so...). But I think key to that is having a T (well, in this case a marriage counselor) who is comfortable with and experienced with transference.

I knew I had troubled and deficient parenting but like you therapy brought out the unmet needs in a way I would never have anticipated. My T was so attuned and present. However, I question whether the experience in therapy, given that's it's manufactured rather than organic, can be trusted to as an accurate gauge of my parenting.

Hi All - really interesting thread!

I am only new to the game and so don't think i fully understand the terminology of maternal transference and the implications for me in therapy and life.

I hope this doesn't upset people to share, but I am definitely someone who fits in the category of having a pretty great childhood with deeply devoted parents who did a great job of knowing and meeting my needs - close, affectionate, supportive. There wasn't any blatant neglect or abuse on their part. I simply was an extremely sensitive child who had a handful of difficult experiences that weren't ever acknowledged or talked about, which created needs that I managed myself, and struggled with internally and mostly blindly as a child

So I am realising in this process, that I wasn't entirely met, and therefore do struggle with things, some of which is caused by traumatic experience but also by unmet needs. Much of my struggle happened before the age of 15 and for various reasons I cut myself off from my parents, and very effectively hid my inner world of pain and confusion.

So I think if I had of given my parents the chance, they would of met these deeper needs - probably? Hopefully! But they wouldn't of had much of an idea that those needs were even there.

My T and I do talk a lot about my mother, and expectations on her to be like a mother, but to be honest I don't fully get this. Sometimes I do find myself wanting her to understand me, wanting care and gentleness from her, so all of that is motherly. Being held in mind is really critical to me and a big part of why I started therapy.

Not sure if any of that helps. all of that might read to some of you like I am too early in the process to really understand my own situation, ha! I'm OK to admit that, perhaps my upbringing wasn't as idyllic as I have long thought?

As an aside - when my T first mentioned a mother/child image I had a strongly negative reaction and almost asked her not to talk about it again, because it was alienating and a distraction. I didn't want to feel childish, and I didn't want her to be my mother. But as time wore on I got more open to this idea, realising I did have an 'inner child' with unmet needs, some of which I wanted to bring into the room. She's encouraged me to do this. So not sure if this counts as transference, or is a therapeutic tool for helping me reconnect with repressed emotions and to build trust with her as a T?

Yes and yes.

I'm the opposite, I had bad parents and it took me an extremely long time to develop a consistent attachment to my best T. My thinking is there was no base to go off of.