Maternal transference and unmet needs

I've been mulling this over in my head and wanting some feedback. I am curious about the source or the cause of intense maternal (or parental, whatever) transference or attachment in therapy.

In another thread I recently wrote something to the effect of "intense attachment to one's T is a surrogate for the early parental bond that the client missed out on." It made sense to me when I wrote it, as though it was a simple factual observation. But I realize that this is just my assumption. I assume that the painful, practically insatiable yearning for parental love from one's T necessarily has it's roots in inadequate parenting.

So then I wondered if people who feel that they have had good or "good enough" parenting develop really intense maternal transference in their therapeutic relationships. How often do people who feel that they have had good enough parenting even seek out or end up in any kind of longer term, intense therapy anyway? Is there an element of reverse causality at play? To wit: can anybody's parenting really withstand the scrutiny of intense psychotherapy and still appear to have been good enough?

We don't hear a lot on this forum from people who say they had pretty good parents. What is the therapeutic attachment like for people who feel that most of their emotional needs were met as children?

Whatever kind of parents you had, do you feel that your unmet childhood needs have manifested in your attachment to your T? Have you formed that kind of intense parental attachment to people other than T (& other than your parents!)? How do you feel about having that attachment? If you've worked through it and felt it's intensity lessen, did you specifically notice that some unmet need had been fulfilled?

I'm so curious about your thoughts!

I'll post about my experience later on.

Hmm. Good questions. I didn't have good parents, so I can't really answer them, but these make me curious.

I can't answer the parts about having had good enough parents. Mine were fine in the sense that they met my basic needs for food and shelter. They were pretty misattuned to me, though, and my mother tended to solve problems through verbally lashing out and sometimes through hitting.

I can say that I've formed intense maternal transferences with several different people in my life, mostly teachers and therapists. For the longest time, I never said anything about my feelings to anyone, because I was so ashamed of them. I did, however, do various attention-seeking things - mostly trying to shine in terms of achievement, because that's the only way I knew to seek and receive praise.

I had a horrifically difficult maternal transference with my previous therapist, and it was never resolved. I hated myself for feeling so out of control in the relationship - feeling completely overwhelmed with neediness and the like. She terminated me about 9 months ago.

Since then, I've worked with another therapist, and feel like I'm finally starting to resolve some of those issues. Or maybe it's because the maternal transference has only developed in a limited way with my current therapist. She has definitely met some of my needs - for reassurance, for attunement, for empathic understanding. She made herself human from the outset, and although there have been times when I've wanted her to do/be more than she actually can be, most of the time, I feel happy with our relationship as it is (therapist/client). It's not painful at all, really, which had been my almost constant experience with my last therapist.

I'm curious to hear your thoughts/experience.

I have had attachment and maternal transference (of varying kinds) with both of my T's, and this followed directly on having similar types of feelings about a whole string of females in my life, going right back to at least first grade. A positive outcome of therapy has been that as I've worked through some of that stuff, I've seen myself having much easier relationships with certain female mentor figure types.

I consider that my relationship with my dad has been less problematic overall (although it definitely had its issues) and correspondingly I've never had quite the same issues with older men in my life as I have had with women (although I have had some transference in relationships with male romantic partners).

On the whole I think if you engage in psychodynamic kinds of therapy you are likely to discover some transference, but if your relationships with your parents are not too problematic, the transference might not be so dramatic. For example, finding yourself wanting to impress your T really isn't on the same level of intensity as expecting your therapist to physically assault you. Similarly, if your unmet need is "I was never shown the slightest bit of love at all" it's going to come through at a different level of emotion than if it's "this one particular part of my personality was never quite appreciated."

I have "adopted" teachers as my mother. I am trying not to be too attached to T. I do this by constantly reminding myself how I pay by the minute. I'm probably short changing my own therapy, but it's worth it to avoid the pain!

It also helps that my T coldly told me my time was up in the midst of an intense flashback. I stumbled to my car and could barely drive home. So, I will never see her as maternal after that.

I like her and she has helped me. But her caring ends when the time is up.

I have so many needs, and I ache for a mom. It's embarrassing.

Really good questions. I'd love to read some research on this association between attachment and unmet/met needs. Since perfection in parenting is an illusion, I do wonder if the intensity of the therapeutic relationship has the potential to pull previously unrecognized unmet needs to the surface, and so manifest as transference. I'm sure that temperment also plays a role, and what would elicit transference in one person, maybe wouldn't be of sufficient intensity for another.

But I also think there isn't enough attention paid to mixed parenting states, even in the face of tremendous abuse. Children, in particular, are often very capable of compartmentalizing their experiences. When abuse happens at very young ages--like 6 months to 3 years--it can prevent children from developing the capacity to merge feeling states and perceptions, resulting in personality disorders like BPD. But children who get past those ages before significant abuse happens have usually developed the flexibility to be able to merge feeling states or not, depending upon circumstances. So the parent who abuses, can also be accepted as the same parent who nurtures.

I know for me, my parents were abusive. There was also alcoholism during a large number of years of childhood. But the difference was that while there wasn't enough nurturing during the earliest years, there probably wasn't abuse (instances of inappropriately severe punishments, but not a sustained pattern of abuse). So I was able to develop that flexibility of perception. My mother, however, was cold and angry when she wasn't abusive. My father was nurturing and soft-spoken when he wasn't abusive. So my child's brain was able to separate my father's nurturing presence from his abusive presence and allow them to co-exist. I could benefit from his nurturing, despite the abuse.

So while there were many unmet needs brought to therapy, I also brought a "hopeful" transference--the capacity to trust and attach and not be beset with fears of abandonment. My transference, despite occasional fears, largely derived from the healthier parts of myself. I'm sure it's why I preferred a male T. I think the needs that can be healed through transference are largely those not met in childhood; but the capacity to attach probably stems from those needs that were met in childhood, whether such met needs are conscious or not. Those who have tremendous difficulties with capacity for attachment, and who experience the push/pull issues of trust and abandonment, developmentally, probably have unmet needs from an earlier age and little nurturing--or less ability to recognize what nurturing there may have been--to bring to the therapy relationship.

I don't consider my childhood needs unmet, but they weren't idyllic (whose is?). I had food, a home, education. It isn't the physical aspect of my childhood but more the emotional needs I don't feel I received - particularly from my mother. My family (and mother especially) are exceptionally talented at insults regarding weight and making one feel unwanted or "unloved".

I guess the maternal transference I feel for my T is because she's warm and kind to me, and she listens. She's given me advice about school, exams and other things. She understands my anorexia and depression and she's capable of helping me through my recovery without judgement; the exact opposite of my mother. I guess what I really want from T is her to cuddle me and kiss me on the forehead ... affection. My mother was never good at showing me that.

Okay, so I think I belong to this minority as I have really great parents... Of course they've made some mistakes in parenting (who haven't) but I've always felt loved and my emotional needs were met...
To my first T, I haven't been attached at all (but based on my posts it could be deduced that it was more due to bad fit than not needing the attachment).
To my consulting T I am still not very attached (I like her, and it would be a pity if suddenly we had to terminate but probably more because I will have to again look for another T) - however, we had only 2 sessions till now... I think I might become very attached to her, she's warm, at the very similar age as my parents and sometimes I think it would be cool to sleep on her knees (I would never ever do this of course!). Thus, after some more sessions I hope I will be able to answer your question better...

I guess I will need a long term intense therapy even as I have cool parents but of course I might be an exception Maybe the reason is that even while having great "parenting" I have never shared my secrets with my parents and we rather avoid difficult topics, maybe if I had their support all the time, I would not need the therapy - I guess I will never know that but it was my decision to not ask them for the support...

I had "good enough" parents, certainly. They made mistakes, because they were human, but my childhood was basically fine. But I still have very strong parental transference with my T, and I've had the same kind of transference with a couple of male teachers in my past. (Never had specifically maternal transference, though, and I am not sure how that would manifest for me.)

I might have been lacking something I might have wanted as a kid, but that's not just my parents' fault. I think I was an odd, not very pleasant child.

My grandmother was and is a great mother to my mom. My mom has always suffered from depression and relationship issues so she's been in and out of therapy, both long term and short. She was always an average client, just there to talk and receive advice and guidance. She liked her therapists, but never idealized them.

However........My mother was horrible. She had me fairly young and has zero maternal instincts or nurturing qualities. So my childhood with her sucks. Hardly any bonding, no "I love you's" (that i could recall), abandonment, verbal and physical abuse, rejection, and all from a very young age. I have experienced extreme maternal transference with my current Therapist.

I think maternal transference is highly unlikely to happen if a person has genuinely good parents.
A cold unloving mother (such as mine) leaves a gap, a painful lonely ache that hurts. Badly.
I can remember even as an adult a unbearable yearning for a hug, a warm cuddle from a mum (or dad) who loved me, unconditionally. I've never got one.

Nature hates a vacuum.

So if someone, a T or doctor, teacher, or friend comes along and appears to truly care, it is easy to become quickly attached.

As a child I went into hospital for 2 weeks I was 10.
The other patients were friendly. The nurses were kind. Kind. One I remember sat on my bed and held my hand as she listened to me.
This was new to me, I'd never known kindness, and someone listening to me. Yes listening to me! That person who at 'home' was so unspecial that she was not allowed to speak. Mother told me that my voice "Grated on her nerves" and she couldn't bear to listen to my "Silly twaddle'. Fearful of irritating mother I'd become silent and withdrawn trying my best to be invisible.

In hospital for the first time it felt like existed, I liked it.

Then one day nurse came and said I was ready to go home. Tears came, silent but unstoppable.
I overheard one nurse say to another "Why is she crying?" The nurse relied that "Oh shes excited to be going home"
NO. I didn't want to go home! I wanted to stay in hospital with all the kind people and my new friends!
I look back and think I had become institutionalised very quickly. I liked the security, the company, the nurses. I didn't want to go back to mother, father, and the outside world.
A unloved neglected child (or adult) will look for love and attention and if they think they've found it its like finding a oasis in a desert.

My parents were workaholics, abusive, cold distant and I was never shown any love or nurturing.
I have three ts, first one I fell in love with purely because she was so kind to me and I wasn't used to being listened to or cared for, next t not so much transference but she was younger. Third t, absolutely and she encouraged these feelings of transference by hugging me all the time. Encouraging reliance on her but the strange thing is I don't feel it as much for her because it feels false.

My tutor(who is a t) brought this up in class last week. Nobody else had feelings for their t so I stayed back after class to talk about it. She was so great and asked if I had feelings for her and we are hopefully going to work through this painful feelings!

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monalisasmile
Sounds like you have a great tutor. I've never seen a therapist, I think one would have helped me a lot when I was younger.

Difficult for people to understand that a kid can (seem) to have a great lifestyle, nice home, good school, designer clothes everything they want materially, and yet, have absolutely. NOTHING.

Marmaduke, she is a great tutor. She said she sees the child in me that just wants to be loved.
Material things mean nothing if you don't have love. I see my friends who were loved by their parents and they are so much different. They are confident, full of self esteem, happy and don't look to be liked or to please others

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I wonder this too...I've told my T that maybe my upbringing could've been better but I'm having a hard time pinpointing what happened. I have memory issues. I know of some of what happened to me, but can't remember the context. My T seems to believe my needs we're not met in childhood and I have a hard time being with my needs. That I didn't feel cared about or important. It makes my stomach hurt just typing this up /:

I want to believe my problems stem from something outside of me, but most of me feels I'm just messed up because of who I am. And also, that everyone has this pain in some way but I magnify it and make it a big deal. I don't know if I'm making sense or not, but this is how my mind works.

Thank you so much for your insights.

I guess I ask this because I'm really having a lot of trouble figuring out what kind of parenting I had. Going back pretty far (like maybe age 10) I've had maternal attachments to adult women (and a few men too) that were anywhere from quite strong to absolutely overwhelming. I've always been really ashamed of these feelings because I couldn't understand or cope with their intensity. As I got older, I thought of them as crushes but they were very different from the crushes I had on people my own age. I wouldn't say that I experienced a deep yearning for the attention and affection of someone my own age. I wanted them to like me, I wanted to hang out with them, I wanted to have sex with them but I didn't just long for their attention and love -- and as disappointed as I was if they didn't like me back, I usually moved on pretty fast. The maternal attachments OTOH were all-consuming and felt unbearable.

The maternal attachments sometimes also felt sexual which also felt very shameful to me. I remember being so overwhelmed by my shame about my feelings for my guidance counsellor (I saw her for weekly therapy) that I couldn't write them in my regular journal. I had to write them on random sheets of paper and then shred them and flush them or burn them. (I even thought about eating them but I never actually did that--lucky cause I can be pretty long-winded so that's a lot of paper!) I even felt like she was in my head and could read my thoughts at all times so I'd try to control my thoughts to block her out. It was hellish.

I think she was inappropriate with me (but not sexually) and encouraged that dependence until me and my SI and my adolescent craziness became too much for her and without warning she called my parents in for a meeting and told them about the SI (which they had been pretending not to see) and some other stuff I'd told her. The shame was unmanageable. I went and overdosed hoping never to have to see any of them again but luckily I didn't take that much and mostly just threw up and had stomach pains.

Twenty-some years later I have pretty intense maternal transference with my T and though I find it very uncomfortable and unpleasant at times, it's not as bad as it was with my guidance counsellor. It also doesn't seem to be sexual, which is a big relief.

But my parents... My parents weren't so bad. And that part is puzzling to me. They more than provided for my physical needs. They loved me, they spent time with me, they read me bedtime stories. I felt like my mother truly enjoyed my company most of the time. There was no sexual abuse, no physical abuse (apart from the rare spanking which was considered okay at the time) and while they sometimes said mean things, I don't know if I would call it emotional abuse.

But there was a kind of emotional neglect. I wasn't allowed to have certain feelings. When I disappointed them (especially my mom, my dad was often kind of aloof) it was like I really just sucked. And when I became increasingly mentally ill and depressed and self-injuring in my teens, they kind of stopped taking care of me. They didn't kick me out or stop providing for me, they still said they loved me, they tried sometimes to help me but I always felt alone. They sometimes had the impulse to try to understand what I was going through but more often they ignored me or shamed me for cutting and not doing well. Basically, they tended to ignore anything that was threatening, worrisome, unpleasant or uncomfortable about me. So I felt like they didn't really know me.

I guess I always craved the kind of love that didn't stop if I wasn't perfect. And maybe that's what the intense attachments are about. I'm not sure.

It sounds like you felt their love was conditional? Conditional on you not being who you really are? That your feelings weren't acceptable? To feel like the people who you depend on for life don't approve of who you are is massive. It is isolating and it is shaming. It strikes at your very core. That kind of separation is hugely damaging and can definitely affect your attachment style.

That emotional neglect can cause what you are describing, especially if, like Asiablue said, you felt like their love and attention were conditional. They rejected pieces of who you were and that caused you to look for others who would accept you completely.

I have always insisted that I had a perfect childhood (denial). With the T I am working with at the moment I have accepted or in the process of accepting that my emotional needs we're not met as a child and they still aren't by my parents and my childhood wasn't perfect at all.

What I am finding with therapy at the moment is that when I get my uni marks through or I achieve something, I really want to tell my T, just like you would to your parents if they were interested.

I am finding that my T is really helping when I am struggling with anything, we sit and chat about it and find a healthy solution for example I was saying I was thinking of staying up all night to finish my uni assignment, she looked really concerned and said that she could imagine me being completely worn out and not able to function for a good few days after and she really didn't want me to go down that route as she was concerned for my well being, it was the way she said it and the look of concern on her face that is so different from what I have ever experienced before.

Now if I had told my mum that, she just would said of oh and changed the subject. No concern no nothing.

This is still new ground for me so finding it all a little strange.

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For a time in my life, and it ended too quickly, I had a mother figure who loved me even though I wasn't perfect.

My T helped me to realize this and to try to see myself the way this person saw me.

I can't believe there are people out there with parents who love all of them.

Whenever I see someone post to Facebook his or her love of an adult child, say for a birthday or something, I feel intensely sad. No one will every thank the world, and proudly boast, about the day that I entered into their lives.

It's so hard to live off of the scraps of affection I've been able to cull from teachers and mentors. And I'm not alone in living off of scraps. But it still hurts.

Channelling my T for a moment to say there is no such thing as a "not very pleasant child". There are just kids who have different emotional needs that some adults may be better equipped to fulfill than others.

I had an emotionally abusive father and my therapist is male and SO gentle that the transference is incredibly intense for me--to the point of being painful. The longing to be with him coupled with the knowledge that I'll never have a relationship with him outside our sessions literally hurts my heart. I don't know whether I should stop seeing him or not--or if I do if that will just give me a horrible sense of losing out on a caring paternal figure all over again? Would that traumatize me even further?

ramonajones, what if you asked your T that question?

Ramonajones, my T. and I are terminating right now because of the intense transference. My brother is also a psychologist and says it should not be that painful.

I thought I had a decent childhood. My parents loved me, provided for me, etc. but we never really talked about feelings, hugged, or were affectionate with each other. I never questioned it. I completely attached to my first grade teacher, my high school English teacher and a camp counselor but never realized it was because I was missing something.

My mom died in May 2014 after abusing alcohol/prescription pain pills for 15-20 years. I started seeing my T. while she was sick and all of these crazy feelings came up. I was very confident, driven, smart, extroverted, etc. but I all of a sudden had feelings I had never had before. I felt all these intense needs from my T. yet she's around my age. I felt crazy. During the past year, I've realized I also had emotional neglect. I never learned how to express feelings, have abandonment fears and usually push people away or have a hard time accepting affection/feeling from others. If you had asked me 2 years ago how my childhood was, I would have said fine. The maternal transference made me realize A LOT.

I'm hoping my next T. will be able to help me understand it more. So, in short, I thought I had good parents but the transference actually made me realize how much they didn't meet my emotional needs.

Soccer Mom, the way you describe coming to understand your unmet emotional needs through experiencing overwhelming transference is very similar to my experience. I have also had to go back and reconsider a childhood that really did not seem so bad in light of this powerful neediness I was experiencing. It's been quite dizzying really.

How/why did you decide to terminate with your T? Do you think you would be able to work though some of these feelings within your current therapeutic relationship? Is it too uncomfortable to even try? Or is your T not willing to go there with you?

I have noticed, in the year or more since I started this thread originally, that while I still feel needy and I still find the neediness quite uncomfortable, I do not feel quite as desperate about it as I used to. I feel slightly more confident that T will see this through with me (though I still feel like I'm tempting fate by writing those words) and that I might some day emerge okay.

Another thing that has happened for me is that I have limited my intense maternal transference to my T. Which is advantageous because it means that it's not oozing out into other relationships in inappropriate or potentially embarrassing ways. My T seems capable of not withering under the intensity of it, doesn't shame me for it and seems not completely surprised or overwhelmed by it. So in that way it's safer than having the need manifest with people who are not equipped or paid to deal with it and who do not have the same responsibility to keep their own issues under control.

That said, I do still go to great lengths to keep a lid on it so as not to overwhelm or alienate her. Also, I suppose I'm trying to maintain some kind of dignity in all this. So there's really no telling what would happen if I just went balls out needy little monster on her. But I won't do it because it's not my style.