[GenCat]

So I recently learned this is very possible and most likely to happen if you already have sexual or maternal transference toward your T or Pdoc to have the same feelings about someone else in your life you are close to but there are boundaries that stop you from acting on your feelings. How many of you have felt transference for others in your life besides your T or Pdoc?

[HealingTimes]

I have. I felt transference towards any older female that was remotely kind to me. Mainly college lecturers. Strangely it didn't start until I was in my late 20's. but I guess that's because I was numbing myself to my dysfunctional past before that.

[RTerroni]

Yes I have felt a lot of transference with former teachers of mine (in both High School and College).

[withoutthelove_]

I never realised it was transference until I began therapy. But I always wanted close personal relationships with my high school teachers (managed to maintain contact with two) and especially right now, there's definitely a hint of maternal transference towards my current college English teacher.
Strangely, it's always been directed at female English teachers. The two from high school are in their late 20's-early 30's, but yet it's still a maternal/sibling sort of transfer, if that makes sense? My current English teacher is well into her 50's, which links to the maternal transfer in that my mother herself is in her 50's, etc.

Weird, huh? How we can recognise it AFTER we experience it in therapy. I always just thought I was a total weirdo.

[GenCat]

I have always felt transference with old females, around 40s and 50s. Some where high school teachers, college professors, and other woman I've came in contact with. They all are very successful and independent women. Guess I just look up to them and want to be like them when i get their age.

[brillskep]

My view on transference is that it's not therapy-related, it's something which happens in any and every relationship. Transference is when, instead of reacting (feelings, thoughts, behaviors) to the other person in a present-focused, contactful way, you react to them as if they were someone from your past or someone you idealize or demonize (could be a fantasy, anything but the real person). Holding this view and being trained this way, I pay attention to my transference with everyone. In my view, it's bound to happen in and outside therapy. I have a particularly strong transference with someone who is not and could never be my therapist. To be honest, that transference feels stronger than transference with my therapist, because therapy gives the opportunity to process strong feelings, even transferrential ones. Other types of relationships do not offer such advantage.