[Twinks]

Is all love transference?

If the love I feel for my T is just transference, then isn't all the love I feel for everyone else transference too?

Which means that the feeling of love is some psychological trick?

I have done all the talking.
He knows it all.

I am deeply disillusioned.

Twinks

[Fuzzybear]

Oh hon, I can't answer your question but I understand feeling disillusioned with therapy. It takes a special therapist to work well and helpfully with "transference".... especially if the client/patient is "vulnerable".....Please hang in there and I hope someone here is able to advise you......

(((((((((((( Twinks )))))))))))))

[Rapunzel]

No, not all love is transference. Transference is the feelings that are based on how you have related to others in the past. You will still have real feelings that are specific to current relationships, including your relationship with your T. Sometimes it can be tricky to sort out one from the other though. I think it is very important to acknowledge that you have feelings that are genuine and specific to the current relationship. It is invalidating to dismiss those as transference, and not accurate either. Some therapists are better than others at making that distinction.

Rap

Twinks. I hope someone that knows better may help here also...all I know is that I have asked my T if what I feel for her is all about past relationships, what is real then? she says that there will be real feelings in the room but only through the process and time and talking a whole lot will the real from the fantasy be revealed....she said even if we talk about this EVERY session for how ever it takes....I'm afraid this is as far as my being able to help goes...sorry.

What helped me in the past to distinguish the two is to think of someone I love in my personal life, say a bf, and all the stuff I know about him...what he likes to eat, how he drives, how he acts with kids/dogs/cats, what makes him laugh/sneeze/cry, how he talks to his parents/children, etc.

Then I tried to answer the same questions for my T. Well, heck. I have no clue...cuz I don't really KNOW him. I just had thoughts and feelings about him....but they came from within me...not from truly knowing him.

I hope that helps. I know how difficult this issue can be.

Em

good post... freewill

I think Freud (or some other psychodynamic theorist) thought that adult love was all based on transference. The notion being that we love our parents and then we seek out people later in life who remind us of our parents. I'm not so sure about that, however.

There is a book... I can't remember what it is called. I think it was by Deborah Lott. She was in group therapy and she started meeting with the ladies in the group after therapy for coffee. They started talking about their individual therapy experiences. She was a journalist and so she eventually wrote a book about women in therapy. About transference in particular.

Something she says (and to me, this makes a lot of sense) is that feelings of love for your therapist might be rooted in how they remind you of your parents... But it is also a response to the present encounter. I mean, therapists listen to your most intimate thoughts and feelings. They respond in a caring way. What right minded person wouldn't come to care about someone who responds in such a caring way to us?

I think that a big part of the difference is that we don't know the person outside therapy. With other people in our life we see them at their good times and their bad times. Relationships outside therapy are reciprocal. Our friends and partners care for us, and we care for them. Therapy (by its nature) isn't a reciprocal relationship, however. Therapy is all about us. The focus is on us. As such we don't know what is going on for the therapist and we aren't there for them. We might think we want to be... But that would mean the end of the therapy relationship.

Because we don't know much about them and their life outside therapy we often project things onto them... Because we don't know how well they get on with their partner or their kids or their friends we are likely to generalise from the therapy encounter to how they are all of the time. To think that they must listen to their husband and kids and friends the way they listen to us... But nobody could sustain that for such long periods of time... There is a reason why therapy encounters only go for an hour or so ;-)

I tend to think that my therapist must have perfect relationships. That he extends to his wife the same care he extends to me. I hope he does. But I guess he couldn't do that all the time or he wouldn't be okay in himself to be able to extend that degree of care to his clients. His taking a month off when his wife has a baby gets me thinking he must be perfect with his relationships too... I wonder whether it is his first child or whether it is about making sure the other kids get the care they need through the transition time... Or maybe he is planning on going off fishing ;-)

Maybe he isn't very good in his real world relationships because he expends all his energy caring for his patients...

I have no idea really... But it is fun to think of him as being perfect. To think of him as being omni-caring and I get the opportunity to internalise that selfobject. If I foster idealising transference then that might mean I'm narcissistic and not borderline (aka too ill for self psychology)

(joke)

lol

:-)

[okiedokie]

Hi,
Is it possible to project anxiety onto others? I have a copy of the attending psychiatrist's notes from my hospitalization years ago and in it he wrote "appears to project her anxiety onto others so it's not that she asks for Ativan so much as she looks like she needs it." He was referring to the covering weekend psychiatrist prescribing the Ativan and then him having to dc it on Monday when he returned.

What was that all about?!
Thanks,
Okie

</font><blockquote><div id="quote"><font class="small">Quote:</font>
emily4040 said:
What helped me in the past to distinguish the two is to think of someone I love in my personal life, say a bf, and all the stuff I know about him...what he likes to eat, how he drives, how he acts with kids/dogs/cats, what makes him laugh/sneeze/cry, how he talks to his parents/children, etc.

Then I tried to answer the same questions for my T. Well, heck. I have no clue...cuz I don't really KNOW him. I just had thoughts and feelings about him....but they came from within me...not from truly knowing him.

I hope that helps. I know how difficult this issue can be.

Em

</div></font></blockquote><font class="post">

If the feeings are coming from us then what do with them? If once we realise its not about the other person? why have them? If I have these feelings and want to believe they are about the other person? what good are they just being inside of me? or do they go away once we realise this?

[Twinks]

Thank you all for your insights.
I've been talking about all of these things for the last year with my T. I would advise others to look before you leap.
What I want is resolve,... whatever that is.
I hear people say that if you talk about the hard things in therapy, you will grow. I assumed growth was good. Silly me.
Is real growth constant emotional pain?
This is unhealthy. I want to be happy and free again.
Twinks

[Perna]

Twinks, remember that you're a very complex, unique organism! Nothing you think/feel/do is just one thing, neat and simple. But "love" isn't neat or simple either. What exactly do you mean by love? My therapist listened to me better and for longer than anyone else I have every know. Because of her quality of listening and skill as a therapist, I learned to listen to and see myself clearer and work in partnership with another person well to do it. I love her and a lot of my love has nothing at all to do with transference. But no one "out there" listens to one like that. My ideal of a listener, does not exist in reality! In some ways, what I "love," my idea about love does not exist either. There's no such thing as the all-good mother.

The difference between transference love and real love, I believe, is the part where you know the "other half" and still love. The parts where you can keep your feet on the ground and know exactly why you love someone, and it's a "real" reason that if you were to explain to a third party, they'd agree, that's "real" love and belongs to you to keep. If it makes you ashamed or causes you pain, that's probably not love, is probably a problem of transference or some other thought or emotional corner you've painted yourself into over the years. Unless it's an abusive mother/parent, "Love" shouldn't hurt. No adult love should hurt. But yes, we do hurt when we're grown and that's what therapy is all about, to learn where that comes from and how to make the hurt stop.

[Perna]

</font><blockquote><div id="quote"><font class="small">Quote:</font>
okiedokie said:
Hi,
Is it possible to project anxiety onto others? I have a copy of the attending psychiatrist's notes from my hospitalization years ago and in it he wrote "appears to project her anxiety onto others so it's not that she asks for Ativan so much as she looks like she needs it." He was referring to the covering weekend psychiatrist prescribing the Ativan and then him having to dc it on Monday when he returned.

</div></font></blockquote><font class="post">
Okie, thanks for sharing your interesting experience. I think it's possible to project any emotion. You know how you get "vibes" from people? That they like you or don't, that they are angry or unhappy, etc.? That's another person projecting their emotions. I was a wall flower and read a couple interesting books that talked about why wall flowers don't get asked to dance and it's because their own "attitude" says, "Don't ask me to dance." You know how when people don't talk and you get the idea they don't "approve" or are "angry" or some other way and it turns out they say they're just shy or don't know what to say? Well, I imagine you made the psychiatrists who saw you nervous/anxious in some way. You "felt" anxious to them and they had trouble containing it in themselves, it made them anxious too and they didn't know what to do about it so prescribed the Ativan. Some people can put others at ease and talk to them and get them talking, etc. but other people aren't good at that and don't know what to say and obviously your Ativan psychiatrist was one of those who didn't know what to say/how to "act" around someone like you and the only thing he could think of to do was prescribe. Psychiatrists/doctors are often good at that.

It's like that expression where people "throw money" at a problem, trying to make it go away because they don't know how to fix something or can't fix it fast enough to make themselves feel better so they give money thinking maybe someone else will be able to use it to fix the problem and they won't have to deal with it. Doctors do a "Here, try this!" approach sometimes when they don't have the time/interest/ability to work with a person or their problem. I'm glad you had the 2nd psychiatrist who wrote in your record and could see what was happening and make the effort ot help you rather than just throw Ativan at you.

[pegasus]

Twinks,

Transferance and love..............................Mmmmmmmmmmmmm....................I don't know about you but love was not a childhood feeling for me!

Transference is a feeling that comes through from the past and brought into the here-and-now, hurt and pain come to mind.

It could be that you are getting new feelings of 'TRUST' rather than love. That can be scary when that starts to happen but actually is a good sign.

Keep talking with your T about these feelings.

Take care

[okiedokie]

All good points. Thanks, Perna.