miss my t

Hi Im a newbie

Whenever I have a male psychotherapist (who is under about 45 yrs old) I become very attracted to him.
Is this ok?

Pretty eyes.

yes it is okay. fairly common even. i'm using this funny computer at the moment and it won't let me copy-paste... but if you can get hold of this book by Deborah Lott 'In session' then that could help you out a lot. I haven't read it myself but I really have heard people rave about it. She talks about how transference feelings arise and some possible counter-transference responses from therapists and the like. People said they really felt helped by it because they realised they were not alone and that there were other people in the world who were having similar expereinces to them.

Part of therapy is about working through those feelings...

But then by the same token I think it is perfectly understandable that you would feel attracted to someone who listens and pays you as much attention and care as therapists do. I think... I give a little bit of my heart to most of the clinicians I've seen too...

I have read that book! It's called In Session: the Bond Between Women and their Psychotherapists

It's really good and made me feel I was not alone when I was feeling those special feelings toward my T. I'm actually stalled out in the very last chapter right now, but everything else is really good. It is unique because it is written from clients' points of view rather than therapists'. It was also reassuring, in a funny way, to realize that there are people who have it so much worse for their T than I do.

Hey, how cool that you found that already. Thanks for posting the link, the computer wasn't letting me do that. So that is one more vote for it being a good book. I really do have it on my one day list. Yeah, I think sometimes it helps to know that other people can have more extreme versions of the same thing. I wonder if anybody else will read this and join in... Maybe if you started a thread asking people might pipe up?

I read that book too, and I did find it helpful and enlightening. It gave me a better idea of what therapy is like for more than just me, and how it is supposed to go, and what you should be able to expect. Maybe I need to find it and read it again.

Have you heard of erotic transference-counter transference.

I saw my ex therapist (years later )in a supermarket and he wasnt half as good looking as I remembered.
It must have been the transference I suppose.

yes i have heard of it. there really isn't very much about it online. i have looked. the stuff i have read said it was surprising that there wasn't more stuff about it. apparantly it is really very common but it is indeed something that is not commonly talked about.

because a lot of clinicians (and of course a lot of clients) really don't like to talk about it...

i guess it is one of those taboo subjects...

which is really rather silly since therapy talks about a lot of other taboo subjects like suicide but anyhoo...

i have also had the experience of seeing someone later once the transference has worn off and really having to do a double take 'OMG! Is that actually the same person!'
the same thing happens when you first fall in love...
then after the honeymoon period they start to look a bit difference lol.

sometimes time apart can do it.
sometimes time together can do it.

i think that sticking with therapy for a while is like sticking with someone through the honeymoon period. the feelings change and alter. transference feelings can be really very intense for a while... but they can also transform.

on a related note that is why it is considered most severely off for a therapist to have that kind of a relationship with their client. because one day the client is likely to 'wake up' out of the transference feelings and then... at that point... come to see that the therapist really has taken advantage of transference feelings.

and therapists should know better.

clients can be expected not to know. but therapists should damn well know better.