[CantExplain]

A number of people have suggested my problems with Madame T are just transfers of my problems with my mother. This is plausible and orthodox.

And yet...
1. I was intimate with this woman for nearly ten years. Couldn't she be a problem in her own right?
2. If it was pure transference, wouldn't we have resolved it? The fact that we didn't resolve it suggests that Madame T was no mere catalyst or blank slate. She was a participant.

[kiwi33]

I am sorry if I have got this wrong but is Madame T both your therapist and a woman who you were in a sexual relationship with for 10 years?

If so, I don't think that it is a good mix - it will be hard for her to maintain her professional detachment towards you as a client without remembering your previous private relationship (counter-transference) and also hard for you to consider her professional advice without remembering your previous private relationship (transference).

Again, apologies if I have got this wrong.

[CantExplain]

"Intimate" in a therapeutic sense. I never had sex with her. She was my therapist.

Originally Posted by CantExplain

And yet...
1. I was intimate with this woman for nearly ten years. Couldn't she be a problem in her own right?

I'm reluctant to say that either one of you was a problem, but I think her attitude and her behaviour were definitely problematic in their own right. She made the choice not to conform more closely to your needs, and while she presumably had her reasons for that choice, it doesn't mean that it was the right choice.

Originally Posted by CantExplain

2. If it was pure transference, wouldn't we have resolved it? The fact that we didn't resolve it suggests that Madame T was no mere catalyst or blank slate. She was a participant.

I don't know if transference can always be resolved, but I see your point. And you make a good point here: Madame T attempted to be a blank slate, and by doing that she became a participant! And perhaps it would have been easier for you if you had felt that her adversativity (or what you experienced as being adversarial) had come from a genuine place rather than her trained T response. Perhaps. Or perhaps I'm barking up the wrong end of the stick and grabbing the wrong tree...

[JustShakey]

I didn't realize you were with Madame T for that long CE... I suspect you two have been going circles around the same impasse for a long time. You are very attached to her, that's for sure (and unsurprising). If I had to guess I would say it's a transference-countertransference thing and you guys both were/are completely locked into it.

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[lunatic soul]

I'm stupid at those topics but I think it's true feelings and it's not just transferenece. It's kike you attach to your friends, workmates, schoolmates being with them for a long time, the same with T but you are man and she is woman so you are in love with her (as I understood) and I don't think it's just tranference but I may be wrong.

[SnakeCharmer]

CE, when I first joined PsychCentral last June, your threads about Madame T were some of the first I read here, so I remember exactly what I thought. It was, "Oh, dear, painful situation!"

I don't know if I ever figured out if you and Madame T were engaged in a particular type of therapy or if it was an eclectic mix. I wanted to make a comment back then, ask some questions, but I was new and thought it would be intrusive to just butt in saying, "Tell me the story," when the situation had obviously been unfolding for a long time and there seemed to be quite a bit of feeling behind the insouciance.

Do you feel okay about saying what type of therapy it was? It would help me understand the situation and your question about transference better.