I asked T whether it was unusual that I still have this intensity of feeling towards T1 after 7 months, and he said he thinks it is unusual, and he would have expected to see some movement in that time.
He said it indicated that the issue was in me, not in the relationship, because the feelings are just as strong even in the absence of a relationship.
At that point I realised I don't accept that T and I don't have a relationship anymore. I said to him a relationship doesn't cease to exist just because two people don't see each other for a long time.
He said it might be more useful if we didn't call it 'transference'. I said what else would you call it? He said perhaps 'fantasy' (not sure how I feel about that)

[precaryous]

I think what you said makes a lot of sense, Echos.

[Elisabetta346]

No. I had a best friend of many years and about six years a ago I ended it in a due to various reasons. I still sometimes view our relationship still as a friendship. You have a connection with someone it does not go away in 7 months. It may never completely go away.

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[Perna]

It does sound like you are holding on to T1 and how you see/feel about the relationship. Since there is no relationship anymore, no interaction, it is basically all in your head (fantasy) as there is no feedback from the outside, the other person. You can always care about/"love", think about T1 but by this time you should be facing more forward to your therapy now, in real time. There is nothing useful back there with T1 other than memories. Concentrating on those memories and thoughts of T1 uses energy that could be freed up to live your life now.

Originally Posted by Perna

It does sound like you are holding on to T1 and how you see/feel about the relationship. Since there is no relationship anymore, no interaction, it is basically all in your head (fantasy) as there is no feedback from the outside, the other person. You can always care about/"love", think about T1 but by this time you should be facing more forward to your therapy now, in real time. There is nothing useful back there with T1 other than memories. Concentrating on those memories and thoughts of T1 uses energy that could be freed up to live your life now.

While I can logically hear what you're saying, reading it makes me feel so sad and almost resistant. The word fantasy is hard to hear because it felt so very real. I can't accept that the relationship is non-existent just because I don't see him anymore.

[PinkFlamingo99]

I think "fantasy" is harsh. We always remain connected to people in our hearts and there once was a real relationship there. I think it makes you sound unneccessarily unreasonable for your sadness. Iam mourning the relationship I had with mine and I don't feel like it will ever lessen right now. The pain and loss are real and hurt.

Originally Posted by PinkFlamingo99

I think "fantasy" is harsh. We always remain connected to people in our hearts and there once was a real relationship there. I think it makes you sound unneccessarily unreasonable for your sadness. Iam mourning the relationship I had with mine and I don't feel like it will ever lessen right now. The pain and loss are real and hurt.

Thank you, that's validating to hear. I felt like my feelings were trivialised, and also, it made me feel as though he doesn't believe the feelings went both ways between T1 and I, and I feel sure that they did.

I think one has to understand/gave knowledge of your full history before labelling unusual or not.

Originally Posted by _Mouse

I think one has to understand/gave knowledge of your full history before labelling unusual or not.

I meant whether it was unusual in general, rather than unusual for me.
Long story short, I stopped seeing him in December because we kept going round in circles with boundary changes, me feeling rejected and ruptures.
When i started seeing him, we just clicked, we are quite similar people and we got on so well. It really was like the sort of compatability that only comes around once or twice in your life. Unfortunately he was my therapist. There was just no getting around the fact I wanted a friendship with him. Therapy was painful, so I had to find a different T.

[ScarletPimpernel]

The grief process takes different amount of time for each person. I've been 14 weeks w/o my ex-T. I still miss her, I'm still angry with her, and I still love her. If something triggers me about ex-T, I still cry. But it has lessened compared to termination day.

Have your feelings at least lessened? It's okay if they're still intense for you, but if they haven't lessened since 7 months ago, then I would have to agree you might be living in a fantasy / not accepting reality

[PinkFlamingo99]

I "lost" a therapist when I was in my early 20's due to me being declared "better" (at a govt run clinic) after seeing her for 3 yrs. after that I cried almost every day for at least a year... You are definitely not alone. It's actually very, very common.

Did it end badly?

Originally Posted by ScarletPimpernel

The grief process takes different amount of time for each person. I've been 10 weeks w/o my ex-T. I still miss her, I'm still angry with her, and I still love her. If something triggers me about ex-T, I still cry. But it has lessened compared to termination day.

Have your feelings at least lessened? It's okay if they're still intense for you, but if they haven't lessened since 7 months ago, then I would have to agree you might be living in a fantasy / not accepting reality

I'm not sure whether it's lessened at all. Maybe it has a bit but I'm not sure. I still regularly look at his pic online, I think about what I would do/say if I bumped into him pretty much every time I leave the house, he still appears in my dreams sometimes. I still think about him lots.

Originally Posted by PinkFlamingo99

I "lost" a therapist when I was in my early 20's due to me being declared "better" (at a govt run clinic) after seeing her for 3 yrs. after that I cried almost every day for at least a year... You are definitely not alone. It's actually very, very common.

Did it end badly?

It ended on a positive final note. I took a break after lots of minor ruptures, then a couple of months later I arranged a final termination session with him, which was lovely and ended with a hug and a cheek-to-cheek kiss.

[ScarletPimpernel]

Originally Posted by Echos Myron

I'm not sure whether it's lessened at all. Maybe it has a bit but I'm not sure. I still regularly look at his pic online, I think about what I would do/say if I bumped into him pretty much every time I leave the house, he still appears in my dreams sometimes. I still think about him lots.

I still look at my T's picture. I still imagine getting to see her again, talk to her, hear her voice, hug her, see her office again. I still have dreams about her too. I also have flash backs But I know that she will never be my T again. I do hold onto the fantasy that maybe one day she'll be a part of my life again.

Maybe you haven't come to the acceptance part of grief. So it's okay if it's a fantasy. Maybe you just need more time and support to process your loss. It's a big loss and it's painful. You don't simply get over it.

Don't be too hard on yourself

[PinkFlamingo99]

It doesn't matter whether it's "normal" or not. The pain is definitely important. I have OCD and a really hard time letting things go. It csuses me so much pain and I hate it but I KNOW being told my pain is a "fantasy" does not help anything. It was literally over a year of daily, constant anguish for me. So you are not alone. I havd been in daily pain with daily tears for 5 months now over how things changed with my most recent one (total change in relationship after 5+ yrs). Maybe it's not "normal" but it doesn't meAn it's not "real."

Are you currently on meds that work well? I firmly believe the one thing that has kept me semi-functional through this was my new pdoc who is brilliant and changed the med I had been on to something that actually WORKS right after this happened. I was so desperate I was considering ECT. For me, this med (Parnate) cut my obsessing/depressive ruminating in half.

Thanks to you both. It makes a huge difference to hear I'm not alone in this kind of grief.
I'm not on any meds at all. I'm managing well with every day functionality and I as long as I have T to unload on once a week I can cope ok in between. I think this is partly because I can detatch from my emotions (for example I don't really cry, in or out of T). Ironically this had been the hardest thing for me ever emotionally, in spite of much 'worse' things happening to me through my life. I dunno if this has unlocked a lifetime's pain, and I'm mourning more than just this relationship.

[Perna]

Originally Posted by Echos Myron

While I can logically hear what you're saying, reading it makes me feel so sad and almost resistant. The word fantasy is hard to hear because it felt so very real. I can't accept that the relationship is non-existent just because I don't see him anymore.

Everything comes out of our head but that does not make it "unreal". I think I would enjoy an ice cream sandwich so I go get an ice cream sandwich and see whether I would enjoy it or not. That is what our head is supposed to do.

Fantasy is a wonderful tool! But like any tool it can be used in many ways. Using it to "escape" instead of help us live our lives is not wrong or bad, but can be a waste? We only get so long to work on living so taking long breaks watching TV or surfing the Internet, laying on our beds thinking of nothing particular, sleeping during the day, etc. uses up that time when, later, we might wish we were further along on projects we want to accomplish?

You did have a relationship with T1 and your memories of it can be used to comfort, teach, challenge, etc. you now, in your present life but staying with the memories and thoughts you have of T1 can be like watching an all-day marathon of your favorite TV show when you have a test in school coming up or a project you want to get done. If you are thinking about T1 rather than working with T2, that will take current therapy longer to get done?

[feralkittymom]

I dunno if this has unlocked a lifetime's pain, and I'm mourning more than just this relationship.

I think this^ may be important, and may have been what your current T was trying to get at--though his words were clumsy and unfortunate. Of course you had a relationship! But your relationship with him was probably different (not lesser than, just different from) his relationship with you. Now that you have no interaction, neither relationship can evolve. So, in a way, you are stuck in time emotionally. I think over time your perspective of the relationship will change in some ways. Working through your feelings--especially the aspects that originate within you-- is what will lead you to accept with a sense of peace your feelings and the more objective reality of the relationship equally. I would hope that your T would help you move through this, rather than leap frog over it by dismissing it.

[nicoleflynn]

I loved my t for 10 years; the feelings didn't change. Feelings aren't right or wrong, they simply are.....some feel the need to label those feelings in therapy, and the therapy room is the only place we call love by another name......a shame.

Originally Posted by feralkittymom

I dunno if this has unlocked a lifetime's pain, and I'm mourning more than just this relationship.

I think this^ may be important, and may have been what your current T was trying to get at--though his words were clumsy and unfortunate. Of course you had a relationship! But your relationship with him was probably different (not lesser than, just different from) his relationship with you. Now that you have no interaction, neither relationship can evolve. So, in a way, you are stuck in time emotionally. I think over time your perspective of the relationship will change in some ways. Working through your feelings--especially the aspects that originate within you-- is what will lead you to accept with a sense of peace your feelings and the more objective reality of the relationship equally. I would hope that your T would help you move through this, rather than leap frog over it by dismissing it.

Thank you, I like the way you put this. You found a way to suggest his feelings for me might be different to how I think they are without making me feel like I'm deluded about the relationship. I do want to find peace with my feelings. Somehow you've managed to simplify it a bit, with regards to working through the aspects that originate in me to help me come to terms with it. I think the way T put it made me feel he was saying the difficulties were my doing, I see now he meant the feelings originate in some part of me and that's where the work is, not that it's just all in my head.

[Lauliza]

I don't think it's unusual if you were seeing this T for a long time, or if like you said, had intense feelings. I do agree with your new T that this wouldn't qualify as a relationship anymore since, as another poster wrote, a relationship consists of an actual interaction between people. I might not call it fantasy, but rather grieving, longing or just that you miss him. I think your new T may be using a harsher term to help you move forward. I can see how it hurts, that would sting me too. But when you see the reality of it, no matter how much it hurts, it may give you a push you need to spend less time in your thoughts and more time in the here and now.

[divine1966]

Intensity of feelings fade over time. I refer to feelings towards former romantic partner. My previous t said that if intense feelings don't fade and continue making person miserable longer than a year then it's a problem. Less than a year is understandable. I don't think there are any rules and that's just too general but if I had intense feelings 7 months later I'd be concerned, I am a very emotional person but I can't sustain intense feelings if person isn't in my life anymore. Do you still see or speak to this person?

I mean feelings don't have to go completely but the intensity would diminish I'd think? Unless you continue some type of contact with them

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Originally Posted by divine1966

Do you still see or speak to this person?

I mean feelings don't have to go completely but the intensity would diminish I'd think? Unless you continue some type of contact with them

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I had email contact with him about 5 or 6 weeks ago because I had said I would update him when I knew if I had got on the uni course I had applied for. At the end of his email he said "let me know how things progress (if you want to of course)" which made me feel he was open to more contact.
And that's the other thing, I am training to be a T, so there's a very real chance I will be reacquainted with him in future in a professional setting.

[AllHeart]

Originally Posted by PinkFlamingo99

I think "fantasy" is harsh. We always remain connected to people in our hearts and there once was a real relationship there.

Yes, this. If the relationship with T1 was healthy and positive, there is no reason for you not to carry him/her in your heart for as long as you want. It's important for all humans to be held in others hearts. T's are no exception. I'm sure you hold a spot in your T's heart too.

[Soccer mom]

Originally Posted by Echos Myron

Thanks to you both. It makes a huge difference to hear I'm not alone in this kind of grief.
I'm not on any meds at all. I'm managing well with every day functionality and I as long as I have T to unload on once a week I can cope ok in between. I think this is partly because I can detatch from my emotions (for example I don't really cry, in or out of T). Ironically this had been the hardest thing for me ever emotionally, in spite of much 'worse' things happening to me through my life. I dunno if this has unlocked a lifetime's pain, and I'm mourning more than just this relationship.

Maybe you're having a hard time because you wanted more from the relationship than it could offer. Maybe it's not really about your T. personally but more about wanting a relationship that you couldn't have and maybe feeling rejected? I constantly want more than I have with my T. It's very hard but I"m learning a lot about myself and how it affects other relationships.