[Cinnamon_Stick]

Have you had a therapist who had counter-transference? Did they admit it? How did things end?

I see so much talk about transference for your therapist so I am interested in things the other way around.

[junkDNA]

my former T had counter transference with me but he never said those words. he ended up sleeping with me and also meeting men online to watch them sleep with me too and it ruined my life (but im getting my life back)

[Cinnamon_Stick]

Originally Posted by junkDNA

my former T had counter transference with me but he never said those words. he ended up sleeping with me and also meeting men online to watch them sleep with me too and it ruined my life (but im getting my life back)

That is horrible. I am glad your life is getting better. I hope it continues to.

[junkDNA]

Originally Posted by Cinnamon_Stick

That is horrible. I am glad your life is getting better. I hope it continues to.

thanks, i am glad too even if it took a long time

[velcro003]

Originally Posted by junkDNA

my former T had counter transference with me but he never said those words. he ended up sleeping with me and also meeting men online to watch them sleep with me too and it ruined my life (but im getting my life back)

Good God that is terrible!! I'm so sorry, but glad to hear you are getting your life back.

I don't think my T has any sort of counter-transference, nor do I expect her to. I barely make eye contact as it is!

[healed84]

My t has mentioned it.. To be honest it was quick and I don't exactly remember the context.
I am sure more T's than we know experience some degree of counter-transference, but they are trained to recognize it and deal with it. I think in most cases unless the counter transference is hard to deal with it doesn't make any sense for the t to bring it up to their client. Unless client asks, or t thinks it would be beneficial for client to hear.

[LonesomeTonight]

I sense a bit of countertransference from both my T and marriage counselor, though neither have actually mentioned it. With my T, it seems like a more recent thing, where she's teared up a few times when I've talked about things, like times I was hurt (emotionally) in the past. I don't think I saw tears in her eyes at all the first 3 years I saw her, but in the past year, it's like something shifted. I suspect it's a maternal-type thing, as she's my mother's age.

With MC, it's about how he acts toward me. It's like he has a soft spot for me. Like he's said multiple times that he can't keep reassuring me, because that will just lead to me wanting more reassurance. But then he ends up reassuring me anyway. Shortly after I shared my transference feelings with him, he told me that his door was always open to me, for individual sessions (we'd had a couple to discuss my transference). But a misunderstanding a few months after that led him to admit that as soon as he made that offer to me, he knew he'd made a mistake. And just some other stuff. I feel like it's probably more of a paternal thing, even though he's only 12 years older, because he has a teenage daughter who's had some anxiety issues similar to what I've had. But then other times, there just seems to be this chemistry between us, so I don't know, maybe it's not entirely paternal. I know he'd never cross that line though.

[stopdog]

From what I have read, they very rarely admit it although it happens a lot.

[AllHeart]

I know my T had counter transference with me. We never discussed but it was more than evident. Recently we did discuss attachment as I feel attached to her. She admitted she is attached to me, too.

[musicalaspie]

With my T, she has cried before. And she has told me several times that she really does care about me. She even sent me this email one time while I was still self-harming (not anymore) that told me that I am an awesome person, I deserved to be loved and always have been and am cared for and always will be. That wasn't concerning, seeing as though she did not continuously say it after every session, but it was an observation and I will still get those reactions every once in a while from her.

There was definitely countertransference with T1 though he wouldn't have admitted it in a million years, I doubt it was even in his awareness. He would get defensive and tetchy whenever we got on the subject of transference/countertransference. It ended with me changing Ts because I really needed to talk about the transference but couldn't with him.

[Partless]

All therapists have counter-transference, that's why they're trained to "manage" them. Because patients, intentionally or not, do push their buttons or remind them of other people in their lives. Because after all therapists are people too.

I found myself most devastated at what I felt was a countertransference reaction when it was happening just when I needed my therapist to be a rock, to be superhuman. Which generally happens when we're most emotional, isn't it? And for me, the transference goes back to my childhood with my parents who had their own issues, so the idea that a therapist can be human would scare me in those moments, and I want the therapist to be real tough mentally and let me be mad and scared and not react in a way that tells me something about them and their past is leaking through.

Having said this, I don't think a therapist has ever admitted countertransference to me. For better or worse, I'm quite an intuitive person so I pick up on the slightest reactions in therapists when they deviate from how they usually relate to me in similar circumstances, and wonder if it's me or them. But I feel like a mature therapist would share countertransference with the patient if their reactions were so bad and counterproductive that a serious rupture resulted in the relationship and they felt obligated to share something like that in order to fix the relationship. Otherwise they try not to go there and to work out their countertransference on their own time and keep the focus solely on the patient.

[NowhereUSA]

I always get a bit confused by the transference/counter-transference terms. Like, I care about my T, but not because of some missing connection in my life or because I think of him like someone else. It feels very healthy and normal and makes sense in the context of our relationship. He's admitted to caring about me and being attached to me as well, again, all within a healthy context. As he pointed out, you walk with someone long enough through something, it's a natural development. So I wouldn't say it was counter-transference on any level, I would say that he just has normal, human emotions that he's expressed to me as we processed the extreme distress I went through over the last few years now that it's (mostly) over.

[lunatic soul]

He said he attaches to some clients. He said he is attached to me and finds me attractive.
He doesnt like to talk about his feelings but sometimes he talks about it and I think its okay even if it hurts me because I appreciate honesty, he said he had many emotions about me including anger, sadness, joy, caring, missing, guilt, desperation, stress etc.
I couldnt be in therapy with him if he never told me how I make him feel, I hate thinking what he is thinking of me, is he mad, did I hurt him etc. I know that many people would say that its bad if T talks about his feelings but sometimes its necessary.

My first therapist definitely had a lot of negative counter transference going on. Not that she would ever admit it. Instead she just dumped me

My ex T has said that she has "countertransference feelings" (her choice of words) of overwhelm, irritation and frustration towards me.

They were due to how I brought up so many issues other than my presenting problem of social anxiety, leading her to feel frustrated because she couldn't come up with a treatment plan (also her words).

She said she felt overwhelmed and irritated because I would be highly anxious no matter what she said.

She took my case to peer consultations with her colleagues and to supervision.

I would feel things were "off" though she tried to hide her negative feelings.

How did things end? She transferred me to one of her colleagues while she went on maternity leave. I ended up staying with her colleague, who is now my current therapist. Current T and me are a better fit as I've been a lot more explosive emotionally with current T without things feeling "off" between us.

[qwertykeyboard]

Originally Posted by AllHeart

I know my T had counter transference with me. We never discussed but it was more than evident. Recently we did discuss attachment as I feel attached to her. She admitted she is attached to me, too.

How do you guys know its evident without them admitting it? What are the signs of this?

The closest my t has ever come to talking about it was when she was talking about keeping "her stuff" out of "my stuff" and I said "that must be crazy hard sometimes" and she said "crazy fun!"

But then she's a lil weird...

Originally Posted by qwertykeyboard

How do you guys know its evident without them admitting it? What are the signs of this?

My T doesn't refer to it as transference. He talks about our feelings for each other. He has mentioned a few times about having to work hard to keep his feelings 'out of the room' and about not letting himself think or dwell too much on feelings for me.

Originally Posted by qwertykeyboard

How do you guys know its evident without them admitting it? What are the signs of this?

I once said I didn't want to see him again, and the next session he read me a poem I wrote for him, on the verge of tears.
We once journaled a session and swapped journals. In his, he likened me to an iceberg and questioned if he got 'too close' would I rip a hole in his side and make him sink to the bottom of the ocean.

[AllHeart]

Originally Posted by qwertykeyboard

How do you guys know its evident without them admitting it? What are the signs of this?

For my situation it was things like a lot of personal information being disclosed by t, increased contact outside of session initiated by t that was not therapy related, t telling me I was special and just like her, going beyond empathy (more crying with/for me than usual, getting extremely angry at my CSA'er, etc.), and so on.

[Myrto]

My therapist never used the word "countertransference" but she said that at the beginning, she felt both frustrated and annoyed while at the same time being attached to me.
It was incredibly painful to hear this because I was experiencing huge maternal transference but at the same time it was a relief to have her admit it as it was obvious she was having some less than positive feelings for me.
Now her feelings of frustration and annoyance have decreased, I can tell, and she hardly ever sounds annoyed. She seems more and more attached actually.

[BoulderOnMyShoulder]

Oh yes, I'm positive countertransference is why my therapy just ended. I think it was a big mess of him allowing his emotions to get too involved, both positive and negative, but in the end I clearly pushed my former therapist's buttons in a major way and he ended up getting very defensive and hostile and ultimately irrevocably damaged our alliance. It breaks my heart that he wouldn't admit it, though, makes me feel like his pride was more important than attempting to salvage over 4 years of good work together.

[Bipolar Warrior]

It is becoming more and more obvious that my university therapist is experiencing significant counter-transference. She tells me I'm precious, and in our last session she told me that she wishes she could follow me around with her arms around me, and just hold me and make me feel better. "I just want you to be my girl."

I'm wondering if I had "wounded child" written across my forehead the first time I walked into her office, because it did not take long for the nurturer I believe is at the very core of her being to jump out and "embrace" me. Thinking back now, I'm pretty sure she said something along the lines of "I want to be someone you can come to for unconditional love" after just one or two sessions. She has since basically showered me with love and compassion, which are both things I have obviously been starved of my whole life. I know my mother loves me, but I grew up with undiagnosed bipolar disorder and was quite volatile at times, so I think it was hard to be compassionate towards me. I was berated a lot and I grew up learning that I was doing all the wrong things, and yet I wasn't able to make it right because I just lost control. So my uni therapist speaks to my inner child whose parents didn't know how to be compassionate towards her, and I have become incredibly attached to her. And she has just grown more and more attached to me.

I think it has reached a critical level now, though, after our last session. I'd been very upset and had a small breakdown over a miscommunication between us the week before, and I could tell she felt really bad about it (even though I kept telling her she was in no way responsible for it, as I was having an episode of depression and was on the verge of breaking down anyway, which was probably what caused the miscommunication in the first place). She spent the session saying kind things to me in a very nurturing manner, at one point even leaning forward to get as close to me as she could and trying really hard to instigate eye contact, and at the end of the session we hugged and I heard her say "I love you". I suspect she didn't actually intend to say it, and that it just slipped out. I walked away wondering if I had misheard her, then decided I definitely hadn't.

I have been terrified of bringing this up because I've been afraid of losing it (pathetic), but I think I have to now. I'm convinced that she is beginning to realise the extent of it as well, and I'm really worried that she is going to withdraw completely once she does. The thought of it breaks my heart, because she is wonderful and has helped me so much, and I do love her. I can't bear the thought of losing her, but I just have this horrible feeling that I will.

I feel like she wants to love the broken child. I don't believe she loves the 27-year-old student who seems incapable of finishing her degree and subjects her to mood swings and occasional breakdowns. I'm afraid to hear her confirm that I am right about that, though.

I have a feeling this is going to end really badly.

[Petra5ed]

I find therapy a bit crazy making in this regard. I think my therapist does have feelings for me if that's what this question is about. That's what I love about therapy, I feel loved and safe etc. He would never admit anything beyond saying he "cares" though, which I assume I pay him to do at least that. I actually am starting to hate it when I hear that, "I care about you." How vague. I hate that I won't get a definitive response from him, not that I even dare to ask directly, but it really does leave me questioning everything, is it real, is our connection real or is it just in my head, or am I a burden to talk to, or maybe even worse, unremarkable and someone he just never really thinks about unless he has to? So if he has countertransference I can only guess he loves me, in a loose sense of the term, but I have to leave open the possibility he's just a good actor and I only feel so loved because he's doing his therapy routine on me. I'm kind of ok not knowing even, because if I somehow find out he doesn't love me I think I would die. And rationally I know he probably doesn't. I know it's all in my head and it's my crazy fantasy. Somehow even that doesn't change a thing. So I guess that makes me pretty F'd up.