transference as violation

But presumably if you decided to go to therapy you WANTED someone to disclose things to.?? I certainly did. Isn't that why most people go to therapy??? They either want to unload secrets, have someone to discuss difficult things with, or get help/healing with emotional issues. And obviously the expectation of therapy just from cultural exposure is that you will talk about thingscwith your therapist. I mean, you can hardly jump in a pool and then be upset that you got wet......that doesn't mean people are at fault if their therapist behaves unrthically but talking is the whole point of therapy ...

This strikes me as classic red herring logical fallacy, specifically "appeal to motive". If you want to discuss the article maybe you could start another thread.

The below part of the quote is the essence of what I started the thread about. Pretty straightforward, and I suspect many people who have been enticed into having intense feelings or desire for a therapist can relate, without the need for elaboration of context.

"it is in the transference where one of a person's most precious gifts, i.e. the ability to love for instance (and of course often too the erotic fantasy that goes along with it) seems so often exploited, toyed with, humiliated."

Of course, but wanting to disclose or unburden yourself is not the same as fully understanding the risks and implications of doing so in therapy. It's well documented that informed consent is often missing or paltry, and that therapy methods are murky and sometimes not discussed with the client at all.

Honestly, how many people who wind up in the grip of emotional dependency or regression had any idea how exposed they would become? Seems to me clients are compelled to give up and more of their inner world, by the process itself, but without giving their explicit consent. Just have to read this very forum to see how many people appear to be ambushed in this way. Also I think it is intrusive and invasive precisely because the therapist is not vulnerable and exposed.

If I started therapy again tomorrow, I would fully expect it to be intrusive. I am looking back, however, with the clarity of hindsight and remarking on how intrusive it was, and is in general (in my opinion).

Maybe it's the not having studied them recently that makes you think they're no longer referred to academically...Derrida, Foucault and Lacan are all very much at the forefront still of several humanities subjects...but those themselves are unfortunately not as popular as they once were...

I believe FKM was referring specifically to the US and acknowledged in her post that it may be different elsewhere.

But with surgeons they at least usually tell you the risks involved and it is easy to find info on malpractice and surgical mistakes and the success or failure of the surgery is also not mysterious.
And they are less likely to blame the patient if they die or have complications from surgery.
Therapists blame the client and no therapist has ever explained or even mentioned risks of therapy to me.

I agree. My ex/bff does a lot with Lacon and Foucault and Derrida. She is in an area of the humanities where their theories are still being considered relevant for criticism.

My point was that they are not considered driving forces of current critical thought (particularly in psychology), and that the use of Derrida as a guiding structure by the authors of the article originally cited was neither original, nor persuasive (to me.) Of course, they haven't disappeared, no one ever does. They are revisited, incorporated into the ever-evolving dialogue that is academics.

I have no desire to discuss the article which I think is, at best, tortured in its approach and dubious in its conclusions. But Bud, you're the one offerring it up as justification for your opinions. The quote above on transference is far from a fact, but rather several assumptions. That it appears to reflect your experience doesn't change that, nor does it invalidate others' experiences of transference very different from your own.

No desire to discuss the article... good one. That's about the only thing you've been discussing. You aren't interested in what the thread is about, you won't concede a single point, you find it all distasteful so you immediately asked for the source of the quote so could you try to discredit it. Thanks for playing. Take care now.

eta: i never said the quote was fact and if people take every comment that asserts any general tendency or truism as a personal attack on their therapy experience, that's their issue.

While I can understand your position here, I fail to understand how therapy would be beneficial if we as clients were paying money and spending our time listening to their problems...


A fair emotional exchange definitely works between friends, but I don't see anything good coming from a T who brings all their baggage to my session for me to sit with.


So I would like to know how you propose this intrusion and invasive process be avoided?

Good point.
My T always says I pay her to keep her stuff OUT of my therapy.
I.know some things about what her struggles are since weve been working very closely for 4 years.
But how can I pursue my healing if I'm worrying about her??
We have discussed before how she sometimes wants to.intervene and just STOP my pain but that that is from HER need , not what is best for me.
I guess I don't see how equal disclosure is different from friendship, which is great , and can be therapeutic , but I already have a number of friends and so far that hasn't helped me in the pursuit of meaningful change and recovery

It seems like some clients and therapists want to let therapists have it both ways -the therapists are both paid to keep their stuff out of it (and it seems from reading here that few therapists actually manage that) and then the idea of the therapist being paid to be real or genuine with the client (Oh yay - the therapist treated you badly because he was showing you his real emotions and letting you hold his whatever).

I don't think it's ever been 'encouraged' as a rule in therapy. It's just known to happen on different levels. It also happens in 'real' life all the time not just therapy. People have transference with teachers, bosses, co-workers, baristas, bartenders, etc. Someone might have a problem with their co-worker because they remind them too much of their older-sister = transference. Someone might have a thing for red-heads because they remind them of their Dad. etc. It's not something that happens ONLY in therapy. It's just a thing that a focused relationship such as therapy allows time to explore

"How it became accepted" assumes that all or most people have had bad experiences with their therapist and transference issues. I don't think most people have a terrible problem with it or the practice would never flourish as a whole.

(This board being an exception-where as people might come here because of an issue, it doesn't make this group the same as the general population who don't have inordinate issues with their therapy.)

You have a point. The therapeutic environment is catered to make the client feel good, important, welcome and foster a space where they can feel and express things they may not have the strength, time, energy or safety for in the 'outside' world.

The fact is a lot of people who seek out therapy in the first place do so because they have such a desperate need and want for some kind of attention and attunement to work on their own stuff. Naturally they're going to fall in love with someone who pays attention to them in that way. The point is - it happens— so work with it, learn from it.

I believe the "violation" comes when a therapist presents himself dishonestly, as a mind-reader or shaman, that's he's infallible, that he has magical powers to predict the future, to serve as a moral authority to understand and interpret people and events he's never witnessed.

I didn't understand until years later that my therapists behaved this way. I didn't understand their guru performances lured me into their thrall and activated my childish impulses.

I don't see this dynamic as calculated so much as shared folly, a role they played with my handing them the weapon. I was made a fool with my complete cooperation.

My readings and online interactions with therapists hint that at least some of their training sometimes seeds this arrogance.

atisketatasket: I agree that using the concept of is pushing things, and at minimum they should have heavily qualified this. They should have used the word "emotional" preceding it, to clearly differentiate from the physical act.

I don't agree with suggesting any sort of equivalence between the actual act and what happens in therapy; however, I do think the analogy is valid in some ways. The lack of consent for one. Also the huge power differential and the extreme vulnerability of the client, in some cases. For me there was an implicit promise of protection and safety, and in return I yielded emotions and needs like love and desire and attachment, in a way that was outside my conscious control. The apparent safety was an illusion, a lie even. For when I challenged her too strongly, she lashed out and sought to consolidate her power more. She exploited my trust for her own gratification, perhaps unconsciously. Rejection and abandonment followed. The subsequent game of blame-the-victim played by other therapists was in the same vein.

For those who think such things are isolated incidents, I'd ask how do you know? Especially given that therapists as a group are reported by some to tend toward narcissism and other personality disorders.

BTW, apparently Ferenczi, a colleague of Freud, used the same analogy. Not publicly, but in a personal diary.

The implicit promise of protection and safety is an important exploration because I think it's a deep human impulse and a delusion. My therapists used much stagecraft to create the illusory "safe" space, leading me to forget this was merely a business transaction and they were performers role playing. The bubble burst when I requested their methods and authority. I never had a therapist warn me about this, nor have I seen any therapist-to-consumer literature advising this reality.

Budfox, I agree with most of what you say about therapy, and enjoying reading and reflecting on your posts. I think that therapy is pretty much all the things you say it is. I also think that there are T's out there who can navigate through the minefield and help people despite all the risks. I think that therapy does a thing that nothing else can do, in the absence of anything else it still has its place, despite the inherent issues with it. I think it would be improved if the inherent issues were a focus in training. I'm lucky that I believe I've found a T who can navigate the minefield and I feel that my life has really improved as a result of therapy.

I'm not arguing for therapy that is reciprocal or is otherwise rearranged to remove the invasiveness. I'm saying that as it is constructed, I find it invasive and intrusive and prone to abuse and exploitation. I think your last question contains its own answer. You avoid it by avoiding it. Or maybe if there is a serious discussion up front about all these dangerous pitfalls, then you can mitigate the problems some.

Seems to me that no matter how you slice it, a relationship built on asymmetry and the absence of shared vulnerability is inherently dysfunctional. Doesn't make it wrong necessarily, but if these things are not openly acknowledged I dont see how that is ethical or healthy.

Also, in my experience and reading, seems that some or many Ts do bring their baggage to the session. They just do so covertly.

Does the therapist have to deliberately evoke an erotic or other response? Seems it is an exceedingly common occurrence and surely not because every therapist is intentionally provoking it. Just appearing to hear and understand a person who has not been heard or understood could be highly seductive, especially given the intimacy of therapy.

To see transference as not inherently violative or dangerous makes little sense to me. Ts take the client's money, time, hope, and trust while professing or implying some substantive means to translate this into healing. They call it "treatment" with suggestions of scientific method and reproducible outcomes. But really it is a dubious ritual of seduction and provocation which is highly experimental and improvised. If the client has childhood deprivations that, once activated, might make them prone to so-called "interminable therapy" from which they cannot escape, while the T gets paid, that alone could amount to exploitation.

But transference is not confined to therapy. It happens in many close relationships. In therapy its actually safer. It's identified and acknowledged , instead of being an unnamed but powerful force. Again for me, maternal transference happened In many relationships for me. I have a friend who falls madly for every guy she meets-- transference boldly at work. A client of mine burst into tears when I criticized ( gently and professionally) her horse keeping. Transference.

Its hardly unique to therapy. In therapy its named and controlled, making it safer.

So what would you have liked to know up front?


That the relationship would be asymmetrical and thus possibly emotionally intrusive or that there was a chance the whole thing could go belly up?


(Kind of like when a surgeon gives you the success rate of a specific procedure...)


I've had at least two sucky therapists (my first 2), I doubt either of them knew beforehand they'd be unhelpful or downright damaging beforehand.

Then on the other hand I've also had two awesome T's after them who knew I'd be a challenge from the get go(more my personality than my specific reason for seeking therapy or maybe a combo, lol), but gave me their best shot anyway (even though I was assigned to them and I wasn't paying for their services)...


I doubt either of these 4 individuals could've provided me with any stats on my possible success rate because its obviously not an exact science and any progress to be made is reliant on two individuals at any given time in any given moment under any given circumstances.... There's just too many global variables to take into consideration.


Idk I'm just thinking out loud here and trying to understand your position.


I've read a few of your threads and understand where you're coming from, but at this point I'm still not at all sure where you're going or hoping to go.


I do sincerely hope you arrive there safely though.

Well, that may be a theory behind it for therapy and it may even work like that in some rare cases - but there are a great many examples of it not being safer just because a therapist labeled something as transference. And in some cases, it has ended disastrously. So safer is not a given by any means.

"I doubt either of these 4 individuals could've provided me with any stats on my possible success rate because its obviously not an exact science and any progress to be made is reliant on two individuals at any given time in any given moment under any given circumstances.... There's just too many global variables to take into consideration."

And yet, in my experience, it is exceedingly rare for a therapist to admit as much to a client after a few years-let alone give that information to the client up front.

Safer, that is, if the therapist can recognize it and handle it, as yours can.

My point is that the invasiveness of therapy is one of many things that should be disclosed up front.

To me that is the same as saying they are irresponsible and unethical.

Going?

People say that all the time in defense of the way therapy handles human relationships, but to me it is a red herring. Therapy is not real life. Real life relationships are spontaneous, generally reciprocal, and do not involve one-way vulnerability and unnatural and dangerous power dynamics. And they do not require payment to sustain it.

What nobody really knows is how often clients have a terrible problem with transference or therapy in general. What we do know is that the profession consistently shrouds its methods and its outcomes in a thick fog. Any practice can flourish when thusly concealed.