Reparenting ... has it happened to you and how?

I've heard the term reparenting many times on the forum.. Has this happened with you and how has it? how do you recognize it.. do you want it? what exactly does it mean to you...? just curious.

I believe that part of my therapy is limited reparenting. My Old T was the one who first led me to the phrase and I did try to research it but with little luck. A couple of crazy practioners who took it to the extreme made the concept one that is frowned upon by a lot of people, unfortunately.

How it works for me is that my T is there for me as a patent should be for a child. I come first, my needs ate listened to and discussed and met, as much as they can be by her. I can't change who she is and her traits etc but I am free to bring anything into the room, be that about the outside or about her, or us. Along with all the normal things one should experience from a T or in therapy there are subtle extras, as I see it. The use of play or working creatively helps my inner child to show herself. The modelling of feelings by my T to help me learn by example. The appropriate use of safe touch. The ability to text or email a couple of times a week, to tell her things I can't in person or to check she is still there. The patience that is so necessary in this process.

I told her straight up that this is what I wanted and what I felt I needed (though that word was pretty much banned at the beginning) and she didn't run a mile. Interestingly enough I see her as my 'good enough mother' who is teaching my adult to be this for myself, but she did not see this when we last spoke of it. It nearly upset me a lot but I figured that a couple of words did not change what was happening between us, the fact that I 'felt' that she was being this regardless of what she believed.

I don't know if this helps at all. I may think of more to add later.

I've experienced this, basically for me it was having my T be a good enough parent by showing me and teaching me things like boundaries, healthy relationships etc.
I didn't get this growing up so I needed to be reparented in what is healthy and what is not. It also included having someone be there and accept me for me even when I was being difficult and showing me that people are safe and won't abandon me
That I was enough and worthy of good treatment

Teddy said some good stuff there.

I didn't even realise that a person's favourite colour can change before I met my T. I thought that once you had chosen it as an adult it helped to define you. Only today did I learn that we don't all know how we are feeling until we think about it. I thought other people knew exactly, straight away, and could answer when asked. I didn't know that I could tell someone that i was angry with them without the world caving in or them running a mile or violently attacking me. My T teaches me the little things like that, things that my parents should have taught me.

I feel like I've experienced this to some extent with my marriage counselor. He was talking about something in session, and I said I probably should have learned that in childhood. So it seems late to be learning it now. And he was like, "That's OK." As in, it was OK to be learning it now. He seems to be showing me the acceptance, validation, and reassurance that I didn't always get from my parents. I've had some paternal (and at one point erotic) transference for him, but he's helped me through that. I was afraid to share certain feelings with him, but it seems like anything I tell him, he'll just accept. I've had fears of abandonment by him, and he's talked about those fears with me (like on the phone or over e-mail) and reassured me.

I know it's a weird role for a marriage counselor to have--I have my own T, too, and have had a bit of maternal transference with her, but not to the same extent. But MC just seems to get it and understand what I need. From what he's said, he had some issues with his dad growing up, and he just seems to be really in tune with where I am right now and why. And his helping me with the whole reparenting thing (even though I don't think he'd say that's what he's doing) is definitely helping with my marriage. It's healing some wounds from the past, which will hopefully help me feel secure in my current relationship and help me in maintaining and nurturing my marriage.

Wasn't there some kind of extreme re-parenting 'therapy' in the '70's? Never experienced it. Read about it. From what I read, it could be wildly damaging...

My T and I do schema therapy and reparenting is a part of that. We have discussed his reparenting of me. He meets my needs within reason in order to help me grow and heal. Things like reassurance, praise, validation, playfulness, unconditional care, etc...

There are definately time after my sessions I'm like "I sure wish my parents taught me stuff like this". life skills emotionally... coping skills to be your best self, and think things through etc, parenting ... I didn't get any of that.. healthy attachment, and acceptance.. I never got that.. He's like probably guessing 10 years younger so not really a parental figure so to say.. but I do find myself wishing my parents gave me what he does..

I guess I don't get the concept of reparenting. Some of the things people mentioned here that their therapists have done in an attempt to re-parent are things my therapist does but I don't feel like I need to be re-parent. I had a wonderful mother who taught me so much. I definitely have stuff I need to learn but not by a parent.

Was that where the client had to go through a sort of physical rebirth experience? I remember a Law & Order episode about that, where it did not...go as planned.

My therapy definitely includes reparenting and through that MY reparenting of my inner child. I always think of this when people talk about wanting T to be their friend... Like except for my spouse and best friend, NONE of my friends see the vulnerable part of me my T does. It started slowly, with me gradually asking for things starting about 2 years into our therapy relationship. For Mr, touch was a big thing. My T and I use touch copiously and definitely in ways that are not typical T ways. A good 1/4 to half of our sessions are devoted to touch. She is also very free about telling me she loves me, why she lovese, how much she loves me, etc. Which we use as a template for how I should learn to talk to myself. Spiritually /figuratively she takes the role of the protector/advocate I never had. We have special rituals for saying goodbye that are very much like a child's bedtime rituals ( hold hands, say good bye words, say I love yous, hug, kiss my stuffed animal, kiss my forehead, tell me to go out into the world and remember she loves me, final hug, everything but a glass of water). We have free outside contact and she is there if I need her. She takes my stuffed wolf on vacation. She loves and accepts me no matter what, pushes me when necessary. Its sort of magical. And more importantly, its definitely working.

My exT and I never discussed this concept but I would term part of our T experience a limited form of reparenting. Mostly in regards to unconditional positive regard and acceptance. There were child parts that were able to experience her as a safe and trustworthy 'parental figure', in a psychological sense. The very safest part of therapy for those child parts was being able to sit next to her on the couch, holding her hand and resting their head upon her shoulder. It sounds unbelievably corny when I write it like that, but I stand by that as being the single most healing thing in therapy. We had never before had the experience of physically being with another human and feeling safe. It was always abuse - or if not abuse, then the fear or expectation of it - from everyone. Those child parts had *never* experienced safety or trust before. That was the biggest gift she could have ever given any of us.

No. I am certain it would not be something I would find useful.

What are you meaning by reparenting? The T replaces the parents? Or the T helps facilate the atmosphere for feelings that were never processed good enough at a younger age , to be processed?

I am not the person you asked this question of, but for me personally (which could be completely out of line with how it is for others) I think of it mostly in terms of attachment and trust. Like... having a human being who holds you in positive regard, faith and love. Someone who has your back no matter what. Someone who is there to guide or support you and catch you when you fall. That one person who you can trust with your most vulnerable self.
Like many other people I never had that from anyone before. I feel getting that from someone was critical in getting me to the point where I could accept my Self (selves).

I call what happened in our relationship with that T 'reparenting'. Because she taught me what the parents should have taught us - that we are a valid and acceptable member of the human race. We did not know that until we'd had many years of therapy with her.
We haven't been in therapy with her for many, many years now, but when we *truly* need support (a.k.a. when the s*** of life hits the fan) we still turn to her.

My T is a schema therapist and thus uses 'limited reparenting' in her work with me. I've mixed feelings about it - I crave it, yearn for it. It's like being given water in a lifetime of parched desert. But it arouses A LOT of pain within me - the contrast between her care and my family's lack of caring and cruelty.

I keep telling myself "Her care isn't real", "I'm just her job" even though I bloody well know that in all the Schema Therapy Clinician books, they emphasize the need for the therapist to "genuinely care", for the therapist to be willing to "get emotionally close". The books also talk about how the goal is for the client to form a secure attachment to the T, within the boundaries of the (supposedly more flexible than most modalities) therapy relationship.

I also regularly get angry (even shouting) at her that the contrast hurts like hell before crashing into weeping because of the pain. I've self harmed in front of her out of self hatred, self anger, shame/guilt for desiring care, out of desire to ease pain.

She tries, she really does...to be warm, nurturing, firm with me when I'm punitive towards myself - eg self harm in session to shove her away. Gentle towards my hurting "vulnerable child" (which I regularly abuse, my VC, that is).

I get to hug her briefly. I've gone up to 4 hugs in one hard session. She doesn't hug back though, and I always have to initiate the hug. I used to keep asking if she was really okay with it and she has told me over and over that she is. I've hugged her even after my shirt had tears and snot (ewwww) and she's really genuinely seemed undisgusted by me. I used to ask her if I'm too disgusting to hug, she'd stand up and open her arms and ask "You're not disgusting. Do you want to hug me or not?"

I get to give her long long long letters (they have gone up to 50+ A4 pages typed in font size 12 in one month of no sessions) which she reads at her own pace but I know she reads and cares about their content.

I can message her out of session, though her boundary is she won't reply, yet she's proven by quoting my words from memory or referring to certain messages that she does read.

Recently I asked if I could have continued contact with her when I move and thus inevitably have to end therapy - she said yes.

She's promised (and kept her word. We've had ruptures when I misunderstood her and thought she was taking things away) that she'll never give what she will later resent.

The whole idea kind of creeps me out I guess. I had parents (good ones), so I wasn't in need of another one, and as an adult, it just seems like an odd concept. I'm a parent now; I function as an adult now. (I know; I'm not getting it.)

If you DONT have at least semi decent parents, it leaves a longing in you that never ever goes away. A force so powerful its like nothing else I've ever felt. I functioned as an adult, but that need was always there, like floodwaters ready to break down a levy. One trigger and I was plunged into despair. Like around Christmas was always nearly unbearable. All the commercials with families and kids. I'd be suicidal the whole season.

Now, I don't feel that anymore. I can see those types of things and tell myself "now, I know how it feels to be that loved." The deep pain has turned to a mildish ache or some times just to the ability to fully appreciate others happiness.

I still function as an adult all the time and even in session, its like I function as adult who is ALLOWING certain sorts of caretaking, that i need the way you'll let a nurse help you dress when you are badly injured.

Plus the sheer joy she takes in being with me is pretty cool, and somehow allows me to exist in multiple ways at once---as an adult who has to get to work as soon as I get out of session, and as a beloved child who wants one more hug.......

I personally think it is a horrible idea and really question why any therapist would attempt this. I had really traumatic childhood and it is NOT something I would want at all. How does it end? I just can't understand how it can end well. Eventually therapy will end and the therapist will be gone and it's assumed (I suppose) that by the time this happens the client will be healed enough to not need or want the therapist anymore, but I just cannot see how that would happen. How can you just not have someone in your life like that who has played that role? How will that not also be traumatic and painful?

I think it's awful. Hope it works for the people who try it, but I've seen it end badly here many times.

If think if you'd had good parents, you'd understand what others have missed out on if they were not fortunate enough to have had that and understand what would be needed and not be creeped out by that.

My T and I have discussed this topic. She says that 1. I'm not required to outgrow needing her. She's not going to stop seeing me if I need to see her

BUT as we do with parents, likely I will need her input and support less as I grow. Which I already see slowly happening.

And no matter what she will always be open to contact with me. If she is practicing her door is always open. If she isn't we will figure things out.

And it COULD all go to hell and she could terminate me but from my point of view , the healing that has taken place in me is permanent. It does not belong to my T. It belongs to me. *I* am different, with or without her.

So even though it would be very painful and traumatic ( and I have a pretty good idea what that would be like BC I had a mentor who was like a big sister to me. For 10 years who cut off all contact) I feel its worth the risk because I have not been successful finding this kind of healing any other way

I suppose if you are successful with a less relationship -intensive type of healing it might be worth avoiding. I wasn't so for me, I'm willing to risk.it going badly.

Sorry to barge in but how would you differentiate between whether you have experienced reparenting in therapy or just extreme paternal/maternal transference and interpreted Ts care and understanding as that you wish you'd had as a child?

Ex T definitely taught me a lot of things that were actually blindingly obvious, things that I should have learned in my childhood and adolescence but failed to pick up. I'm not sure who I should have learned these things from. Perhaps it wasn't my parents or family that were responsible but my lack of friendships and relationships throughout life - in other words, me. Regardless, a lot of what I believed about life was hugely inaccurate. I thought everybody has it together except me, everybody always knew what they were feeling except me, and everybody was brilliant at relationships except me. Ex T taught me that contrary to my lifelong beliefs, a lot of what I felt was entirely normal which was a relief if not terrifying after spending much of my life believing I was born in the wrong era or to the wrong species.

Ex T would also allow hugs which I gathered was a bit of an experiment on her part as it was not how she would normally practice.

In the end though, it all turned sour. I finally felt like I had what I had been missing my whole life from my parents, but of course, this is therapy, not real life and it was all taken away from me when therapy ended because although I still have everything she taught me, it is too painful to think back on now that I no longer have this person in my life.

I haven't ever experienced "reparenting" in therapy and I don't think it would be something I'd benefit from. Mainly I've viewed the Ts I've worked with as equals who could mentor me about certain deficits I felt I had. I've never looked at a T as a parent or parental substitute. Like many people on here, I had a difficult childhood with parents who struggled to be the parents I needed, but I wasn't looking to replay that time in my life. Perhaps that's because I entered therapy later in my life, after age 35. That makes me feel, for me, that I'm already too far into adulthood to benefit from a reparenting type of therapy. I have learned from Ts things like establishing good boundaries, how to establish relationships that are more evenly balanced in the "give and receive" area and other similar issues that followed me into adulthood.

That said, I do understand how others might benefit from this form of therapy and I'd imagine that a lot would get a great deal out of it. Different strokes for different folks!

^This. I don't see my T as a parental figure though at all and reparenting is not a focus of my therapy but I believe I am learning some things that I did not learn as a kid.

Both my parents are dead now, I'm just saying, it happens IRL.

I think one of my therapists in particular was a life mentor with a little maternal transference thrown in there. I mean, ultimately they're there to help us, no matter how you put it.