Abandonment and Transference

I'm in therapy for trauma work stemming from some bad things throughout my childhood. I won't say now as to not trigger anyone, plus my concerns are not directly related to that issue at this time.

Recently therapy has been very difficult. My therapist and I often feel that we are at a standstill, stuck without real idea of how to move forward. I've been getting caught up in my inner child's needs for a mom. I've been having dreams and day fantasies of my therapist being my mom. Sometimes we are playing outside in the snow together, other times I'm crawling into her bed with her after being scared in the night. However, most of the dreams involve some sort of abandonment: showing up at her house and her telling me that I don't belong there, coming into the office and her telling me that she is not my family and I need to go home. It sounds so stupid, but I'm finding myself so saddened and angry, but also wanting so much to be close to her. I've been thinking about her with her kids and family throughout the holidays and it kills me.

I feel like I should quit therapy. I don't know how to accept that my therapist can't be more than my therapist. It hurts my heart to hear her say that she will help me get through this, or learn to feel better because I know that it ultimately means that I must do this by myself. I feel so alone and thinking about her with her family is really tearing at me. Any suggestions? I know that this is transference, but its also a very real enjoyment of my therapist. She's a fantastic person, sweet, smart, funny, quirky, and a little insecure if I may say so myself, but in a way that means she is constantly working to understand more, to be more. I so appreciate her and would hate to lose her in my life. Help me please.

I had a horrid time with these thoughts too, the abandonment thoughts more than anything. It really is hard work and at times it felt hopeless. I think that was me struggling to trust, struggling to let her in, struggling yo realise that she did want to help me. It took months bit I finally do believe it and the dreams of abandonment have mostly subsided. In my case they made way for others but it is all progress.

I thought, from experience, that I woukd struggle also with the longings that you describe. The fantasies and the dreams for T to be my Mum. I didnt and still dont. I think what really helped me was that my T met my needs as best she could as my counsellor. By not holding back, she has helped to reduce these feelings to a level at which they can be explored by me, and in time, by us. If she had held back from these things then the cravings for it would only rise in strength to an unbearable level, a level at which they cannot be explored subjectively.

Does your T meet the needs that you have, those that she reasonably could be expected to as a professional therapist?

Not sure what you mean by "this is transference". Did your therapist explain it that way? I know what the term means, I just fail to see how it explains anything here (or in general).

Sounds like it is simply a painful and upsetting experience. Having someone give you an approximation of what you need, but never the real thing… can be a very cruel thing, at least in my experience.

I understand how you feel as I am going through something similar. I know what you mean when you say it is transference too. For example, I really want my T to hug me and take care of me like a child (similar to what you mentioned) but I know that she can't do that due to the boundaries of our client-therapist relationship. I have also been thinking recently that maybe I should quit therapy but I'm scared to do that because I love my T so much. For me, talking about all of this with my T has helped a lot. Right now my T is away on vacation for 3 more weeks which is why I am struggling with these feelings so much. I hope that when T returns and I talk all this through with her things will calm down.

I also have dreams and fantasies about my T. Again, telling T about them has helped a lot. She never acts suprised or creeped out or anything which makes me feel much less ashamed of it. I would suggest talk to your T about how your are feeling and see how she handles it. I am sure she will be very supportive and help you through this. Even though T's can't be with us all the time, we are not alone in this!

I've never had T feel stuck. I've felt stuck. But not T. She's always been one step ahead. Is your T stuck? Then maybe she's gone as far as her skill set can take her.
Believe me, I've got every traumatic experience you could possibly have in life and T still is out there in the field waiting for me to reach her

The only thing that helps forward in this situation is talking. Talking so that you can get into those child emotions in session and so that you can let the child speak in the session. If you're T is any good then she won't tell the child things that he would tell an adult, she would just talk to you as she would talk to a distressed child and in such a way she can meet some of the needs a child needs from her mother. If your T is good enough then it is wise to resist the urge to quit, because apparently there is no easier way through it anyway. You can start with someone else again but the same feelings and longing probably come again, at least you should let them come if you want to work through the pain from your childhood.

Working through transference doesn't mean intellectually talking about those things or keeping those feelings at bay by force. It really means going into those emotions with another person who symbolically takes on all those roles you transfer to her. Right now your T is your idealized mother whom you probably never had. The only way is to honestly express those emotions to her, while being in those emotions. It can take a long time but if you express your feelings long enough then eventually the pain and longing starts to dissipate.

At least that has been my experience.

Could you explain more of the needs you're talking about? I feel like I'm stuck here in that I don't know what I need and what I can expect to all of her. What are some things you do with your therapist that meet your needs?

Or it could be an expensive waste of time, or worse (much worse). If the issue presently is that therapy is causing pain, the most logical solution is to stop therapy.

Committing to some long-duration reparenting scheme could be kinda nuts, especially if the therapist has not outlined any clear plan or methodology, nor given an accounting of her past successes and failures.

This is exactly what I've tried to tell my therapist I need from him.

He doesn't understand this. I've given up.

Not just on him, but me too.

It's your choice and if you evaluate the risks that accompany potential healing too high then, sure, the best and logical thing to do for you is just to avoid it.

I have taken the risks, I trust my gut in terms of people and so I knew that I can trust my T before I was really able to trust him and I have gained enormously from it.

Of course he hasn't laid out any plan or clear methodology (aside from practicing psychoanalysis) because that is just plain impossible. Like it is impossible to lay out concrete plans and methodology how to raise happy and self-confident children, it is impossible to do that when attempting to help someone to heal from horrible childhood wounds.

If you want plans and clear methodology and scientific validation then I guess it would be possible to devise all such methods. However, I don't believe such methods would be useful for anyone for the end goal of healing. Yes, you would know exactly what is going on and how long it takes and what is exactly happening, you would have control over the process - but it would be useless because the process of healing cannot be controlled, it can only be trusted. I chose to heal and I'm assuming other people here choose that too, even if it requires taking risks and spending lots of time and money.

I get this.

Give up on him, but not it's necessary to give up on you. For me, giving up on me is largely b/c there is no one who gets me, I'm all alone. Which is an old feeling from the family of origin.

At the current time, though, I found enough of myself in therapy and I see you and others here on PC who get me sometimes. I've gotten involved in an interest group on Meetup.com where there are some other people In Real Life who kind of get me and vice versa. It's not much. . .but. . .

People need other people. Family life in the last few decades has really f**d that up and therapy, despite its claims, is pretty insufficient to help us "heal" from that.

Not your fault.

Do you speak for yourself? Or for everyone in Therapy?

My history is full of abuse/neglect /abandonment.
I grew literally thinking I could smell rotting flesh coming from myself. I'd step away from people. I couldn't even tell you what my favourite colour/book or anything was because my sense of who I was, had been destroyed.

I can tell you. Therapy has changed that. I'm a fully functioning person now. I have interests, lijes/dislikes that I'm now aware off.

Now what was that? Therapy is insufficient?

Of course I speak only for myself and my experience! From what other standpoint could I speak.

But I also spoke to someone whose situation I felt I could understand. Perhaps I was wrong? Or at least incomplete?

I tried to speak to her(his?) pain and, perhaps, feeling of aloneness. I could of course been wrong in what I thought I perceived.

Therapy for me has been insufficient and has brought its own sorts of (additional?) pain.

I'm glad therapy has worked for you.

It was the term 'us'. I had to add an alternative experience. One of hope.
Therapy isn't just for Xmas. Is a long term commitment that with the right orientation and right T can 'heal'.
I use to cry into the bottom of my pint glass that "no one understands me" poor, poor, pour me another ' healing
Is in our hands.

I was speaking to Skies, though in a public forum. The “us” referred to the commonality that I felt with her and an attempt to be with her in her despair.

I posted in the public forum, rather than with a PM, because for me it has helped a lot sometimes to feel “heard” or some sense of commonality with others here when many or most don’t or can’t understand. And, if I missed the mark in part or completely, then because my comments were just a part of the public commentary, they could be relatively safely rejected by the person I was wanting to support, if they weren't helpful. An effort on my part, take what she likes and leave the rest.

To whom does the “our” refer in your post? I certainly do not feel a sense of commonality with you. So even though you addressed your comment to me, I don’t feel any “our” in it.

Acceptance of hopelessness about therapy, rather than going forward with something that has repeatedly disappointed me or an ideal that doesn't exist, understanding that feeling, that seems realistic to me. Things may be different tomorrow, but this is where I am, today. And maybe accepting this feeling, from a core place inside of me, is necessary for going forward.

Maybe Skies didn't like my post either. But I have really tried in therapy, more than 50 years on and off as I've said before. So I believe my own sense of despair about it is realistic.

I've tried to tell my current therapist about relational psychoanalysis. He said he did it-I insisted that he did not. He read more into it and admitted I was right. It's just extremely disappointing he couldn't adapt our therapy just a bit. A little bit would make a huge difference.

My last therapist was an analyst too, practiced much the same as this one, but did little things here and there that had a profound effect on me and our relationship.

So, I already know the type of therapist i need, I just can't find one right now. I've looked, there aren't many in the area and no one is affordable.

It just feels sometimes that giving up on therapy is giving up on me, in a way. But you're right, there are other things that one can do.

If therapy as a system cannot give clear methodology, scientific validation, replicable outcomes, transparency about risks and outcomes.. then it should not be be considered healthcare, should not be subsidized by tax and insurance, and should not be referred to as "treatment". It should be called what it is -- social experimentation.

If the OP is going to subject her "child parts" to a paid consultant for the purpose of healing something as serious as childhood trauma, the therapist ought to be very clear about what she is doing. If she can't, stopping would seem to be one viable option.

Yeah. Had feeling that would be your reply.

I totally get what you're saying and I agree. I do not view psychotherapy as a bad thing for a lot of people; I have seen how it works and it genuinely works well for many. BUT I get it that it isn't always the best answer for everyone AND the reason it doesn't work or a person finds it hurtful isn't because he/she didn't try hard enough or work hard enough or he/she didn't find the "right" therapist. Sometimes the damage one has experienced is just too much and you just have to hang on and find other ways to survive. I get it that some are "pro" therapy and see it the end all to be all. I just have a hard time understanding why those same people, who suffered a lot and found a pathway to healing and revealed in it's success, can't see that their pathway isn't the same pathway for everyone else. Why aren't we able to recognize that we are all individual and therefore need different things to heal? Weird . . . and sad that that understanding is often forgotten. And my feeling goes both way: those who have found it helpful don't think other's, who found therapy hurtful and painful, were somehow not working hard enough and those that found it hurtful can't recognize that some found therapy a miraculous success and rejoice in its healing.

I feel like you put it perfectly: "I feel like I'm stuck here in that I don't know what I need."

While from the outside it seems like a simple statement, I think that it is powerful and can lead to exploration (whether it be self-exploration or exploration with your T guiding you). It could lead to revisiting goals or discussing what you want from her, but are conflicted on what she can actually provide. It may also lead to a discussion about switching things up in the therapy session, maybe taking a break, or stopping.

Do you feel comfortable enough telling her what you exactly what you wrote above?

I've had a hard time telling my T that I was stuck, but saying that I didn't know what I needed was a first step and led to discussions about what I didn't need in life, which is much easier list to develop than what I did need. From what I don't need, it's easier to read between the lines of what I did need in life and from the people around me.

I know you have thought about quitting therapy, which is certainly an option, but I'm not quite sure if it's something deep down you want to do as it sounds to me like you have a deep connection with your T? OR whether the rationale is "I'll leave you, so you can't leave me" as it sometimes hurts less when you control how the relationship ends? Or maybe you really just want to quit or take break because it is too painful for this moment in time to process? Maybe it's a combination or none-of-the-above. Either way, wanting to stop therapy is OK, but I think it is also important if you do to talk it with your T before you do and maybe develop a support plan as those feelings may get stronger and having a support system or coping skills plan in place would be beneficial since you are processing trauma right now.

I found it hurtful and totally destructive, but I have no problem acknowledging that it helps some people. For me the issue is that the profession seems to focus obsessively on the (relatively few I would guess) miraculous cases, while ignoring the rest, its failures and casualties. And yet, related to the topic at hand, clients are expected to just play along and not ask too many questions, despite this cavalier attitude toward the possibly of harm.

I'll take therapists seriously when they start taking their f-ups seriously.

You are really in the midst of the storm right now.
As I was reading your post it struck me that your dream is not about your t, this is really projective identification. How do you usually interpret your dream Tongalee? In the jungian and gestalt way, everyone represents different parts of ourselves. So the caring part of you that your t is representing you are abandoning on yourself. I do t want to interpret your dream because I can't, it's a message and a gift to you to make your own meaning from.
Are you taking care of yourself or abandoning the very young part of yourself that needs to be nurtured and cared for ?

Thanks mona, I really neede to read this today. Happy New Year!

Glad it help Cinnamon, hopefully since it's new year it may be a good time to start nurturing ourselves and listening to our hearts and souls

This is a complete off-topic right now in this thread. If you want to discuss it then please start another thread and I will gladly discuss it you.

Who are you to tell in certain terms what OP should do? I understand that you haven't experienced good psychotherapy yourself and this may make you believe that such thing doesn't exist. Go ahead, it is your right to believe it.

It is obvious that in order to do this "child part" work the therapist must be good enough. I have no idea whether OP's therapy is good enough. There is a simple way to find it out. Just try opening up in that level and if the therapist responds inappropriately then unfortunately yes, stopping with this therapist is probably the best possible option.

However, I think it would be unwise to stop if there are chances that the therapist is good enough because stopping means taking away from oneself the options to work through this pain and heal some wounds. Because I assume that people are in therapy not just for fun but they have pains and traumas they want to heal from.