Transactional analysis and T being a "critical parent"?

For the last month or so I've been experiencing extremely strong erotic transference towards my T, along with strong attachment to him in general, and a sort of image of him as a 'magical' person... All of this, of course, taking place despite the arguments of my 'rational self'!

I had a session with him on Wednesday and I came out of it feeling strange - not at all like I usually feel. I usually end up pacing round in circles at the bus stop, or marching all the way home, because I'm so buzzing and excited and full of thoughts about what's happened. But this time I felt very calm and very sad.

My ET appears to have disappeared - and, as I suspected might happen, I feel totally bereft without it. The fantasy was keeping me going when my life is otherwise in a total state. Instead of feeling like my T is magic and I'm in love with him, I have started to feel angry with him.

So I've been thinking a lot about what happened to cause this. It didn't feel like a 'bad' session, and I wasn't immediately aware of anything in particular that might have caused my feelings to change so drastically... but I have become aware of some things...

My T is an integrative humanistic therapist. He sometimes uses transactional analysis. I know a bit about it myself as a humanistic student myself, but to be honest it's never really made a big impression on me. Anyway, there's been a lot of talk between us recently about the 'ego states model' - parent, adult and child - and some of it has definitely resonated with me. I'm aware that I have a tendency to slip into 'child', particularly when I'm feeling strong emotions. My T appears to want to help me to spend more time in an 'adult' state - that seems to generally be the aim of using the ego states model.

I realised last night, though, that some of the things my T says could easily be looked at as coming from a 'parent' state. For example, one of the things we discussed on Wednesday was a comment he'd made the week before. I had said "I don't know" and he'd responded with "...children say 'I don't know'. Adults don't say that." Ostensibly he's making this comment to try and encourage me to speak from an 'adult' rather than 'child' state, but in fact, upon reflection, he sounded very much like a 'parent' to me here - and not even a 'nurturing parent', but a 'critical' one. It was really an attempt to control my behaviour.

When I brought the comment up again last session (though I didn't mention the 'critical parent' thing - that only occurred to me afterwards), saying that I didn't agree with it, he continued to argue his case and he seemed somewhat defensive to me. He ended up questioning why I wanted to discuss it, and I suggested that perhaps I just felt like arguing with him. I think I did - sometimes the things he says make me want to behave mischievously, argumentatively, like a naughty child. And no wonder, because he's speaking to me like I'm a naughty child!

There are quite a few more examples of him speaking to me in this way - and I swear last session he actually wagged his finger at me at one point! Seriously!

So. It seems to me that rather than doing what he is ostensibly doing - encouraging me to be 'adult' - he is actually playing along with the whole thing, being taken in by my 'child' and responding by becoming the 'parent', or perhaps being the one pushing me into 'child' in the first place! That would fit with the ego states model theory.

Erm, I think I might basically have just done a whole bunch of rambling here, sorry... Of course this is all stuff that I'm going to discuss with my T next week, but if anyone here has any thoughts on it, or thoughts on transactional analysis in general, I'd be really interested to hear!

Also, my T promised that he would help me to feel compassion for my child self (I tend not to - I just berate her and call her pathetic), but none of this is doing that, is it?! I feel like he hates her just as much as me really. He wants her to disappear altogether.

I think this seems like a really good insight - it's good that you are so aware of what's going on in your therapy.
I totally think that "it takes two to tango" : if you have noticed that there is a particular dynamic going on in therapy, like a parent-child relationship, then there must be two people playing into it, and one of them is the therapist.

Thank you, Satsuma. I think I agree with you! (and I like your new avatar! )

I'm desperate to see him again and talk about this now - though to be honest I am feeling rather self-righteous about it, which probably isn't ideal...

I think this is good insight too - my EMDR T is trained in TA and recommended a book to me in our last session. Both my T's are excellent but I have more transference with my main T , in some sense I see him as a little " magical " because he does the things I haven't experienced ( like owning his part when things go rocky ) which then unravels things from the past that might lead to a " flat " feeling. I do find it really helpful to look at my feelings and others here to help with processing and good T's contribute enormously and your T sounds like a good one !

I can sort of relate.

I've never had an erotic transference toward any therapist of mine, but I was very much attached to my first therapist, where I saw her as my "mother". (And the really f_cked up thing is that she is my parents' age and her kids are my age (25). AND BOTH SHE AND HER KIDS WERE FRIENDS WITH MY FRIENDS ON FACEBOOK. THEY ALL KNOW EACH OTHER. THERE ARE PICTURES AND EVERYTHING. Sooooo... yeah.)

It was a very odd predicament, all things considered. I had the whole fantasy of me being a member of her family -- like me being her own child. I mean, the whole "your kids are my age and all your kids are friends with all my friends, and you know everybody i know too" didn't help AT ALL. I could literally envision myself becoming a part of her family because everything just aligned SO PERFECTLY. The transference was REAL. omg.

She ALSO treated me like a child sometimes too. "Well, my son does XYZ just like you" or "my daughter loves doing that too" blah blah blah. Or "kids your age shouldn't be doing that. i would know because my kids are your age." (The whole "critical parent" thing.) That REALLY encouraged the whole mother-child thing I had with her. AHHH! My mother used to scold me like that!

I used to go home and fantasize about being a member of her family. It was soooo weird. I had that whole "buzzing and exciting" feeling that you did after every session. I mean, if I didn't know her before becoming her client, it was VERY possible I could have met her and become her friend on Facebook. And I kept thinking about it EVERY TIME.

She ended up terminating with me to pursue a therapist opportunity at a different office, and that office was too far from my house. It hurt really bad because all of my fantasies were shattered. I cried for like 2 weeks. Ever since then, I've taught myself to back waaaaay off from any therapist. NEVER AGAIN.

If any one of my therapists starts encouraging that parent-child sh#t, especially the critical parent sh#t, I am going to call them out on it right then and there. That's not how I play anymore. I am absolutely not going to put myself in the predicament I had before because of how much it hurt. Seriously, it's not healthy for me, nor would it be healthy for anyone. (Not trying to sound like a jackass. lol. But seriously... I will call them out on it right when I see it happening because I don't want it starting up again.) I'll be very blunt about it too.

Thank you for sharing your experience, Out There. I'm interested in the fact that you say my T sounds like a good one, as I don't feel like I've painted him in a very good light here? I do think he's a good T (something I have strong opinions on!), even whilst I'm feeling angry with him like I am at the moment. Some of my posts in my other thread are probably more representative of that.

I guess the fact that I feel so able to express my thoughts and feelings to him - even the difficult ones, like the ET and the feeling angry with him, is a testament to our good relationship.

Thanks for sharing your story, blue. I'm really sorry you had such a damaging experience This is why it's so important that Ts keep their counter-transference in check and remain extremely self-aware... My T doesn't appear to be doing that enough right now...

Yeah, fair enough! Don't worry, he's gonna get called out

Okay. In my understanding of TA, its YOURSELF that has the 3 states within you. Your t has no dog in this fight. If he is playing the parent to your child, its as if you and he agreed to sit in chairs labeled parent and child, but they are both YOU. He isnt really present as himself. He is manifesting the fight within yourself.

Its "better" to be our adult self and take responsibility for our actions, like going to bed when we should, rather than having parent demanding and child protesting. How or in what area are you yourself stuck in a parent-child role with yourself? What is stopping you from taking appropriate action? Ie what is the roadblock to that action? What fear or feeling is holding you back? Whats the payoff? (My most hated question!)

Yeah, but my T has his own parent and child inside him, and what happens is that when one person slips into an ego state, the other person often follows into the 'complimentary' state. So if one person speaks to another from 'parent', they'll often push that person into 'child', and vice-versa. He's not a blank slate, he's a human being, and as such he does 'have a dog in this fight' and he is certainly present as himself.

Transactional analysis is called that because it's all about 'transactions', which are interactions between people... it's a totally relational theory.

Whilst I'm disagreeing, I hope I'm doing it respectfully, 'cos you know I think you're great and always appreciate your input, right?

I have been doing a lot of discussion about my need to retreat into being a child because of my fear of facing some really hard stuff to face, so your questions are definitely relevant... I don't know that I can fully answer them at this point, though. I'm working on it! My T is a fan of the 'what's the payoff' question, he says 'what are you getting out of this (thought/feeling/behaviour)'... I hate it too!

I don't know anything about the theory but found your post really interesting. I would get really annoyed with a T who took that tone with me. In fact, I get quite annoyed with a lot of people because they take 'parental' roles to me. However, what you say makes sense because I am generally very much stuck in a child mode

I'm intrigued by your being told 'I don't know' comes from a child state... Is uncertainty not compatible with adult state?

Yes, that was pretty much my argument with T! I feel that admitting uncertainty is an adult thing to do. I used my partner as an example - he never says 'I don't know' because he's afraid to admit to not being an expert on everything - I find that to be very childish!

To be honest I don't think he was expecting me to take such issue with it and is probably already regretting saying it... tough luck T, I'm gonna make you regret saying it some more

That's really interesting because my partner always seems certain about everything! And sometimes something he will have expressed certainty about will turn out wrong. This used to ENRAGE me. He told me he feels certain and sure about these things - it's just that he turns out to have been mistaken about whatever it is. Even if I'm certain about something I often find it difficult to express with certainty. I'm always hyper-aware of how I might be wrong. At some points I have thought it might be a gender thing - boys are raised to be more certain about themselves - but to be honest I think it goes deeper...

Ah, I can definitely relate to that! It enrages me too... I think there is definitely a gender thing there - boys are socialised with the instruction that they must be sure of themselves - it's not 'manly' to be unsure, and girls are raised never to be sure of themselves - it's not 'ladylike' to be assertive. Obviously it's not always that strict but there's definitely a societal bias.

It probably does go a lot deeper too, though, and a lot of it must be about our partners' (and our) particular experiences whilst growing up.

i do this some with my T. ive made collages of my different ego states. ive posted some on here.

Ooh, that sounds like an interesting project. I might do the same

Yeah i.like it
He's saved all of.mine from the past 6 years...so we can compare them