What does resolution of paternal/maternal transference mean?

So, as many of you know, I have some pretty strong paternal transference for my marriage counselor (MC). I've had some similar issues with male authority figures in the past, I think stemming from my father's emotional distance. Those attachments ended poorly.

I've talked considerably with MC about the topic (in a couple individual sessions when I first realized I had the transference, then in joint sessions with H and on occasional phone calls and e-mails). He's been very open to talking about it, normalizing rather than pathologizing, and good with holding/containing the feelings, including my fears of abandonment. For which I am grateful.

He's said that working through transference (rather than avoiding/running from it) can be good, especially if one has had bad experiences in the past. Because it can take a past experience and give it a new, better ending (like, not being hurt/abandoned). So at first, I thought resolving the transference just meant accepting that MC wouldn't reject or abandon me.

But now, as I've talked about it and thought about it more, I'm wondering if it actually means something else. But what? One thought I had was NOT letting the authority figure have all the power over me. Yes, this could mean me leaving first so I don't get abandoned. But in a more healthy way, sort of using the relationship to become more confident in myself, and seeing that person as almost more of, say, a mentor, a coach than a capital-A Authority Figure. Like maybe he could help guide me, but he doesn't decide whether I'm worthy of not being abandoned (I'm sure I could word that better!). Or whether I'm good enough.

Maybe it's more about gaining self-worth and being less dependent on that authority figure. The need for me to improve my self-worth is something that's come up both from MC and my individual T. So could that be it?
I think it would help me to have some goal to work toward other than "don't be abandoned"--something that gives me more power.

For those of you who have dealt with or are currently dealing with maternal or paternal transference...what do you think "resolving it" or "working through it" means?

Note to mods: This post/thread deals with paternal/maternal transference, NOT the other kind, so could you please keep this in the main Psychotherapy forum rather than moving it to the Romantic subforum? Thanks!

My T calls our relationship reparative, which I think encompasses some of the stuff you talk about in the post. So that seems to be one function of it, like it's a vessel for the work rather than the work itself.
I also think if it's an element of the relationship which emerges, it's really important to deal with aspects of the relationship in the here-and-now, so it is important for that reason too. And for me, like you, there's something about noticing how this relates to my relationship with men more generally.
I do have another thought though, which may resonate, otherwise you are welcome to discard it.
With T1, I had all of these feelings but there were so many blocks to exploring them. T1 wouldn't engage with them in the way that I needed, and I thought when you said today about MC turning the focus to H's feelings when the topic coming up - MC can't engage with your feelings in the way that you need because he is your marriage counsellor, not your therapist.
With T1, I eventually had to say "this is not somewhere I can explore this stuff freely. This is not the appropriate platform" and that's why I found T. And those feelings did resolve themselves as I dove deeply into them with T. I just don't know whether trying to resolve them in marriage counselling is going to ultimately leave you feeling unheard and like your feelings have been marginalised. I know you do discuss it with T but I get the sense you ultimately still want to work through it with MC primarily. Do you see a way forward for that in the context of marriage counselling? Is it possible to develop a strategy for that you can all agree on? If not it seems like you're going to be left feeling repeatedly unsatisfied with MC.

My T did limited reparenting with me... My transference for him waxes and wanes.. I think a large portion of it occurs when I am isolated and bored and find myself with nothing else to think about.. As of late I feel less transference but this process is not linear. Resolving it is elusive to me as well. I'm not there yet

For me resolution occurred on multiple levels over time. It was also a paternal transference. Some of the levels were unconscious, some partly conscious, and some very directly addressed. But common to all the levels I think was a sense of unmet needs being fulfilled. This was largely something that happened as a result of other work. It was the day in day out interactions within the relationship, the attitudes held, and the feelings articulated that did the work. Addressing the transference directly wasn't of any use until those underlying needs were largely satisfied. At that point direct discussion and analysis of the needs and their fulfillment was very helpful.

As Echos has said, I don't know that such work is compatible with a T's role as a MC because his client is really you and your husband as a unit.

LT - your parents are still alive, right? Do they know how you feel about some aspects of your childhood? Would they be amenable to discussing it? It just seems that might be the most direct path.

I would agree that I don't think a therapist you hire as an MC is a good candidate for working this out. I'm not sure your therapist is either given how she is in the same practice, knows him, etc.

Thanks, Echos. We actually ended up discussing some stuff about transference near the end of the session today. And I brought up the fact that MC will say it's OK to discuss in session, but then either something else will come up (like a few weeks ago when H said initially that we could talk about it in session, but then he wanted to talk about my being snippy with him, which took up most of the session) or the time I was referring to when MC asked H how he was feeling.

That session came up today, and I'd forgotten (H reminded me) that it was when I was referring to males in the past I'd felt overly attached to, including a couple exes, that teacher, and MC. And H was making a face, so MC had asked him about it. It was because he felt like he belonged on that list. I explained that those were people who I'd given too much power over me, and that I saw H as more of an equal, so more of a healthy relationship. (I should have explained that more before giving examples).

So H was saying today that he'd be OK with talking more about transference stuff in session, and MC is open to it as well. So I'm hoping we can just discuss it periodically, when it comes up (like today). So that I'll still have the chance to work through it with MC, which is my preference, since I've already come part of the way with him and generally trust him (aside from the periodic abandonment fears). It's taken me a long time to get to that point (maybe would have been faster if it had been an individual T), so it's like I want to continue down that road if possible. Instead of starting from scratch with someone new, say, after my T retires.

(Will respond to everyone else after daughter goes to bed. On my own with her this evening, since H is out with his friend.)

I find the expression "working through transference" hollow and meaningless. Everyone says it, nobody really defines it. Some of the therapists I worked with talked about its importance. Not sure they even knew what they were saying. My experience with this was a disaster. Wasn't botched transference, it was just a bad relationship.

If the idea is that troubling conflicts from childhood can be resolved by projecting them onto a proxy that you talk to for an hour per week, and that these projections can be trusted to be true representations of childhood deprivations and not byproducts of the therapy relationship, then that sounds quite far-fetched. And there's always the chance that it will intensify the deprivations.

Seems the onus is on the therapist to elaborate a process and to justify this selling point with substance.

(((Lonesome)))

I think it reflects your unmet needs, whatever they may be.

For me, strong paternal transference is about having no relationship with my father, who was both emotionally and physically unavailable. There's an age where most girls want to venture away from her mother and be sort of best buddies with her father. I never had that and have yearned to have that with my therapist. A meaningful, playful, attentive, and safe relationship where I feel cared about and protected by a man I adore.

My guess is that having a relationship like that as a child would help improve self-worth. Not sure how it works as an adult. I suppose feeling good being in a relationship can lead to new behaviors. New, positive behaviors do improve self-worth over time, especially when cumulative.

Maybe I misunderstand parental transference, but I thought it was projecting onto therapists the image or shadow of a person's real life parent(s), which, if left unaddressed, is typically harmful in that it keeps the person attached to dysfunctional patterns.

So, in my case, if I were to have maternal transference, I would see my therapist as predatory (I do not) and someone who is unpredictable and fearsome (both of those are true at times). My work would then be to use that transference to understand the dynamics I keep creating, to pull the present apart from the past and find my own stability and sense of peace without placing it in someone else's power.

In your case, it seems that your MC is where you go feel better, safer, reassured that you are okay in the world. Maybe the transference is that your father did that for you or he did the opposite--caused anxiety and fear. The idea (based on my own rinky dink understanding of transference) would be to learn how to do that for yourself instead of relying on others to be your center, the result being a reduction in anxiety and increased emotional stability that comes from the inside, not outside. And that is something you don't need MC to do, as EM pointed out. Your therapist can help with that. And you can test it out by seeing, over time, that you need reassurances and calming from your MC less and less.

i have 2 types of transference that have been with me throughout most of my life (involving older men) . 1. being afraid of them and submissive , obsessed with trying to figure out if they like me or not, reacting negatively to them and acting out ...and then 2. loving, adoration, extreme need, dependency, eroticism. ive experienced this with teachers, coaches, therapists, pdocs, you name it. i first remember it in middle school. anyway, i think transference can be what you said- that projection of how someone actually was in the past (like to me, my father), and then also the transference of what you wished that person was like.. and try to create that dynamic you crave

I'll try to define it-

What does working through the transference mean? Experiencing, processing, discussing, and understanding the feelings brought about in the therapy relationship.
How do you know the work is done? The transference slowly dissolves and you relate to your therapist more like a therapist rather than the relationship that you need.

Only my attempt...

Without things being clouded by transference, you can relate to people as who they are rather than what you need them to by. It also helps define who you are-your sense of self-apart from all those unmet needs.

This makes sense to me! Reading this and some other responses made me have some insights:

So, OK, initially my transference was the idealized kind. MC was the father (and initially, I thought, romantic partner--then realized was paternal) I wish I'd had. To me he was like the perfect dad--caring and understanding, knowing how to deal with his daughter's (and later his son's) anxiety problems.

Some of his stories/self-disclosures about his not-so-proud moments as a father and husband have made me realize he's far from ideal in either role (yelling at his son till the son cried and asked if he still loved him, inding ways to avoid doing the dishes and other chores, punching a wall on more than one occasion...). In other words, that he's human. And isn't like he is in session 24 h a day in real life. Because he couldn't be, unless he's some sort of saint. I still adored/adore him and was/am very attached to him, just in a less idealized way.

But now I'm wondering if there could be some negative transference at play, too. Is my anger at him about things like the office move, being more strict on session times (though he wasn't on Monday...), feeling like he's less empathic and emotionally available--is that actually anger at my parents? Particularly the empathy stuff...

Plus there's the whole parallel thing that my mom had cancer when I was 12, which was when my anxiety issues really ramped up--she survived, just needed surgery, no recurrence, but of course I didn't know how things would turn out at the time. Plus she was so secretive about health stuff that she could have been dying and wouldn't have told me (and my dad would have followed her lead). So during that time, my dad had to be there for her more than for me. I know I've shared this before on these forums, but: At one point, when my separation anxiety had reached a peak and my mom was really frustrated and upset with me, my dad seemed mad at me, too. I said something to him about it, and he said "Maybe I love your mother a little more than I love you." At that point, I think my brain registered physical illness > mental illness.

To clarify: I do NOT for one second think MC should have ever prioritized me over his dying wife. I'm looking at this as a transference thing regarding my father. And MC's wife's illness dredging up more feelings from my past.

So...if that is the case, now I need to figure out where to go from here (besides, of course, talking about it with my T and probably MC as well, since H has said he's OK talking about this stuff in there).

Wow, LT. That's some deep stuff. Makes sense, though.

Thanks, good to know it makes sense! I e-mailed a shortened version to my T (but not MC). I'm almost expecting her to get excited about the anger at my parents thing. Especially because that's something we can more easily explore and work on than "I'm so attached to MC, what do I do?" (and she seems unsure how to handle that, saying things like "It's some of the strongest attachment I've seen.") Maybe "easily" is the wrong word, but hopefully you get what I mean. At least it seems like I'm getting somewhere!

This is a really interesting thread, thank you for starting it LT.

I think I have/have had some quite strong transference with my T, but we don't usually talk about it as such. My T definitely is quite clear that he is in a way using the therapeutic relationship to show me and teach me about healthy relationships: like how to deal with disagreements and move on, that kind of thing.

I used to feel very attached and perhaps a bit obsessive over T: I would think about him literally ALL the time at one point. I nearly drove myself mad! It was reassuring because it was my first experience of feeling really secure in a relationship and having someone know things about me and not think I was bad in any way, but at the same time it was annoying and a little scary how strong my feelings of attachment were.

Over time this has eased, and now although I would say I am still very attached to T it is more of a peaceful and secure attachment, knowing I can see him when I need to and that he cares about me, and less of obsessive ruminating, re-playing everything he says over and over in my head.

I've read there is anger under an idealizing transference. I don't think that's always the case, but an idealizing transference can protect us from feelings, for sure.

I'm sorry you lost your mom so young and your father hurt you. When your mom left you, even though it wasn't her fault, it can still feel like abandonment. If transference somehow reflects unmet needs perhaps MC provides you with the reassurance your father never gave you at a time when you needed it most?

If you haven't worked through the grief resulting from this situation, maybe now is the time. This might be a breakthrough for you. I hope you make progress.

Oh, to clarify, my mom didn't die--thought I said that before. She was OK. It was just dealing with the fear of losing her...which wasn't helped by the fact that she was so secretive about health stuff. When she had a second surgery a year later to help prevent a possible cancer recurrence (full hysterectomy--first cancer was ovarian), I learned she was having it when my grandmother asked me, "So when is your mom's surgery again?" And I was like, "Uh, what?" So I never felt I could trust that everything was OK...

And it's not like they reassured me or were understanding about my intense anxiety. They seemed completely unsympathetic to my separation fears, like it was just a horrible inconvenience. (I was an only child, so it's not like I had someone else to share in my fears.) There's other stuff around there, too, like when they held me down to try to force me to take an anti-anxiety pill...

Related to the health secrecy, there was the time a couple years ago when she casually made reference to "when they thought I had jaw cancer," and I was like, "What?!?" And she was like, "Oh, I thought I told you about that?" To which I was like, "Um, no, think I would have remembered that..."

But that's really interesting what you said about there being anger under an idealizing transference... Do you mean anger at my parents? Like I'm angry at them, so seeking an ideal parent in someone else? Because that seems to fit.

It's really only been since I've been seeing my T that I've come to realize I didn't have some idyllic childhood. I think I just thought I had this perfect childhood with a stay-at-home mom and a fun dad, so anything that was lacking was a fault of mine. Like, my OCD that started at a very young age (as far back as I could remember), that was my fault, my issue. The constant worrying. The health anxiety (to the point that my mom hid a family illness diagnostic manual). The intense separation anxiety that started when I was 12. The depression in my later teens. It's like they were all personal weaknesses in spite of the supposedly perfect childhood I had, where the three of us had dinner together at exactly 5:30 every night...and went to the beach for a week every summer.

Never mind that I got punished for some of my OCD fears (mostly food contamination), or that they held me down to try to force me to take an anti-anxiety med (when one of my fears was that I'd die from a medication allergy), or that when I asked to see a therapist in senior year of high school because I was depressed, and my mom said "What do you have to be depressed about?" (because I was good at school, had friends, and was good at faking being happy).

It was finally from talking to T that I could say that my childhood wasn't perfect. I felt guilty because I didn't suffer some awful abuse. I felt like I didn't have a right to be upset with or angry at my parents. But T said that it can actually be really difficult in a situation like that, because there's nothing glaring that was going on. So I feel conflicted about being angry at them. Because they probably thought they were doing a good job. But they weren't meeting my emotional needs. So I think now, having T and MC who ARE meeting some of those emotional needs, it's making it much more clear what I missed out on. Initially, I felt some sadness about it, but I think now it's transitioning into anger...

Lonesome-I'm really sorry for making that mistake.

Your parents must have been really preoccupied.

I don't know that much about it. People do idealizing as splitting, to protect against the 'bad object', but that is extreme and you've never talk about it like that. Aside from splitting, I it can protect about anger from not being able to be with that person, though misplaced anger via transference, so yes, I think anger at your parents. I was thinking from the perspective of the child self-having those longings and desires for closeness, but not getting them fulfilled, would lend to anger. But it can be repressed when parents deem it unacceptable (and forced to take anxiety medication, for example). So a child is left with that conflict-anger impulses and then having to shut them out, so they'd have to find a way to cope with that conflict. (actually is sort of the psychoanalytic view of OCD).

This article talks about it-maybe you'd be interested.

https://whatashrinkthinks.com/tag/id...psychotherapy/

I do agree with the author here that some degree of idealization is healthy though.

Don't forget, anger could be part of grieving too. The idealization can protect someone from really dealing with past losses.

Thanks, Skies, no problem re: mistake. And I'll try to respond more later. Just wanted to say thanks for the link, I've read a bit of her stuff before but don't think I've seen this post. So sad what she's dealing with now...

Just e-mailed my T (not MC) about something related to this (partly due to something from last MC session), so figured I'd share it here too.

I'm wondering now if my transference for MC is fitting more of a pattern than I realized before. Is he seeing me as the one causing the problems in my life/marriage because I'm the mentally ill/overly sensitive one? And I'm the one who needs to adjust how I am? As people--both authority figures and exes--have in the past?

I guess the difference is that he's not (presumably) going to reject me for those issues, in the sense of termination/forbidding contact...But if that's still how he views me, is it really that much different? Maybe I just need to ask him how he views me, but I'm sort of terrified of the answer. (Though he's said several times that I'm stronger than I think I am, so I guess he doesn't think I'm totally weak.)

Maybe the different ending to the transference (as opposed to past scenarios) isn't just him not abandoning me. Maybe it's me standing up for myself and being like, Maybe I do have some mental health issues and some fears of things like anger. But I can still have those and be a functioning human being. Maybe I don't have to be "fixed" by him/T/myself/anyone after all. Maybe I need to realize that I don't need to be 'fixed' per se...maybe it isn't always me that's the problem. Maybe I don't need to twist my core self around to adapt to how everyone else is.

Maybe it's more about accepting who I am and what my limitations are, along with those of others? That I'll overreact sometimes, but that's OK? Realizing that I'm not going to be perfect--whether the perfect wife, mother, employee, friend, daughter, etc.--and be OK with that?

Does that make sense? I'm not saying I don't have plenty of areas for improvement. But maybe I just need to, as T would say, "reframe things"?

Might bring this up with MC in next session (unless there's more pressing stuff we need to talk about)--I think it's better for a conversation than an e-mail. Just curious for input.

Hi LT, Have you checked out a site called Moments of Change - Integrative Psychotherapy - Jeffery Smith. It has some really good info on attachment to therapist. I've been discussing the entries with my T recently and I'm starting to understand myself a bit better.
Hope it helps!

I've now read through several of his posts on attachment, including one about the inner child, and they've been really helpful in understanding. I think much of this is my inner child coming out--the wanting to be "fixed" by MC then being angry that he can't just do that, for example. Which is what kids want their parents to do--to fix things. And I think my e-mail to him a few days ago about how much I miss him during the week and how it can be hard for me to accept that he still exists at other times also come from childhood--object permanence issues, etc. Plus the worrying about what he thinks of me and wanting his acceptance/approval.

So it seems that tapping into the emotions of my inner child regarding MC might be a good sign that I am in fact in the process of working through the transference? So I should keep exploring that instead of shying away? MC does have considerable background in child development, so that will probably help me in working through it--because he'd understand where some of this is coming from.

So what I said in the last post would probably make more sense if I actually included my recent e-mails to MC (both sent Monday, no response yet, but that's not unusual--he sometimes takes a couple days):
"Hi MC,

Just going to jump right in here with a few post-session thoughts. I'm thinking I have some issues with object permanence regarding you. One random thing I liked about the old office is that, when I had sessions with T, we walked past your office, and if you had the door closed or open with the light on, I knew you were in that day and it was like, "Good, he still exists." Or if I saw your [color make of car] in the parking lot (I think you must be driving something different now because I haven't noticed it--God, now I probably sound like a stalker or something!) I had a similar reaction when H said he saw you Saturday, like this voice in my head going, "Yay, he still exists!" (Now I'm thinking of that commercial with Santa and the M&M guys...)

I wonder if that's part of the e-mailing thing, too? Not so much to get reassurance about our relationship or anything, but just to find out whether you're still breathing. For whatever reason, knowing you still exist in the world makes me feel more safe and secure.

I assume this all comes from a very young part of me. Like the part with separation anxiety (though I had issues with that at 12, too). To tie this back into today's session, this may be why I feel the need, if [daughter] is in her room upset, to let her know I'm still here, whether by calling up to her or actually going into her room. Which I guess is actually filling my need...

Stepping back a moment...why do I have so much trouble trusting that you exist if I don't get any hard evidence of it? I assume this goes back to unmet childhood needs, maybe? Or does it mean something bad happened to me way back when object permanence was supposed to become a thing, and I was so young that I don't remember it? So that part of my development went haywire?

And OK, I'm still kind of paranoid because of a comment you made a few months ago, when I talked about how you understood me. And I didn't want to lose that feeling of being understood, of feeling less alone in the world. And you made a comment about how, "Even if I die 3 months after you stop seeing me, that sense of being understood doesn't go away" (or something that). So I guess since you said that, this little part of my brain is like, "What if you have some terminal illness and that's why you worded it like that? Instead of just saying after we stop seeing you, that feeling will still be there?" (Please don't say, "Things are OK," because I now realize that's your general answer when things are very much NOT OK, but you don't want to go into it.)

So, there you go. Feel free to share any thoughts...Or at least to let me know you still exist!

Thanks,
LT"

Sent a few hours later:
"So, OK, there's all the object permanence stuff. But on a more basic level, it's that I often struggle with missing you between sessions. I sometimes start feeling sad when I see it's almost time to go because I know I won't see you for another week. Like today, I felt that way. And sometimes it's like I'm trying to squeeze in as much connection as I can in those last few minutes to hold me over to the next week. And then sometimes (not today) I end up crying on the way home because it's like I already miss you...

I feel like this sounds really pathetic, but there it is..."