Need help explaining some things to my T

Isn’t that a good thing?

“Saying that he is fine with helping you as long as there aren’t going to be romantic feelings?”

Psychoanalytic/psychodynamic - Freud and Jung and Rank, etc.? Isn’t transference very, very ‘old school?’ I’ve never had romantic feelings for any of my shrinks. I’ve liked some more than others (usually because I find things more in common with some more than others).

Yup, underneath , the conversation is about the legitimacy of doing work in attachment theory/ anxious attachment v the T being worried you use romantic loves/ crushes on your T's to avoid your real life, and not wanting to be the object of that because 1) it is bad for you 2) he saw you do it with MC and discussed with MC and mediated 3) you are likable and he might be tempted to relax his boundaries 4)he is getting nudged outside his comfortable scope of practice ( which you asked from day one) 5) Any countertransferance he has about being loved/ focused on . And Actually I cross the line in my head now and then- even though I adore my SO more than my T, there is something about the "I love you I don't love you tell me more how do you feel about me in the room right now peek a boo ",The Relationship stuff, that is preoccupying . The T's make it happen, then don't want it - in a way.

Just going to throw in some of my thoughts too:

1) Explaining feeling judged, or anything else really: I think it's always useful to use examples when someone doesn't understand. For your T, it might be good if it was an analogy from sport. Something like the pitcher thing that was mentioned before. Other possibilities might be examples with children (such as a child feels judged if people laugh at the child for wearing a certain thing), you can bring an example and then explain that this is how you feel in certain situations.

2) I think his reply shows he did understand what you meant, but maybe he doesn't quite want to do the same thing as you. I'm not sure what you'd mean by 'accept and join me' though. I think he shows that he is willing to accept the fact that this happened for you, and that you guys need to talk about it for extended periods of time. But at the same time, he worries about you getting too dependent. It's a fine and difficult line to walk, but a very important one. My T (who's very comfortable with working with transference) once said that it's very difficult to know whether the T is encouraging dependency with his behavior, and it needs to be reevaluated a lot, thought about and sometimes the T has to limit some things in order to not create dependency.

I think he understands why it's important to you to talk about and work on. Do you understand the reverse, why it's important that you also work 'against' transference? I know that for me, being dependent on someone is a very comforting feeling, it feels much more natural than being securely attached. But if my T just let me develop transference like crazy, it would ultimately not help me, because I'd just repeat the same things over and over. I think that's what your T meant, that he needs to think about how you guys can at the same time talk about it and work through it, but still not get you to a point where you're too dependent. And since he's not that used to working with transference, that requires some thinking and planning on his part.

3) I think the issue for me would be that he'd share too many feelings with me in this situation. If I told my T about a situation in my life and he said it made him uncomfortable, I'd worry about HIS feelings. Sometimes it's alright to share feelings, for example if he's truly worried I might hurt myself (sharing will make me more likely to not do it) or if he shares a certain emotional reaction he might have in a similar situation (either because I can see I'm not alone, or because I can see alternatives). I think being honest is good, but not sharing anything does not equal being not honest. It's like if you have a bar of chocolate on the way home, and don't tell your husband about it. It doesn't mean you're not honest, you're just not sharing it, and if you were asked directly you'd probably admit to it.

I'd tell my T in this situation that although I appreciate that I have an effect on him and that he wants to be honest with me, honesty does not always help the situation. That he should be careful to share things with me that are not necessary. Because ultimately, it's about me. If he's not comfortable with something, he can seek supervision. I don't need to know about that part, it does not help me in any way. It's not my place to deal with that feeling and I don't have any expertise in it either. If it is not beneficial to my therapy, it doesn't need to be shared, even if it were honest.

This is an interesting thread for me, LT. Interesting, because when I read about your current therapist, I often feel that I relate to how he thinks, communicates, approaches your relationship and the work with you. Of course I may be wrong, it's hard to accurately get someone based on indirect and limited descriptions (reading on this forum) but I find that this kind of familiarity feeling based on reading about someone quite often has a lot of truth in it for me.

Assuming this is not entirely wrong, what I think is that your T and yourself probably have a dose of differences in personality, perception, thinking and emotional style, natural focus and how you prefer to tackle problems. From all I have read, this is what seems most likely to me to cause the occasional misunderstandings and discomfort on both ends. He seems to have a clear interest and curiosity to understand you though and to stretch his natural/current limits, but it's normal that it only gets so far in the moment, especially in spontaneous reactions. Again, I can give an example from my own world. I am very interested in reading about the depths of attachment styles, how different people experience it, including all the posts here on PC struggling with it in therapy. But it never feels overly familiar to me on very personal levels, much more intriguing stories from others' lives, and there is a certain limit on how much I can take of it before it (now I'll be honest) creeps me out a bit. I know well that this reflects my own personality, attachment style and preferences but it still works in this way and it would be impossible for me to change many of my in-the-moment reactions drastically for the sake of pretending that I understand and feel the same on emotional levels. I think one can get endless amount of education and training, these natural personality styles do not go away completely.

Based on the above, I agree with you that trying to explain your perspectives and personal goals to him in various ways is a good strategy. But if you do it the way you do on this forum, I think it's more than good enough - you are indeed very articulate and have quite an outstanding focus and eye to detail and nuances. I can tell you this is a main reason I enjoy reading your posts on this forum as well - you often write about feelings, reactions, orientation to other people that are not so familiar to me but I find it interesting to hear and you explain it so well. What draws me in more is your detailed analyses and interpretations - now this feels much more familiar than the feelings themselves.

The great explanations do not mean that someone who has this different default emotional and cognitive orientation from you will be able to react to it as you desire, even recognize immediately how his reactions and feedback might affect you when there is interaction in the moment (such as in session). Even provide the kind of support you desire, with lots of reassurance and "all is fine" feedback. He might simply think that it's not his role and primary skill to provide that sort of encouragement, which may be his weakness, but perhaps also something you can use to do things differently?

I think that, to make such a combo work and beneficial in the long run, it needs tailoring and adjustment on both ends, from both parties - this may be why he emphasizes that he wants to be open and honest with you about some of his reactions. You may perceive it as blunt and too direct at times, or he may make lame jokes that feel inappropriate for you, but I think he also makes it clear to you often that he has particular elements in his work style and he will use them regardless of what is expected of him, will give feedback using his own natural preferences. And it's clear that the kind of deep psychodynamic/transference-based orientation is not his first choice of working even though he shows an obvious interest. I would not expect this interest to be limitless though and would not want to change him / mold him into your imagination - yes that would be the "transference work" but perhaps not the best use of him and his skills? Instead - do you find his natural work style, observations and feedback useful? If so, I really think that what others suggest, a two-way adjustment and meeting each-other where you both are, might be a more realistic and potentially beneficial approach to get constructive things out of this therapy in your everyday life.

I hope you don't get this post negatively, I am definitely not the person who wants to defend therapists in general, but yours just keeps giving me these feelings of familiarity to some of my own style and the source of some of my conflicts with people. So I thought I would share the thoughts. Again, I feel your explanations really don't need improvement, they are great as they are, very clear and detailed. Probably the challenge is more, for you both, to adjust to each-other better - for the sake of improving your everyday life and relationships, less so for the sake of the comfort of therapeutic relationship per se? Otherwise, have you ever worked with a psychoanalyst, a T whose primary orientation is that? I think those are the people who would be most likely interested and willing to do very deep transference-based work.

I like a lot of the points Xynesthesia made. I also think it would be a grave mistake to think that a T without adequate training and supervision can get into deep transference-based work, even if both the therapist and the client want to go there. It's a potential minefield in the best of times and seems foolish and dangerous to attempt without adequate preparation, no matter how flexible the T wishes to be.

My T shares her feelings when she thinks they will be helpful for me, but it's an incredibly delicate balance. Your T seems to not have that inner monologue or instinct to know when to share and when to hold back (hence the feeling judged bit). It seems like your T isn't able to understand why you feel judged when his intention or feeling in the moment wasn't one of judgment. When my T's message gets garbled beyond recognition, it is almost always because there is stuff from my past or my view of myself that's getting in the way. My T can often sense when that is happening faster and better than I can (although I'm getting better at it as time goes on), and she's usually good at drawing those links to people or events from my past. I wonder if that's something your T will be able to notice and work with better once he has a stronger grasp of your history. Or maybe not. I don't always think it's helpful for the T to go into great detail about what he/she meant or felt in the moment (beyond saying that X thing wasn't meant negatively) because the thing that happened sometimes actually had very little to do with the therapist him/herself.

You make some good points here...including that he really is answering my question. It may not be in the exact way I want it answered, but he's answering it. And ex-MC very much got me stuck in a sort of outside reassurance loop--even when he seemed to be trying to get me out of it (maybe the middle of last year, before the December falling out), he still kept reassuring me. Like he'd say "I can't keep reassuring you because it won't help," then turn around and reassure me the very next time I looked for it. It becomes an addiction of sorts. I want current T to help me get better at reassuring myself. And I suppose a big part of doing that is not offering me reassurance...or at least not excessively, like ex-MC. Like "I'm still OK with working with you" if I'm worried vs. "Everything you feel is OK, and I'd never abandon you for your feelings."

Thanks, glad you also think he's judgmental! I do get how he might not understand how I'm just sort of, well, transferring my transference, especially as he is probably trying to be very much unlike how MC was to me. He may not fully understand that it's "male authority figure who listens to me" vs. the specific person.

Thanks, helps to hear you say that. A big part of it too is that I took him giving me the stone as a sign that he *was* OK with the attachment...so to find out it was basically the opposite, that he felt sort of pushed into giving me the stone and hasn't felt comfortable with it, is especially jarring.

Yes, it does seem he likes me, whether it's me as a person or the challenge of figuring me out, or maybe both. Rationally, I think to myself that if he wanted to stop working with me, I've given him multiple opportunities, various "outs" so to speak, the most recent being Tuesday when I said that maybe I should just leave. It's not like he was all, "No, don't go!" but I got the sense (from his body language) he was disappointed by that and wanted me to stay and keep talking and was glad when I did.

Looks like an interesting read! And yeah, T has said several times that I probably know more about transference and attachment than he does...

Oh, it's definitely a cycle of sort, since it also happened with a high school teacher. You're right that there's the familiar and safe aspect to attaching in a certain way. So with current T, it feels unsafe, even though I know ultimately it is probably better and, as he would say, healthier for me. That's good to know you've had success with your current T who has stricter boundaries. Current T clearly has stricter boundaries than ex-MC (wouldn't take much!), but it feels like he's relaxed them a little lately--responding to some more frequent shorter e-mails and not expressing any annoyance at them, being more relaxed with me in session (like some political talk, which he had been very closed about), and, well, I had thought the stone, but was clearly wrong about that! So I think it both felt good and was making me a little nervous that he seemed to be relaxing boundaries a bit when he'd seemed so rigid at first.

Thanks, it's helpful and validating to hear others say that! Because I often wonder if I'm overreacting to things...

Glad yours isn't judgmental. I feel like my T probably doesn't *think* he's being judgmental, but to me it feels he is. Even if maybe it's in my best interest. I suspect it's not all about him, though, that some of that is stuff from childhood/my mom, though, so I need to address that with him.

It might help to talk about the previous cycles. For instance, with MC's wife dying, that could have made a rescue / Cinderella fantasy more possible. The fact that current t has a child on the spectrum makes you seem like partners already. Stuff like that. Real stuff. I dont understand jargon like "meet me where i am" - the parking lot? A bridge?

I understand its very hard to talk about this stuff, but its the fantasies that keep us stuck.

Yeah, T has noted things where I'm "trying to care of him," too. Not so glaring as wishing I could support MC while his wife was sick, but little things he noticed. Like once he'd commented that his wife was sick (ack!) so had to look at a text because he'd be responsible to get his son from school if something happened. I think we were supposed to have a session in the next day or two after that, it was supposed to snow, so I asked T if he'd still be able to come in if school closed, in case his wife was still sick. Which...honestly, that was more taking care of *me* since I was trying to figure out if he might have to cancel, but he saw it as taking care of him.

And i just read your dream last night in the other thread. I can understand you giving me a curt reply as you did here, you certainly dont owe me anything, but it sounds like you really did not understand my post or care to. Thats okay. I will bow out of this and future threads.

Thanks. Yes, I wonder if he's equating transference too much with romantic feelings. I mean, at one point I suppose I did have some romantic feelings for ex-MC, but it was really more the paternal stuff that had a strong effect on me. And that's more what I'm talking about with T. Maybe I need to explain that better? Though I could also seem him feeling weird about someone only 7 years younger than him feeling paternal toward him (especially since he recently expressed issues about feeling old!)

Thanks for the comment. Responding to each of your numbers, cause they're a bit different!

1) Yes, it does seem like T is looking out for me. He saw the end of my relationship with MC and how painful and destructive some of that was. And in my descriptions of other parts of the relationship, I think he sees how it didn't help me...

2) Not totally clear what you mean by part of it, as T never directly mediated anything with MC, if that's what you mean. MC did talk to him once, but it was just MC sharing info with him (I didn't allow T to talk about me at the time), and I'd talked about us all meeting but never did.

3) This is actually something that occurred to me and part of why I said something (forget if in e-mail or in person) about whether it was any client or me in particular where he'd feel uncomfortable with transference and, say, the stone representing him. Because part of me wondered if he'd be less uncomfortable if, say, it was a 16-year-old boy. Rather than a woman around his age. Not that I'm all "oh, I'm irresistible, of course he'd be attracted to me." Just...I don't know, maybe he's felt, say, too relaxed around me at times, like if we're just joking around and chatting during session (his thing about "just two people talking").

4) Yes, he might be worried that he's going to fail me on a professional level because it's outside his scope. Like he feels out of his depth. So he's feeling less confident than if I was like, "Hey, I'm feeling less confident when I'm at bat than I used to--help!"

5) I do think some of this may be his own stuff. Like maybe he feels uncomfortable having people look up to him too much (opposite of MC!) or even possibly having them be attracted to him, if he thinks it's about that.

And for the last part, yeah, I get that. Ex-MC at one point said how the therapeutic relationship can be "seductive."

100 percent this. At least for my T, he thrives is messy intense feelings and welcomes all kinds of emotions, but he even once said about the show In Treatment how it is a nightmare to even contemplate a patient with a fatal attraction or vice versa( I am paraphrasing). I didn't understand therapy at first, and I even was kind of confused by the intimacy. Me having a BF and my T having a wife really is in the air. You have H and your T has W. This comes into play in all kinds of unspoken ways. I can t recall if it was Faulkner or Freud who said "The unconscious is never married", but that is the only time my T got super pissed off with me was for saying that. Maybe that is why he called you "honey" and tried to make you seem too young or younger?

I do think you have a very nuanced grip of transference , and a sophisticated, experienced take on being a therapy client LT. I bet your T is not used to that.

It's hard to know where the discomfort comes from—fear of romantic transference or concern that it's not helpful therapeutically to focus on the therapist. There is zero chance of anything related to the former in my case, however my therapist is pretty hardlined about not being any kind of focus of my therapy. I may be wrong, but my experience bears out that most therapists don't do psychodynamic or attachment based therapy. Maybe some can handle it if it comes up, but I think most just want to deal with how the person is handling life outside the therapy relationship.

I lurk a lot so I’ve been following your story for a long time.

I wonder if it’s really a modality issue. Like the attachment/transference stuff is usually the domain of psychoanalytic/psychodynamic therapists, yet you’re seeing a clinical psychologist with a focus on sports psychology. As if you’re seeing someone who specializes in reading glasses and hope he can also learn to work with astigmatism?

Just to clarify, sports psychology is just one of his focuses, also teens/young adults and couples. Which, yeah, not me...but he has a PhD in Clinical Psychology and has been practicing in that for 17 years, just some extra training/certification in the sports stuff. (Ex-MC also specialized in teens, incidentally.)

LT — lots of good stuff has been said and so I’ll just add a bit.

You can’t work on / resolve transference (or even attachment) etc this way — telling your therapist how and what they should do.

The magic / healing happens in the interaction.

And, it is the therapist’s job / knowledge / skill-set that they bring to bear to foster, modulate and sort out what’s going on for the client.

The client’s only job in the psychodynamic setup is to figure out if they can land at a place where they trust the therapist enough to let go and be vulnerable and let the therapist take care of everything else.

It sounds like you’re trying to be both therapist and client — and gawd knows I know the temptation to do that often (as Blondie points out) — but that’s not terribly helpful, imho.

Now, I don’t know if whatever you’re thinking of as transference or attachment issues or whatever is really all that stuff or something else altogether or some combination of a bunch of things but if that’s what it really is, then I’m really not sure how trying to explain any of this stuff to your therapist — who of his own acknowledgment, is completely unskilled in this modality — is helpful.

This isn’t something like CBT where telling someone what works or doesn’t is largely divorced from the relationship with the person themselves.

I do appreciate everyone's input and will try to comment on the most recent few.

From what you've described it doesn't sound to me that your T is interested in understanding you. When someone wants to understand you they ask many clarifying questions and they don't try to run away from the subject by telling you that they would "think about it".

What's there to think about? If he, as a professional doesn't believe in a certain way of doing the work or in a certain method, he should just say so and explain why he doesn't believe in it. If he is uncomfortable with listening to you talk about how you feel about him or, in professional lingo, with "discussing transference", which he clearly is, that's his personal issue to deal with. This has nothing to do with how well you explain things to him. If he doesn't want to do what you ask him (which he clearly doesn't), no amount of "splaining" would make him do what he doesn't want to do.

The issue I see here is his dishonesty, which, ironically, is masked by his "honest" remarks about how creepy it feels to him to deal with your transference. If this feels creepy to him and if he is so honest, then he should honestly admit that this is HIS problem that creates an obstacle in therapy instead of implying that your need to talk about your feelings is A problem. This is your therapy and your need to talk about whatever you want to talk about should be respected, not shamed as something "creepy". He has the right to feel however he feels, but if his feelings prevent you from processing what you need to process, he should take responsibility for creating an impasse in therapy and admit to his limitations.

If I were you, I would not invalidate your shame around this. I understand that you have a previous history of being shamed and that any slightly critical feedback could make you feel ashamed. But, in this case, the shame you feel didn't just originate in your past experience. You WERE objectively shamed by your T for needing to talk about your feelings. Saying to someone that their feelings are "creepy" or feel "creepy" is an OBJECTIVELY shaming comment.

From what little information I've read about you and your therapy on this forum, you seem to gravitate towards men who dismiss your needs one way or another, some more harshly, others more covertly and subtly. But all the "actors" you've described in your stories on PC (your H, MC, this T) seem to be dismissive of you and your needs. If I were you, I'd ask myself why I keep tolerating this.

Totally agree. I have been a bit cringy about people praising his honesty on here because it does appear to be masking his avoidance of his responsibility, which is inherently dishonest. Not least because he implied he would work with the transference at the start of the therapy and has now hurt you by not delivering on that.

I couldn't agree with IDIMW more.

I have to agree with the previous posts. Your T's 'honesty' is somewhat ironic. He told you he was comfortable dealing with transference at the start yet is clearly not. His comments were judging and shaming. Therapy should be a safe place where we can bring all feelings into the room unless of course they harm the T. He should be able to contain your feelings but it seems he is not. The therapy shouldn't be about 'his' feelings or needs and he should deal with his issues arpund this in his own time particularly as they are affecting your progress/therapy

Yeah, I'm going to be addressing all this with him more today...

I don’t think saying something at the outset that you think is true and then realizing later that you were wrong is “dishonest.” What’s important is honesty in the moment.

People change. One day someone says to someone else, “I love you.” And it’s true for them right then and there. Then six months later they realize that’s not true for them anymore. That doesn’t make the earlier statement a lie.

And I think for LT to be able to change these patterns she wants to change she needs him to tell her where he’s uncomfortable and why, as opposed to just waving her on a la MC. What would be dishonest is if he kept pretending he was comfortable with it.