[Merope]

As some of you may know from my previous posts, I have pretty intense parental transference and I see my T as a father figure. There are many things which encourage this: his caring nature, his age, the way he talks to me. Lately, however, the line between the paternal and the erotic has become blurred and I catch myself having these rather... different thoughts about him which feel both exciting and wrong.

I think it has something to do with the fact that he’s the most stable male presence in my life at the moment, so my mind tends to just pick him up and place him in scenarios that fulfill different sorts of needs. He’s safe. It also has to do with the fact that he’s currently on vacation and apparently my mind doesn’t know how to deal with his absence.

Anyway, the thing is, i find the parental transference very healing and I don’t want this new erotic one to interfere with it. There’s nothing wrong with erotic transference in general, but I don’t want to sexualise a father figure. It feels wrong and it makes me feel strange. Any tips on how to sort of switch it off, or tone it down?

I can’t tell him about it, it’s too mortifying. I just need it to go away so I can get through the day without randomly blushing like a complete weirdo and without feeling like I’m going to hide under my chair the next time I see him.

[Echos Myron redux]

Personally, I don't think switching it off or toning it down is going to work, because feelings are still there whether we choose to engage with them or not. I think it is important to acknowledge that these feelings are emerging and to accept them. They are a part of your process right now.
We sometimes sexualise our intense, childlike feelings towards our therapists because our adult brains don't know how to make sense of the intensity and the desire for affection other than to sexualise it. There may be an element of that, or it may be something else, but whatever's happening it's okay, very common, and your therapist probably would be very understanding. I get it though, shame is a powerful feeling and it's hard to overcome the fear that our feelings are wrong or unacceptable.

[LonesomeTonight]

Basically, what Echos said. And I've found that the more I've tried to suppress such thoughts, the more they're there. It can be better just to let them be and accept that they're just thoughts. And try to sit with them, as uncomfortable as they may feel at times.

[here today]

Although I did not find transferences healing, it sounds as if you have. And so maybe it is a sign of your "development" that you are having this erotic transference now. I view Freud's idea of the oedipus or electra complexes as just something that would normally happen for kids when those pathways in the psyche started working and eventually get integrated (in the ideal case, of course). If yours got "stuck" then it could be healing, too, for this to work its way out now.

I don't know that you need to discuss it with the T, unless you want to. Nothing wrong with the feelings per se except, as you say, you don't want to sexualize a father figure. Except that all children may do that somewhat, for the sake of their own development, even if there are all kinds of prohibitions against it, which is probably OK, too. It can live in a fantasy life, briefly, while the neurons work out the pathways, even though it's not a part (hopefully!!) of the child's real life. Seems like that might be true in your situation, too.

[DP_2017]

Does journaling help? Do you have good coping skills to ise? When you get these thoughts you can try to distract your mind the best you can. You could tell him but I honestly don't think its that helpful. Probably just add embarrassment and more shame. Telling them isn't always best. I had a nasty dream once. Was gonna never go back over it but I just distracted my mind and didn't focus on it
Now it's just in the past basically. Hasn't interfered with anything and he has no idea.

Good luck. This stuff is complicated

[Anne2.0]

For me, transference feelings pop up from time to time in my therapy, and they have been both paternal and erotic. It was interesting to note when they appeared, I can only recall a couple of times with the paternal. Once I was working with some feelings from my younger self over a few sessions and she kept saying things where I would retort "he's not your dad." That had a few different meanings. Another time I spent quite a few sessions in therapy talking about a stranger assault when I was a young adult and the older man who rescued me. It felt like he was the man who rescued/protected me and that felt really paternal.

With erotic transference, which has been more recent and less often/intense than the paternal, it appeared at a time when I was considering maybe dating again for the first time in more than a couple of decades. It seems just part of the process to consider what it would be like to be physical with another man, and projecting the t into this role just seemed natural as he was the safest person I could imagine.

I think mindfulness and meditation have been helpful for me in letting these thoughts go, but it helped me to accept them to realize that the transference appeared for a reason and had a purpose.

In discussing these issues with T, I didn't always tell him about it-- I worked with some of the young girl's stuff in session, but didn't discuss the daddy stuff with him. I did admit my rescue feelings/fantasy in session but I recall he responded in a way that allowed me to feel heard but we didn't spend much time on it. The erotic stuff I've never told him about, maybe I would if it came up again.

For me much of therapy is done by myself out of session, as I live my life and pay attention to how I respond to people and situations. Sometimes I share what I have worked on in session, but mostly I don't. When I have talked about it, however, it has been important for me not to label it as "transference" because I think that term itself is loaded with all kinds of stuff that isn't part of my experience and that labeling charges it in a certain way for me. I just say "something is bubbling up for me in my head" or whatever.

So no pressure for you on what you do with these feelings, there is no should that you have to talk about it immediately or that you can never discuss it ever. There are a range of possibilities between those 2 extremes, you can find something that works for you.

[Fuzzybear]

(((((((( hugs ))))))))

I agree with those who say this stuff is complicated :-(

And transference does not only occur in formal therapy (as I’m sure many know)

[Lemoncake]

I've always had parental transferance for my T, but the erotic transferance only developed during whilst he was away on his first break. I felt very ashamed for having sexual thoughts about him, and it did come up related to something we were talking about at the time- but I denied it. I later emailed him so I didn't have to see his reaction.

Any T worth working with will not shame you for having these feelings towards him.

I have never experienced parental transference in my therapy. There was a little erotic here and there but it never bothered me. What I did experience extensively in my youth was being very drawn to and developing affection for mentor figures, people with considerable life experience and wisdom, whom I saw having something important to teach me. It very often mixed with erotic feelings that I acted out before I learned to recognize the differences in motivation and discriminate what really drove me. I do not regret any of those relationships, they were all constructive and respectful for me, but were definitely driven by a form of transference on my end, which sometimes faded and so did my interest with it. I confused many people with the whole thing before I understood clearly and was able to actually explain my motives and be transparent.

So what was the drive exactly? I wrote about it here on PC a few times. It was a form of identity search, being drawn to features in other people (real or projected) that reflected my values, things that I wanted to see and develop in myself. It wasn't a need for love and care at all for me, more this intense desire to align and merge with my own developing value system. I still experience it mildly sometimes (I am 44 now) when I see perceive traits and behavior in people that I find very appealing and want to incorporate into myself more, but nowhere as intensely and persistently as in my young years. I think it has dissipated because, over time, I did integrate and develop those features in myself. What is interesting is that now there are young people who seem to develop the same kind of interest/transference/call it whatever toward me, mostly in my mentoring roles but also on a broader scale, which appears as an indication that what I was striving for in my youth has worked quite well. By the time I got to therapy at age 40, this was pretty advanced, I guess that's one reason why the same transference never showed up in my therapy. It's also true though that none the two 2s embodied those traits and values I tend to be drawn to much, not even the newer ones that are more characteristic of my more mature state. Some little things yes and, interestingly, I automatically reacted to it with trying to incorporate them into my own styles. One such thing was my last T's professional email style.

So, for me, the way for these transference feelings to decrease is usually developing the admired features in myself. Of course some are easier than others but I've never found that I intensely desired features that were foreign to me - I think because they derive from the very core of my identity and what drives me naturally.

[here today]

Originally Posted by Xynesthesia

I have never experienced parental transference in my therapy. There was a little erotic here and there but it never bothered me. What I did experience extensively in my youth was being very drawn to and developing affection for mentor figures, people with considerable life experience and wisdom, whom I saw having something important to teach me. It very often mixed with erotic feelings that I acted out before I learned to recognize the differences in motivation and discriminate what really drove me. I do not regret any of those relationships, they were all constructive and respectful for me, but were definitely driven by a form of transference on my end, which sometimes faded and so did my interest with it. I confused many people with the whole thing before I understood clearly and was able to actually explain my motives and be transparent.

So what was the drive exactly? I wrote about it here on PC a few times. It was a form of identity search, being drawn to features in other people (real or projected) that reflected my values, things that I wanted to see and develop in myself. It wasn't a need for love and care at all for me, more this intense desire to align and merge with my own developing value system. I still experience it mildly sometimes (I am 44 now) when I see perceive traits and behavior in people that I find very appealing and want to incorporate into myself more, but nowhere as intensely and persistently as in my young years. I think it has dissipated because, over time, I did integrate and develop those features in myself. What is interesting is that now there are young people who seem to develop the same kind of interest/transference/call it whatever toward me, mostly in my mentoring roles but also on a broader scale, which appears as an indication that what I was striving for in my youth has worked quite well. By the time I got to therapy at age 40, this was pretty advanced, I guess that's one reason why the same transference never showed up in my therapy. It's also true though that none the two 2s embodied those traits and values I tend to be drawn to much, not even the newer ones that are more characteristic of my more mature state. Some little things yes and, interestingly, I automatically reacted to it with trying to incorporate them into my own styles. One such thing was my last T's professional email style.

So, for me, the way for these transference feelings to decrease is usually developing the admired features in myself. Of course some are easier than others but I've never found that I intensely desired features that were foreign to me - I think because they derive from the very core of my identity and what drives me naturally.

Thanks for this very clear, descriptive post.

I suspect, from what I know about myself and what I have read about the development of identity, that some giant conflicts, fragmentation maybe, in how I felt about my female relatives -- mother, aunts, and grandmother -- may have affected whatever it is that drives and tried to integrate my identity and sense of self growing up. I still don't have a very good one, and don't really have any clear idea about how to go about it, though I keep on keeping on.

Reading about your experience is helpful, and I wish there were more descriptions around about how the development of an identity "works", when it does, and not just descriptions and "diagnoses" of when it fails.

Originally Posted by here today

Thanks for this very clear, descriptive post.

I suspect, from what I know about myself and what I have read about the development of identity, that some giant conflicts, fragmentation maybe, in how I felt about my female relatives -- mother, aunts, and grandmother -- may have affected whatever it is that drives and tried to integrate my identity and sense of self growing up. I still don't have a very good one, and don't really have any clear idea about how to go about it, though I keep on keeping on.

Reading about your experience is helpful, and I wish there were more descriptions around about how the development of an identity "works", when it does, and not just descriptions and "diagnoses" of when it fails.

Well, the concepts and descriptions in Self Psychology are quite similar to mine, I think. The interesting thing, in my experience, was that I did not arrive at my interpretations and conclusions studying Self Psychology or anything similar first. I did on my own, using some information from general personality psychology, but much more heavily based on my own analytical-intuitive processes and life experience. I was kinda thrilled later learning that some people have already described and publicized very similar things - it also made me feel that I was reinventing the wheel for myself, but whatever - the impact was still strong.

I personally tend to despise the popular suggestions of therapists and psychotherapy theories of transference - perhaps rooted in more old-fashioned Freudian ideas, but also I think heavily influenced by power-seeking and authoritarian, manipulative, often disingenuous approaches of therapists who want to cultivate client admiration. Even my "good" T, who is definitely very knowledgeable and intelligent both cognitively and emotionally, was kinda surprised when I presented him with my interpretation of my transference pattern. Maybe not so surprised, but I often felt he would have wanted to be in a role of a provider of love and caring, validation, inspiration - and not just mere reflections of my own, already very self-aware independent values and productivity seeking. I think he understood and fully accepted my view and approach though, including when I terminated therapy because I no longer thought it provided me with benefit over its costs.

My first T, however, was a total mess in all this. Extremely manipulative, pushing his own brand of transfrence, interpretation, and dealing with it is his own way only, ignoring my versions (that I shared generously with him), unable to see who I am as a pretty well-developed, adult, integrated human being with only specific issues. In my last message to this T, I told him that I stopped trying to understand how his world operates because I am unable to have a feel of it, and I think he is just as unable to feel mine. Totally incompatible, living in parallel universes that have almost nothing to overlap. He never responded and I have zero motivation to ever contact him again. If there exists a perfect match - I think I experienced the perfect mismatch with that therapist It's been interesting why I decided to engage with him in the first place though, and kept pursuing for a while. I think, because back then, I was just as similarly mismatched with my own self and basic, natural values. I avoided addressing the misalingnment in myself for way too long - so I superficially felt drawn to some others who reflected the same state and discrepancies, poor responsibility, poor discipline, lack of effort.

The realizations about my motives regarding that bad T were very meaningful for me though. In terms of how low I can sink in my own "values"/realizations/responsibility, when not healthy mentally - when I continually seek out someone like that T and get obsessed with my interactions with him. It definitely mirrors my "low" states.

The interactions with the mentors in my youth though, described above, provided the other parts of the spectrum - how high I can arise, be content, in line with myself, when I do my best in terms of natural inspirations and values. I also found those transferences very healing and progressive. I think it's a normal process of life that we experience all these extremes and everything in-between, and perhaps find some kind of reasonable middle ground that suit us best and that not only reflects us more realistically but can provide the most satisfying, productive basis of our lives and higher contributions.

[Merope]

Thank you all so much for your responses!

Xynethesia, what you have written strikes a cord with me. I think part of me is trying (although perhaps not too consciously) to imbed him in myself in a way, because he has certain personality traits that I deem desirable. In that way, it makes sense for the transference to morph based on what I think I need at different times. Very interesting to keep an eye on even if somewhat uncomfortable.

When I wrote the original post in this thread, the way I thought of him was trough the prism of some form of erotic transference which has since died down a little. I am not back in the more familiar (and comfortable) terrain of thinking of him platonically, almost as if through the eyes of a small child. I don’t know what caused the shift, it just seems to have happened overnight.

“We sometimes sexualise our intense, childlike feelings towards our therapists because our adult brains don't know how to make sense of the intensity and the desire for affection other than to sexualise it.” Thank you for this, Echos, I hadn’t thought of it. It makes a lot of sense in a way.

DP, I journal more than I live haha. I don’t know what I’d do without it, I think I’ve spend days writing every minute detail about my relationship with T. It definitely helps to write it all down and look back over it with a clearer head. Thanks for the suggestion.

I guess exploring this sort of stuff in session can be helpful, but at the same time everyone has these sort of thoughts from time to time. If they don’t interfere with therapy, there’s no reason why I should bring them up with him.