Has anyone successfully worked through their transference?

Just out of curiosity what would it look like for a T to bring up the paternal transference, like what would he say? This sounds horrifying to me, clearly I must not be ready.

So you think the sign that something has been worked through means not needing or wanting therapy any more?

I think I used to think that I would get to a point of saying 'great, the (original) problem is solved, so no more therapy', but I've kind of changed my point of view as things have gone along.

In my therapy we don't really use the word or the idea of 'transference'. Still I have been through positive transformations that have been huge for me and in the context of my life, and the therapeutic relationship has been very important to me. So I am very thankful and I see it as a positive thing generally. I'm also quite comfortable with carrying on seeing my T for many years as long as I can afford it and as long as I find it helpful and a positive thing in my life. I am totally fine with this and I don't really see it as a negative or a sign that something has not been worked through.

My T began very early in our work to tell me that he was having strong feelings - strong feelings of care and protectiveness. He will still bring this up in our work on his own. He will tell me just bluntly mid-session that he's feeling strong daddy feelings or strong protective feelings.

It did and sometimes still does cause me a strange sense of physical pain coupled with longing. It's like care hurts... I want it, but when I encounter it, it feels like too much to handle - I used to describe it like watering a dry plant. If you dump a bunch of water on it at once, the plant simply cannot absorb it all.

Mine just said, in the middle of a very emotional discussion (I don't remember the topic, but it was @ 2/3 the way through a long therapy), "FKM, do you want me to be your Father?" It was said very matter of fact-ly, not at all incredulously. My answer was to deflect him, telling him he couldn't be. His response was to say that was true, that he couldn't be my father biologically. Then he said, "FKM, do you think that means that I can't care about you as a Father?"


And then we talked about how I didn't know much about being fathered, and he shared the fatherly feelings he had for me, what they felt like, and how they affected him. That led to a discussion of the ways in which I showed I was searching to fill the emotional need for a father, why that came about, and how I could satisfy those needs through him. Of course, this conversation was only the beginning, and that exploration deepened for the next few years.

For me the path to resolving an all-consuming therapist entanglement was:

(a) stop using self-defeating and meaningless terms like "transference"
(b) stop buying into industry propaganda about the need to "work thru" something that was conjured up therapy itself
(c) recognize the insanity of the process generally... developing strong feelings of any kind toward a virtual stranger and professional actor
(d) trust myself to sort out what happened

Also, I think just because people can extract a handful of insights or have some pleasant feelings during this process does not make it a good thing, on the whole, nor does it justify that existence of the process.

I agree with this.

I tried to work through “transferences” for many years but my feelings only intensified. I became a full blow therapy addict - complete with compulsive emails, inability to tolerate vacations, constant preoccupation with my therapist, ‘crazy’ responses and reactions, and pretty much total mental deterioration.

The only thing that worked for me was removing the source of my addiction - my therapist. The endless torture stopped but a part of me feels irreparably broken and violated by therapy.

I don't see what could be "worked through" since these feelings are created by therapy itself imo. Every human being on this planet has a hole they need to fill, even the most healthy ones. Therapy seems to often uncover those needs and then magnify them and boom! the client is hooked. I also think some people replace the addiction with a therapist with the addiction of another therapist. They go from one to another chasing the same "high". It took me a while to realize I was in fact addicted to therapy because 1) therapy is never described in this way by mainstream media and 2) I had never been addicted to anything before therapy so it was hard to recognize the effects. When my "supply" was cut off (ie I was terminated) I slowly started to realize what had been happening and the whole thing (therapy) crumbled. I could no longer believe in it and now that the high had worn off I could see the deception and the dishonesty. Therapy holds no interest for me anymore. Ironically I have "worked through it" but not thanks to a therapist, just by myself by questioning the whole thing and by reading stuff.

"All consuming therapist entanglement" is not the same as transference. Anything that results in a feeling of addiction, of life hinges on contact with the therapist, of desperation both in the presence of and away from a therapist, is not transference work.


You all are describing highly dysfunctional relations that are not a part of functional transference therapy with competent therapists. Apples and oranges. Not all therapists nor all clients are suited to transference work, nor is it applicable to all situations. And no, I'm not interested in a debate about the system as inherently dysfunctional, nor of therapists using "transference" to entrap clients, and will not engage in such baiting as that would be a derailment of the thread.

I don’t understand this.

Transference originates in the client. It exists or it doesn't because it stems from unmet needs in childhood. A competent therapist cannot "implant" a transference in a client. There are, of course, incompetent/unethical therapists who inflict all sorts of harm. But to call such experiences "transference" is both inaccurate and misleading.


If a client is engaging in therapy, and the process of that therapy results in persistent feelings of desperation, self harm, life altering obsessiveness, etc--worse than before therapy-- then that's either bad therapy, or inappropriate therapy for that client at that time. Transference has nothing to do with it.

I don't describe my feelings as transference, either. For me the transference happened a long time ago, when T asked if my husband and I wanted to "go deeper" after about 6 mos of successful couple counseling. I said yes because there was part of me that wanted to please him, liked the attention and that sort of thing.

Unfortunately we said yes. That was a bad decision on our parts as it has played out. Each of us had some deep stuff that we were coping with fairly well. The deeper stuff was opening a Pandora's Box. The feelings I have struggled with/still sometime struggle with are intense and painful.
T hasn't bailed on me, continues to be supportive and do his best. I see a second T who is experienced and has specific training with the stuff I struggle with. It is better, most of the time.

I think that a clean break might have been a good idea, but almost 11 years into this, I'm not going to do that. At least not today.

The other thing that I would add is that I think that people who are doing well in therapy don't seem to be on this forum. I do know lots of people who have found therapy helpful and I have had the experience of it being helpful over the years. But the deep, painful dependence on T is not, IMO (or in the opinion of other providers) transference. It is dependence and attachment.

I’m not too concerned about labels.

Bad, inappropriate, etc are all relative, and meaningless when one finds themselves ‘in it’ with very little hope of getting out without serious damage. Until one has suffered through it, it is impossible to convey to someone who hasn’t.

I think many clients are unable to find the line between ‘transference’ that needs to be worked through, and a harmful situation. At what line should a person leave therapy? It seems to me from reading this board that there are not a small number of people recovering or trying to work their way out of extremely challenging situations. Often they are encouraged to ‘talk it out’, ‘work through the hard stuff’, etc. I don’t really know what the right answer is.

I want to comment specifically to this part. Many of us have highly dysfunctional relationships with therapists because we had highly dysfunctional relationships with parents or no relationships with parents. Many of us carry that through to other relationships in our lives or have figured out how to navigate life despite. I was under the impression that replaying these dynamics with our therapist and having corrective experiences is what therapy was all about? Deep healing?

Particularly when therapists advertently or inadvertently try to provoke a parental or authoritative role, it seems to me that dysfunction resulting from a dysfunctional past is inevitable. Is there no help for those that keep forming dysfunctional relationships if such a thing is apparently not ‘normal’? Perhaps not through the therapy avenue, unless one is lucky enough to find a therapist who is truly exceptional.

I actually don't hear much advice on this forum about "working out" issues in the presence of alarmingly negative symptoms. What I see more of is posters who are negatively bonded to Ts they should walk away from, but are too deep in desperation to do so. Assuming no one can understand a situation unless they've experienced it is just another way of staying stuck.


I guess I don't think of terminology as "labels." I think words are important because otherwise there's no chance of shared meaning.

This is exactly the point of therapy. Working out the dysfunctions your life brings to therapy, with a competent therapist, is how therapy can work. A competent therapist doesn't provoke in most cases (there are modalities like Gestalt that are more confronting) . But that storminess isn't the same as dysfunctional therapy. When the therapy itself is causing more problems than it's solving, something is wrong. When the therapy itself is introducing new conflicts, something is wrong. It's not usually so obvious in a single session sort of way, but in an over time sort of way.

The unfortunate reality is that many folks who find themselves negatively bonded are in fact in no position to leave.

I unstuck myself after 8 years of assuming I was working through my issues and said transferences. Especially since my therapist kept pushing me to dig deeper, feel more, grieve, etc. Not being able to differentiate between transference and an unhealthy relationship kept me enmeshed and stuck. I’ve shared in few other threads what my ‘red flags’ are, but it’s not like there’s a readily accessible consumer guide to determine whether your therapy relationship is or isn’t working. Sadly, even if there was, I was already in too deep to leave for many years. Pandora’s box was opened.

The really sad part is that now my options are either find another therapist in a system I no longer trust, or go it alone. I chose the latter. For now.

This is what I think as well and why I compare many therapy stories shared on this forum to an addiction.

I personally don't think that it is always due to an incompetent therapist and/or unmotivated client when therapy does not turn out useful for someone. I think it is a particular approach to improvement that, if done well, it can be very helpful for some people, but not everyone. Just like a particular psych med or lifestyle choice would work for some but not for others, and can even be harmful in certain cases. I also think that some people are more prone to getting stuck in bad/useless therapy, in what is described as transference, attachment or whatnot, while others do not experience and process somewhat similar needs in a similar way and with the same outcome. It is normal human diversity IMO. I think some of us come here and like top encourage others to go against their internal currents and unstuck and this is sometimes met with negative reactions claiming we don't understand or are dismissive, which is fine with me as there is room for variety here and variety is exactly what can make a forum like this interesting and useful. There is also perfectly enough room for acceptance and pure support of whatever situation.

For me personally "working through" would never be something that is purely mental, remains in therapy, and does not lead to changes or improvement of symptoms in everyday life. This is one reason why I do not believe anyone can truly "work through" issues purely in therapy, whether it is transference, attachment, addiction or anything else. But it is just one opinion.

Thanks. This is extremely well put. I agree. It's very hard to describe, but I think you have done it well. It needs to be put on a "warning label" for therapy.

I haven't specifically experienced anything I'd call paternal transference, but as an example... If during a session or a series of sessions I mentioned feeling a certain way about him, he might say something like "The way you're describing feeling reminds me of something, and I wonder if you'd agree. Do you think that feeling of confusion is like what you felt when your father..." etc. etc. etc.

The timing is important though, and I think (at least for me) the tentativeness of the interpretation is too. So my therapist would only bring that up if he saw it as the right time for me to hear it and had a reason he thought it would be useful. And if I disagreed, and said no, that experience with my dad was different because... or no, but it actually does remind me of this other thing/relationship... then my therapist would be open to hearing that, whether it eventually turned out that his interpretation was off base, or whether it just wasn't something I was ready to hear at the time.

We just called it transference. And it usually showed up as me saying, "you sounded just like my mother there." Then my t would say, "thats funny, because i was just thinking that you were sounding just like your mother there." I internalized a lot of my parents messages and would use them on myself and other people, instead of speaking in my true voice, as my true self. Even my dad would say, if i asked him a question, "well, my father would tell you blah blah blah." So a lot of not taking responsibility in the genes.

well said! this was my experince too. i was too entangled, addicted too, negatively bonded, unhealthily attached, deeply entrenched,or what what ever you want to call it in the relationship with my ex-T to even fathom leaving or that i could survive life with out him being a part of it. i was completely stuck and the most pathetic thing about it, is i absolutely knew this too. although i didn't have the courage, strength or worthiness to get myself unstuck. it was easier to go along with what others were saying i should be doing in therapy instead of listening to my gut...thinking perhaps all those others on the forums and in the therapy books are right and i must be doing therapy all wrong. so i persevered onward hoping that one day, just maybe i might just 'work through' all this messy transference and the unbearable attachment issues with my T. including finally resolving all the ruptures after repeated ruptures. all the heartache, disappointments, and frustrations. always trying to reassure myself that surely that must be what therapy was suppose to be about. although, the issue with that solution was i was slipping backwards in life, not forwards, like i had signed up for when starting therapy.

all the talk here about 'filling a hole' i reckon was the crux of much of my issues. i had the deepest, darkest, coldest, eternally bottomless pit of despair inside of me that desperately needed filling. my ex-T and all his smooth talk about a 'healing therapeutic relationship' knew exactly how to trigger the ravenous hunger in that pit. but all he was offering me was meager crumbs. and for me, that was ok, because i didn't feel that i deserved any more and those tiny crumbs he did toss me already had me hooked.

eventually, after getting frustrated of only getting fed crumbs, i did successfully move beyond my transference, but there was no 'working through' the transference in the relationship with my T, and not in the traditional sense that most discuss is suppose to happen with a competent T. it was only through focusing on other means outside of my therapy that i was able to do this. my mind learned how to calm the dysregulation and fears with the aid of neurofeedback. i worked internally with my fragmented parts to bring them together to begin working as a unified team. and in the relationship with my supportive husband, i was able to start forming a secure and safe attachment to him (not my T). as a result of all this, my bottomless pit of despair began to shrink and i actually started believing that not only was i worthy of the love from others, but that i was actually worthy of loving myself. the more love i felt towards myself, the more my emptiness filled. i eventually got to the point where i no longer feared being abandoned or alone. i no longer felt lonely. i no longer feared my T leaving me or living life without him. in fact, i no longer feared my T. it was those fears that were fueling my addiction to him and to therapy. when i reached this point, i knew it was time to officially end therapy. i was no longer stuck and in need of an unhealthy attachment. it was an incredibly empowering feeling to experince. i only wish that more people were able to have a similar experince and that is why i continue to share my stories here...to perhaps offer a glimmer of hope that there is a way forward to a more fulfilling life.

Well said.

This was very similar to my own experience. The unfortunate part is that my being stuck cost me 8 years of time and session fees - not to mention the lost years of feeling horrible between sessions.

When I left I was in such a deteriorated state that it took months to work up to feeling like the world didn’t end. I can’t say I feel any better than when I started, minus gaining the knowledge to never ever allow anyone else to do this to me again.

Do therapist know and understand this is all happening? I am very enmeshed to my therapist and I spent the weekend trying to comfort that small child part that was in such despair. I have therapy today at 3pm. I did send him an email last night that I felt it was not the modality that he is using to help me with my issued but it was the relationship and the thought of leaving therapy brings back all the symptoms that brought me to therapy to begin with.

It is not normal to be thinking about your therapist every moment of the day. That is how my weekend went and I need it to stop. How can therapist think that is healthy?

Right now I just feel I can not leave therapy. If I was a healthy functioning adult I would not have gone into therapy to begin with. Since therapy with him I stopped being bulimic, I do not self harm and I do not think about killing myself on a daily basis. When I think about leaving therapy all those feelings seem to flood right back in. So I do not know anymore.

My therapist had no idea what she was doing to me (and possibly many other clients).

I’m fairly certain she believed I was being histrionic when I complained about side-effects. And also took no responsibility and was careless with her responses.

I truly believe that unless someone has ‘been here’ they aren’t able to appreciate how excruciating, humiliating, hopeless and anxiety provoking an attachment like this can be.

I will say, if there are improvements as a whole (ie discontinuing harmful thoughts and behaviors) it might be worth holding on. That was not the case for me.

I've got to the point where I no longer feel that 'working through' it is the answer, because it suggests that the feelings I have for him are an obstacle or a problem, that need to be resolved. What if the intense feelings are part of the therapy itself and what if I can use them to progress? I have experienced a shift in my thinking and feeling more recently and what has helped me move forward slightly is:
a) allowing myself to feel the feelings (especially the pain), rather than try to understand them or analyse them.
b) look at the hole/emptiness and experience it's presence as an adult, in some ways accepting it as part of me.
c) make a conscious effort to move myself forward, because there is a part of me that wants to stay in the dysfunctional attachment.

Strong feelings of love and attachment come up a lot in therapy and yet, it doesn't feel as though therapists or the therapy system are able to adequately help the process. I get the impression, that most therapists are winging it, and it's the clients who suffer.