Has anyone successfully worked through their transference?

MoxieDoxie · Dec 02, 2018 at 03:26 PM

Ok how do you even tell your therapist about your transference? What do you say?

Waterloo12345 · Dec 02, 2018 at 03:41 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MoxieDoxie

Ok how do you even tell your therapist about your transference? What do you say?

Well I did it in fits and starts by email cause am like a coward that way!! And I barely or only tangentially acknowledge it face to face but in email have been pretty clear, used 'love', referred to 'daddy', referred to wanting connection, comfort, non abandonment or 'well done/Good job', said expressly it's coming from 10 year or 2 year or baby me etc. He's following my lead in non or only tangential reference so far. Including to assure me it's normal, fine, a tool to heal.

MoxieDoxie · Dec 02, 2018 at 03:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Waterloo12345

Well I did it in fits and starts by email cause am like a coward that way!! And I barely or only tangentially acknowledge it face to face but in email have been pretty clear, used 'love', referred to 'daddy', referred to wanting connection, comfort, non abandonment or 'well done/Good job', said expressly it's coming from 10 year or 2 year or baby me etc. He's following my lead in non or only tangential reference so far. Including to assure me it's normal, fine, a tool to heal.

Are you older or younger than him. I am 51 and he is like 34 so it is really awkward for me to feel this way. I know age and gender does not matter in things like this.

Waterloo12345 · Dec 02, 2018 at 04:01 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MoxieDoxie

Are you older or younger than him. I am 51 and he is like 34 so it is really awkward for me to feel this way. I know age and gender does not matter in things like this.

Yep agree age/sex not matter as my feelings are actually maternal/primary care giver type. So he should be a woman!

But am 42 he's 50 or 49. If it helps until I clarified it, he was like am married. Am like eeewwwwwww. Also he's my doc not therapist to be clear.

But I've had transference to a number of mentor, caring type figures of both sexes but mostly older male over the years- obvs a huuugeeeee hole to fill as it just latches anywhere

My T is a woman of perhaps 45-50 and I feel negative maternal transference to her! Told her girl me views her a mummy but the prickly non trusting version. In email. Never acknowledged! Well she tries to raise it every so often and I blank her.

But will do something like sit in my 10 yr old pose and that is her cue that am interacting as a child. Also talk to her as if it is that part talking so I guess we talk around it.

feralkittymom · Dec 02, 2018 at 04:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MoxieDoxie

Ok how do you even tell your therapist about your transference? What do you say?

I never did. My experience was more like starfishing's. I was open about my feelings as they arose, but it was my T who explicitly brought it up after it had played out for a long time. My understanding is that this is common in psychoanalytically informed therapy: that the T brings the transference into explicit sharp focus only at the point the client is able to reflect upon it from a position of emotional strength, rather than act/express it through unmet needs. That's where the astuteness is especially important, I think. If it's brought out while the needs are still active, the realization that the T can't fully meet them can be too painful to bear. If timed correctly, there is a tinge of sadness or regret at the realization, but it's greatly tempered by the experiential awareness that the caring received is enough.

Anastasia~ · Dec 02, 2018 at 05:24 PM

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.

toomanycats · Dec 02, 2018 at 05:36 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Anastasia~

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.

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.

starfishing · Dec 02, 2018 at 11:04 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Anastasia~

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.

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.

unaluna · Dec 02, 2018 at 11:47 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Anastasia~

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.

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.

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Anastasia~ Poohbah Member Since Jul 2017 Location: Somewhere Posts: 1,019 6 5,296 hugs given	Dec 02, 2018 at 05:24 PM #6 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. __________________