Different T to help with Transference of this T?

So my transference was never resolved and when we went to virtual things crumbled. I became depressed with the shut down situation, my loss of income and my husbands cancer that I could not continue with EMDR by video nor go back down memory lane to talk about trauma. Sessions were mainly sat int silence and he was no help so he said a soft pause in sessions would be a good idea. I stopped doing sessions as I felt he was glad to get rid of me.

Here I am 2 months latter completely obsessed with I’m him. Internet stalking, fantasizing about him. It is so painful. Thank heavens I still chat with a therapist on BetterHelp.com and we had a video session all on my compulsion and obsessions with that T. He feels T never addressed the transference even though I did talk to him about it and emailed him about it. He just ignored it. It never resolved and now it is causing me so much pain I am not functioning well.

I have read so much about this painful attachment but yet nothing is healing it. I am afraid if I contact him again about this it will perpetuate my obsession. I do feel zero contact is the best thing right now but all I do is send messages to my online T about my ex day every damn day.

Hugs, I'm sorry, Moxie...

MoxieDoxie, I want to give you caring support for how deeply you have been affected by the transference you have with your former T.

I agree. For whatever reason - whether by choice or because of incompetence - he did not guide you to properly work through your transference (or his counter-transference).

As miserably painful as it can be, I agree with you about zero contact. From what you've posted on this thread I have a strong feeling that re-connecting with ex-T would be nothing better than beating your head against a brick wall. It would be like walking backwards.

Unfortunately, teletherapy isn't the greatest way (to me, anyway) to enter into a profound relationship with a new therapist. It does sound like your BetterHelp T is providing some support for you, which is important.

I'm dismayed by the number of therapists who aren't capable of handling the transference relationship. I mean...transference is the foundation of the therapeutic relationship...the potential danger of an unresolved transference is why I'm not usually in favor of short-term therapy.

I wish I could wave a magic wand and come up with some fabulous answer for you. But all I can realistically say is that I do believe you're doing the very best you can with what you have available at this time. It's important to give yourself a lot of credit for that!


My hope for you is that when in-person therapy happens again (which it will!), you find a competent T to help you work through the leftover feelings you have and, furthermore, to support you in moving on

Thank you for your words of support. I would come on here and read peoples horror stories about their transference and how it left them broken year after therapy with that T ended. I used to think that would not happen to me. I even remember reading a post on her of a girl who drive by her T’s house and got caught and then terminated. I fully understand the compulsion to do that as I fantasize about trying past his house just to feel close to him. This is all consuming. I have been reading on what makes a stalker. I am one step behind being an in person stalker. I have discussed this with my online T. It helps to actually talk about it as a pressure release valve and to not feel so ashamed. He too thinks my T’s big mistake was not addressing this and coming up with a way for therapy to end naturally over time and to help me move to that. I feel so sick over this and I do not know how to make it stoop.

If therapists are trained in a cognitive therapy modality, they really don't have much of an understanding of transference or attachment as transference just doesn't exist as a concept in cognitive theoretical orientations and attachment is not really a focus for those orientations, either.

Transference is a psychoanalytical/psychodynamic concept. Kind of silly since it obviously exists that it's not part of every theoretical orientation.

He is a trauma therapist doing EMDR now charging $200 a session and he does a good amount of marketing for EMDR to crush your anxiety, depression and feelings of not good enough.

He seems like a crap trauma therapist and like he's impatient for people to get better. EMDR hasn't even been proven effective for anything but trauma, so I side eye all these therapists who do it for everything and anything. Seems like they just want a quick fix (and one that requires minimal effort on their part).

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Originally Posted by MoxieDoxie Thank you for your words of support. I would come on here and read peoples horror stories about their transference and how it left them broken year after therapy with that T ended. I used to think that would not happen to me. I even remember reading a post on her of a girl who drive by her T’s house and got caught and then terminated. I fully understand the compulsion to do that as I fantasize about trying past his house just to feel close to him. This is all consuming. I have been reading on what makes a stalker. I am one step behind being an in person stalker. I have discussed this with my online T. It helps to actually talk about it as a pressure release valve and to not feel so ashamed. He too thinks my T’s big mistake was not addressing this and coming up with a way for therapy to end naturally over time and to help me move to that. I feel so sick over this and I do not know how to make it stoop.

You truly sound desperate, it really concerns me, and that is why I'm writing out this post.

Many, many years ago I was in therapy with a psychologist for 6 years. Every week except when he was on 2 weeks vacation, for 6 years. My transference with him was intense and our therapeutic relationship was vibrant. I was married and raising my family at the time...but really, I lived for my sessions every Tuesday morning at 11a.m. I had an entire ritual around my sessions; they were so sacred to me that I truly made them the focus of my life.

Well, one day I went to my appointment, as usual. And...my therapist informed me that he had just resigned over an ongoing disagreement with the clinic director. My therapist was very upset. I was in very bad shape (to say the least). He left that day and shortly after, moved out of the country.

I had no time to go through any kind of termination process. I went home that day...I couldn't stop crying. I was beyond crazy. I had been one of those who drove by his house (regularly, for years). I called him on the phone (just to hear his voice) and hung up (before the days of caller ID). I called like that several times a month, for years. Once I happened to drive by a pizza place and, by total chance, saw his car parked outside. I went into the pizza place, acting like I "just happened" to have stopped in - just so I could see my therapist sitting in the restaurant and say hi to him.

It was insane. Insane. I did receive benefit from the therapy, no doubt about it. But I never brought up my tremendous transference, we never discussed it, and of course, I never worked through it at all. Frankly, I think I sensed that my T would not have wanted to go there, so I pushed how i felt away.

That was over 2 decades ago and I still have dreams about my therapist that are so vivid I truly cannot always recall whether they're real, or not. The worst ones are when I am going to his office and searching and searching for him. It's awful. I had gone into therapy mainly because life was a mess after I was 7 years old, when my father had suddenly left me and my mom and sister (my T, btw, had the same name as my father). By the time I was in my late 20's I knew I needed to work things out.

I have never completely recovered from the hell I went through because of that unresolved transference. I am in therapy now and do have a strong connection to my T, although it's a pretty tolerable transference relationship. Maybe someday I will talk with her about what happened with my previous therapist, but I'm not ready to go there yet. It's too agonizing, and I just want to leave it be in a strong way.

Moxie, please don't allow decades of your life be swallowed up with the transference dilemma you're experiencing. Something I will suggest is reading about transference. Not from the client's perspective, but from the practitioner's side. I remember that after my T left I would sit in the university library near to where I lived and devour writings on transference, from Freud on, really dissect everything I could find about transference until I felt, deep within myself, that something shifted, and that I had become the object of my own transference. I was then able to work through the transference, to quite an extent, all on my own.

Educating myself about the so-called "transference neurosis" kept me from completely going over the edge, from completely cracking up.

I can honestly say that, even with the tatters of the remaining unresolved transference, I did manage to save my mental health by using my determination to overcome, and work through the unresolved transference as much as I possibly could, on my own.

Now I've written all this out & I don't even know if it makes sense or has meaning. I guess my 2 main points are that relying on yourself to really delve into what transference is and why you're so strongly experiencing it could be genuinely helpful.

The other thing is - take action toward being in a healthier place. For example...don't feel guilty if you drive past his house. No guilt. Instead, simply ask yourself, "Is this who I want to be? Is this healthy for me?" Be honest with yourself, then take action accordingly. It takes discipline, but if you can drive past his house one less time, then another...it will become easier and easier not to drive past, at all.

I wish I could take the pain from you, because I know what an agony it is. Please do whatever you need to do to get to a stronger, healthier, happier place. Hang in there, because overcoming such a powerful transference takes work - but it will get better.

Oh I have been reading about transference and Idealizing Transference studies and articles from the therapist side for a couple of years. I read peoples stories like yours. I am dumbfounded how debilitating and life robbing this is. It happens because something is so broken with in us or as I was told not broke just never whole to begin with. This is just sooo life zapping. I will do anything right now to sit in his office and be in his presence. I would probably empty my bank account just to be near him.

You mentioned the BetterHelp T and zero contact, which I agree are smart. Do you have a "next step" idea yet?

I do not have any other ideas on how to resolve this......BetterHelp T just keeps asking questions to have me continue to dig deep on why I feel this way. I have been digging deep and reading and researching for 2 years. The pain has not eased up.

He asked me this: "Do you think there is any element of your fixation with M that is addictive? The real distinction between an obsession/compulsion and addiction is the presence of escape or pleasure. In an addiction, one is getting some positive reinforcement from the activity while in a compulsion one is solely trying to avoid anxiety associated with the obsession. Also, it could be somewhat of a mixture? In that you are avoiding anxiety by going through with the compulsion, but at times the daydreaming or researching is a pleasurable escape? Just a thought that I had."

I replied: "I can guarantee you this that I am not deriving any pleasure out of it. I will tell you what I have told him. I feel completely empty when I am not with him, I feel as if I am going to fade away and die and life has no color in it. I have told him this over and over and that the feelings were so painful it was consuming. The obsessive searching online and looking at his picture is a desperation to feel that connection and to ease the desperation I feel."

I believe you 100%. With regard to the transference you're experiencing there is zero pleasure involved. At least, there sure wasn't for me.

Compulsive/obsessive, yes. But much more like chronic torture than pleasure, for sure.


I remember feeling like someone was chewing on my internal self all of the time and the chewing had left a hole inside of me of desperate longing, but nothing could fill it. Had the relationship gone into the unethical realm I would have jumped into bed with him in a heartbeat, because I was desperate to literally become part of him. Yet, I knew even that wouldn't have been a solution. Such a strong transference comes from a very early place in our lives.

I resonate a lot with this. Especially with the idea of wanting to become part of him. It doesn't matter if it's sexual (jumping into bed with him) or child-like (wanting to feel skin contact like a newborn baby), or even abstract (wanting to literally dissolve into him because he's safe when nothing elese is). It's a very primal longing and I agree that this sort of transference must come from an early place in our lives. I never quite manage to capture the feeling into words--it is very evasive, which makes me think this sort of longing must be pre-verbal. It's also hard to express in therapy. I'm always worried that my longing/fantasies will weird him out because they are literally all consuming. Sometimes I feel like the addiction is tormenting me because it takes over everything else in my life. I secretly hope that I will run into him when I'm outside. I constantly imagine him into existence in my room, or my kitchen, or my lounge. Every song I listen to is about him. At other times I derive pleasure from these fantasies, they become a sort of "happy/safe place". It's all very confusing and very strong.

Thank you ladies for putting into words what I could not. I am having a real hard time with this and I spent the not trying not to email him and trying hard not to think of him. This is an excruciating existence right now and i am so angry I have been left like this. Suffering.

I understand the need to merge as well. I feel this with my (female) T and it's manifesting in a strong sexual attraction except I don't think it's actually a case of wanting to have sex with her, more a childlike need to feel 'at one' with her. I definitely think it stems from a pre-verbal stage of development and is extremely intense. I can really see how having the relationship ripped from you whilst in the grip of these feelings would be acutely traumatising.

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Originally Posted by Merope I resonate a lot with this. Especially with the idea of wanting to become part of him. It doesn't matter if it's sexual (jumping into bed with him) or child-like (wanting to feel skin contact like a newborn baby), or even abstract (wanting to literally dissolve into him because he's safe when nothing elese is). It's a very primal longing and I agree that this sort of transference must come from an early place in our lives. I never quite manage to capture the feeling into words--it is very evasive, which makes me think this sort of longing must be pre-verbal. It's also hard to express in therapy. I'm always worried that my longing/fantasies will weird him out because they are literally all consuming. Sometimes I feel like the addiction is tormenting me because it takes over everything else in my life. I secretly hope that I will run into him when I'm outside. I constantly imagine him into existence in my room, or my kitchen, or my lounge. Every song I listen to is about him. At other times I derive pleasure from these fantasies, they become a sort of "happy/safe place". It's all very confusing and very strong.

Thank you for your post. You've excellently explained strong transference.

The problem is, unless a client is in traditional psychoanalysis, which is very rare these days - mostly because it's so expensive - much of the time (maybe even most of the time) the transference neurosis doesn't get worked through. And that's the exact part of therapy that needs to be worked through in order to have a truly successful outcome.

I would love to know why the majority of T's are reluctant to address transference. Are they afraid of it? Maybe afraid to examine their own counter-transference?

Can you give some more clues on how clients can resolve it for themselves? How did you become the object of your own transference?

I suggested to Betterhelp.com T that maybe he can advocate for me and talk to my x-T on how this all consuming transference is causing undo suffering and if there was a way to help me resolve it. He was thinking that might be one way but he just messaged me this:

"I have spoken to an experienced colleague of mine who expressed that they would be quite wary of contacting Michael in this context. It does not seem like it is "my place" to broach this issue with him. From their perspective, working on establishing close relationships as well as meaningful endeavors outside of Michael is an appropriate place to go."

That is what all other therapists say. No other therapist will touch another therapist mess. I have tried all they said to do as I have worked on that with every therapist as it is a go to thing they want clients to do anyway. It has never changed my feelings for him.

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Originally Posted by here today Can you give some more clues on how clients can resolve it for themselves? How did you become the object of your own transference?

I wish I could explain it well. The process I worked through was not entirely conscious. I mean, I sought out ways to work through the transference, but while I was consciously working there was also a lot of subconscious activity happening. I'll try to give you some idea of the process.

I studied and studied, read everything I could get my hands on in the university library and also in book stores. I began with Freud's discovery of transference neurosis, and how he worked with it. (If I recall, his best work on transference is The Dynamics of Transference.) Then on to Jung.

From there, I worked on through every mental health researcher/psychiatrist I could find who has written about transference. There's an enormous amount of information on transference, because the art and science of psychotherapy is based upon transference. (Seems that many contemporary T's have forgotten that. Or they're not talented enough to work with it.)

I studied the various definitions of transference and I studied case histories. I definitely stayed mostly with professional literature, not self-help books. It was pretty much like being a grad student in psychology. It was fascinating.

I devoted myself to the work just as I would have to therapy, probably more so. I decided that the best way to work through my transference was, in essence, to become my own therapist. By that I mean I separated myself into an objective personality (therapist) and used that to guide the "me" person. (I am dissociative, which helped. It's easy for me to separate my "self" into "selves.")

I came to accept that when all is said and done, we are entirely responsible for working through our own issues. So I fully took on that responsibility until, bit by bit, I worked my way through the terrible transference I was doing battle with. I saved my sanity and was able to move on. I can't say that the transference I had with my T was entirely gone, but the end result for me was that I was in a much healthier and more self-sufficient place.

I did a quick search and found this listing of just a few books that are on the subject of transference. I mean, this is a tiny list. (I'm really curious about Transference and Countertransference Today. I haven't seen that book before.)

Transference Books

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Originally Posted by MoxieDoxie I suggested to Betterhelp.com T that maybe he can advocate for me and talk to my x-T on how this all consuming transference is causing undo suffering and if there was a way to help me resolve it. He was thinking that might be one way but he just messaged me this: "I have spoken to an experienced colleague of mine who expressed that they would be quite wary of contacting Michael in this context. It does not seem like it is "my place" to broach this issue with him. From their perspective, working on establishing close relationships as well as meaningful endeavors outside of Michael is an appropriate place to go." That is what all other therapists say. No other therapist will touch another therapist mess. I have tried all they said to do as I have worked on that with every therapist as it is a go to thing they want clients to do anyway. It has never changed my feelings for him.

I agree with the therapist. The transference experience you're having can blind you. It sounds to me like you're inviting (pleading with) the new therapist to reconnect you with your former therapist. On the surface you're asking that the new T intervene on your behalf, but look at what's beneath that request: you get to maintain a connection with former T. And anything is better than nothing.

If you feel like sharing, what is your very early history like? Mom...dad...home environment...that kind of thing. Was there support? Abuse?

I know you are right regarding just trying to desperately reconnect.

As for my family history I do not feel like going back down memory lane and explaining it. Just know there was plenty of abuse and neglect from birth. 2 step fathers.

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Originally Posted by MoxieDoxie I know you are right regarding just trying to desperately reconnect. As for my family history I do not feel like going back down memory lane and explaining it. Just know there was plenty of abuse and neglect from birth. 2 step fathers.

Of course, I understand not wanting to go down memory lane. No need. You've mentioned enough for me to totally relate to your tendency to develop extremely strong transferences. Those of us with traumatic early childhoods, of course it's no wonder we so easily and desperately form transference with a T.

So following that train of thought, what a strong transference is really about is the need to work through childhood trauma, in whatever form that took. I go back to my original point...that a therapist who won't (or can't) work through a client's transference is a therapist who hasn't, for whatever reason, worked his/her own stuff.

And no T who hasn't worked through their own issues should be guiding people. Because that T can seriously mess up lives. It's disgusting.

I do not know about that as he said he works through his issues with his therapist. He has a group of therapist he does peer support with and even just put out a video of a short EMDR session that showed up as a sponsored ad on my facebook page that reeled me into a big trigger and set me off. To me it felt like an emotional flashback and threw me into a child part and it escalated my obsession with him.

He can claim that he works through his issues with his therapist, and surely that's what he believes. But his belief doesn't make it real, necessarily.

Either way, the man has really let you down and left you with damage that is cruel. I mean, this:
"He has never addressed it and just continues on with whatever we are working on. He is just not getting it"

He either didn't get it or he did, but didn't want to trouble himself to guide you through it - or he wasn't qualified to guide you through it and felt lost. Maybe there are other possibilities, but I can't think of any.

Do you think I should email him and see if he is willing to listen and help me? I feel like I am going to cross a line I can not return from.