Preverbal transference?

I’ve heard others talk or post about transference saying that it was preverbal and I’m wondering how you’d know that?

For me, I think because of how hard it is to really put words to the feelings...

Like Artie, sometimes there are no words. And also, sometimes I am mesmerised by his eyes, my T said I gaze at him in a way that 'has an infant quality'. And sometimes I just feel tiny and I want to touch him in a way that feels really young. So for me it's about recognising all those feelings as being clues to the age of the experiences that are touched upon in my relationship with him.

So, how do you work through that kind of transference? I mean, I assume that’s the goal, right? But I’m not sure how you’d go about it in this instance.

I think for me it is about recognising and understanding those feelings. Acknowledging what tiny Echos needed and didn't get. Empathising with that little infant.
Understanding my behaviour and feelings as I grew up, in the context of infant trauma. Knowing the impact it had on me and mourning those losses.
I cant change the things that happened to me that shouldn't have, and I cant go back in time and change the love I should have recieved and didn't, but I can have a better relationship with myself now, offer love and empathy to myself now, and feel my T's love and empathy for the part of me that holds the pain of those experiences. I can't ever make them all better, but it really helps me to understand them, and to go some way towards healing them in the safety of my relationship with T.

Like both Art and Echos, for me, there's the inability to put words to the feelings often they are not "feelings" as much as sensations. Whenever I try to put words to the feelings, I get pulled out of the sensations and then the words do not feel like they fit the sensations. There's a sense of age based on how I want to comfort myself, what type of interaction I am wanting from T or feelings with her.

For me there's also a struggle to think of things in the complexity that they are. When at infant level, there's more just the sensation; when at toddler level there basic words and understandings but they are very simplistic and I need things to be explained in those very simplistic ways one talks to a toddler. Not baby talk but in simple terms - smaller words, one concept at a time.

Also with toddler level, I feel like my way of talking changes to simpler words and whenever I use a larger word, I tend to feel how old that word is for me.

As far as how I work through it - the infant level, so far it's been slowly, staying with the feelings as long as I can while trying to piece together words/images/concepts that might help me. Sometimes it's just crying in T's presences, sometimes it's allowing myself some of those younger soothing items, for example, I have a soft baby quilt that I will hug and pet. There is some re-parenting going on in the sense of emotional regulation and mirror; unconditional positive regard (towards how I behave/what does come out); and T's acceptance for my need for reassurances when in and coming out of these moments (and providing those reassurances).

I feel like I've been stuck in this pre-verbal place for a while and I'm starting to look into other ways of processing it through with other things - theater/psychodrama group, intentional smash booking, and the likes. It does seem like I'm able to sit with the feelings better. With these things, I'm trying to figure out what it is that happened to cause the trauma at this level. Ultimately that might not matter, it seems to matter to me at this point.

I also agree with Echos in that there's a bit of mourning those losses because one cannot go back and make it what it wasn't. I do think that there's something with having these moments witnessed and attuned to that helps dissipate some of the intensity of them.

My T caught pre verbal neglect that I never thought much of. I can see it when we talk about wants Vs needs. I need air. I can forage for food, water and shelter so don’t expect them to be provided. The transference part comes when T asks me what I need and I have no answer. He gets better results with what do you want but even those are limited because to want is to give the provider power. I don’t expect anything from T except for him to physically be there because that is what I pay him for. My expectations of what people will do for me and how they will treat me is really low.

This week T got really excited because I was scared that if I got upset I might move up beside him instead of curling up in a corner. I have never gotten really upset in session so he hasn’t seen me move to a corner but he knows it would be natural for me to seek safety and protection in the corner as I was always in my crib... no one ever comforted me. I don’t turn to people for comfort and I don’t expect people to be comforting. So for me to be afraid that if I got upset I would move to him for comfort was HUGE.

Also in session I am not very emotional, I always have a pretty flat affect (Outside of session too). Crying, yelling... anything an infant would do to draw attention to their needs didn’t work in my family so I don’t resort to them as an adult. I don’t show pain or discomfort unless it is really bad.

The one time T could tell I was very upset (normal people would have been crying) he reached out and put his hand on top of mine. I looked at his hand dumbfounded and just curled into it so he waited to see what would happen. Eventually I mouthed “thank you” but I had no voice. I never would have thought to ask for that, I was too busy being obedient and listening to what he was saying (about infant needs).

I can’t even tell him basic needs like I need to use the restroom or the sun is in my eyes.

Oh, and T is using more pictures with me than words for things that either would have developed in infancy but didn’t or he wants me to show him things from when I was young. He picked up early on that sometimes I can’t answer something right away... or a very popular one with me is “can I bring it to you next session” and then it is usually a symbolic object that proverbial me picked and I explain or I make something from preverbals images and then adult me explains it.

A born is, born able to feel.
A baby is born with needs.
A, baby can't think or verbalise about any of this.
A good enough mother meets your pre verbal needs.
If the go unmet then theres certain vbehaviours, that are clues to what went wrong.
We don't know as adults, why we think or feel or react the way we do to certain things in life.
Until these preverbsl wounds are addressed, had words out to them, we continue to feel in the dark.