Attachment/Transference

I have been through lots of therapists and always get attached and have some kind of transference. My last therapist took things a step further and tried to be a friend/mother because of my transference. My current therapist has much better boundaries and I don’t feel the same level of attachment or transference with her but its still there despite my huge efforts to avoid it. I know it happens because of unmet needs, trauma (which I have) but what else makes this happen? I thought for sure I could keep it from happening this time but I feel attached to her and it makes me sad to think of therapy ending someday even though I want to get to that point.

I think, for some of us, real, deep, profound therapy can't happen without at least some attachment. If you want to frame it as a negative thing and call it transference, that's okay, but I don't think it needs to be negative unless it interferes with, or gets in the way of, the relationship between you and the therapist.

Don't spend any time beating yourself up for having feelings that you cannot control. It's wasted energy! You can only control what you do when those feelings arise. If you want to see them come around less often, the best thing to do is simply acknowledge that they're there, and let them be. Accept their right to exist, but don't feed them by worrying about them or wishing they'd go away or trying to think of opposite feelings or doing anything, really.

This is part of what's called Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, or ACT. Maybe you'd find it helpful; maybe not. It helped me not to worry so much when I was terrified of how attached I had become to my therapist. (It helped with other things, too, but that's what is relevant to your topic.)

Anyway, you are definitely not alone in this!

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It's subconscious, you can't make it not happen.

It is good to be aware of it, to name it... and it helps to have a T who is willing to stay at the table and not get freaked out by that term.

I've found that for me, if I try to avoid it happening or, if it happens, try to push it away, it can actually become more intense. So I agree on the idea of trying to accept it.

Very interesting conversation!

I agree with what has been said - acknowledging and discussing it when it comes up has been helpful.

One element of discussing is also talking about what is happening in my life at the moment the feelings of the attachment/transference come to the surface and are stronger/more intense. We work with this attachment/transference pretty heavily -- which has caused it to change in an unexpected way. When we first started working with it; it would be present even when in session (in her presence). Now, it exists mostly when I am not with her; when I am with her, I no longer feel the transference most the time. I'm not sure this is making sense - it's hard to describe. It's almost as if the transference is a form of magically thinking and when I am with her, most the time I see and sense the real her - meaning she's a/my therapist and our relationship is closer to that provider/client than parent/child.

I went through a phase where, when I wanted mommy, I wasn't completely sure if she was mommy, if I was talking to her when I thought of mommy or if I was talking to myself. Sometimes I even wondered if I was talking to my own mother. When it did feel like I was talking to myself, I allowed myself to respond to that part.

I didn’t think of it that way, that deep therapy can only happen with some attachment. Its more helpful to think of it that way. I am def no stranger to attachment or transference, I have just had bad experiences with them. Which makes it hard to accept but at least I feel it will he different with this therapist.

That makes a lot of sense with what is going on in life. Makes me see some patterns. I don’t really feel comfortable bringing it up right now to my therapist. As another person said, it helps when a therapist doesn’t get freaked out by this and things are still fairly new so I have to be sure first. I think it helps having a therapist with good boundaries so at least there is that. I have had the worst attachment/transference with other therapists to the point of not being able to focus on the therapy work and I don’t want that ever again.

I've talked about this a lot with my t too. I'm mega attached to her and have been for a LONG time. I get what you're saying Elio about it being less present when with t. It's that way for me too. When we've taken breaks in the past I'm pretty sure that's why I keep going back in fact. It gets stronger when I'm not seeing her. This therapy relationship is so freakin' weird.

I had to end therapy with my last therapist after the transference was getting to be too bad. Today I actually finally told my mom that I had a crush on my therapist and that’s why last summer was so hard for me. My mom is really supportive so she understood and was fine with it. With the new one I’m not having transference but she is much older than my previous T and kinda weird so she’s not exactly my type. The T before that I didn’t have any transference with and I met with her for 3 years. My hormones weren’t a **** show back then though.

Transference doesn't have to be the result of abuse or neglect, or trauma. It can happen to anyone...it has to do with attachment to an early caregiver. And transference doesn't only occur with a therapist; it can be with anyone...a teacher, a doctor, etc.

My T and I believe that the attachment/transference work that we do ... is the work. We use it to better understand me, to strength my capacities through experiencing things with someone I have a strong connection to while she is able to stay in T mode; thereby, staying curious and a bit unphased by what comes up for me. Like I can be mad at her, I can express my anger with her and she doesn't get angry back - we talk about it. The more times we go through these cycles the easier it gets because I am having experiences with someone that feels like they are x to me; yet the outcome or her response is not how I experience similar interactions from x. It provides a break in the patterns that were developed in my childhood and allows me the ability to feel and sense things different.

What do you see is your therapy work? How do you see working with your attachment/transference is a hinderance towards that therapy work? How might you use it to assist you in your therapeutic goals? What would you need from a T in order to utilize this phenomenon to your benefit?

Amen

Yes I have had transference with teacher’s, a doctor, dentist, friend etc. I didn’t know what it was back then so it freaked me out more.

Thank you for sharing that. I can see how it can be helpful. My therapy work is to be able to handle life better, get skills I need and process my severe childhood trauma. The goal is to not need therapy anymore. Every therapist is temporary. I don’t see it as a hinderance per say. I am getting stuff done, I just don’t want to feel attached to her because then it will be hard to let go when the time comes. I am not sure using it will help my therapy goals considering the main goal is to someday not need therapy anymore. Being close/attached to a therapist is not a good thing for me and it makes it impossible for me to let go which would mean I wouldn’t reach my goal of not needing therapy anymore.

I think I am still traumatized from my last therapist who used my transference against me and was unethical in may ways.

I had it with a high school teacher (and I guess a middle school one, too). I agree that it's very confusing and scary when you don't know what it's about. Really, I felt the same when I first felt it toward a therapist--and that's how I ended up on this forum!

My understanding is that transference happens all the time in everyday situations - every time you make unconscious assumptions based on similarities with past situations/people (edit: as opposed to actual understanding of the person you're interacting with) Most of it probably goes unnoticed, either because they're not strong enough to cause trouble or because you never realise it was transference. Therapy just brings them out more clearly. I agree with others saying that it's probably not something you can consciously keep yourself from doing. Every time I try that, it ends up not working at best, usually backfiring in some way. Like, things are going fine, I somehow almost start believing that stupid thing is finally gone, there's nothing there at all ... and then something kicks me in the rear really hard, and when I get up and look around it turns out it was the bloody transference. So I came to think it might be better to accept and try to understand these things, even though my instinct is still to try to stomp them out. Which is what therapy is supposed to be for.

As for attachment, I think not getting attached to something or someone just because they're not permanent is not a good long-term solution anyway. And part of the point of therapy is, that by the time you're done with it, letting go of attachments supposedly gets less unbearable. Unless it goes wrong or ends abruptly for whatever reason, which is always a risk. So going by rational reasoning alone, I think letting yourself get attached and observing and discussing how it goes might be the best way forward, if you have a good reason to believe that your therapist can be partner in this.

I can't say never needing therapy is my goal or leaving this therapist is my goal. Like:

I hope that at some point I will be able to take what I learn/experience in therapy with this therapist and be able to live a more fulfilling life outside of therapy.

I believe (hope) my transference work will allow me to start where things got stuck in terms of secure attachments and basically recreate the secure attachment to a primary figure. Then grow through that experience and the implicit memories from this relationship to build other relationships.

That being said, not all therapists can work with transference and because everyone's timeline is different around this stuff. There is a big risk that the process will be interrupted for some reason or some other life event that may create setbacks in building that implicit memory set that allows one to feel secure and connected without whatever previous roadblocks still being the primary pattern for the person.

My thoughts here with what you have said so far, makes me think that you should talk to your T and get their take on transference in general. If they are open about it, share with them about your experience with transference in the past and how you'd like your therapy not to be about or work with the transference at least not at this time. Because as other's have stated, it will or it won't happen and we have very little control over if it happens. We have the most control over what we will do once we realize it is happening.

It might even be good to process out how your attachment with your most recent T went and how her responses impacted you; where those responses left you feeling like the boundaries were too fuzzy, too shifting, and so on.

My t is always trying to get me to see this relationship as unique, special, sacred rather than how I see it as weird and convoluted. In going on 10 years she has not succeeded in this.

I think my issue is with my unethical therapist, things went wrong with her asserting herself in my personal life as a mom so the attachment to her has been hard to grieve and let go of. But you bring up a good point of part of the therapy is that attachments get better so letting go isn’t so bad. I def want to learn this and I have a feeling it will go different with this therapist. I have told her I am attached and she said it was ok but we haven’t talked in depth yet. Its a scary conversation to have for sure as I hope it doesn’t make her run.

I am going to talk to her when I have been working with her longer. I have talked about my unethical therapist quite a bit but not in regards to my attachment issues. I just don’t want my therapist to run if I share how I really feel.

Just a thought, disregard if not relevant to you, but if you think you might want to work through the transference, rather than try to ignore it, hide it, stuff it away (not helpful in my humble opinion) then it may be worth seeing if she would be willing to do this. Not all are it seems. I had to interview about 6 or 7 therapists (and that's the ones that would even meet me) before I found my long term T, only to find out that they weren't comfortable with working in such a deep way. They just wanted to do short term, surface level therapy, it seems. Hard to explain in what I wanted to be a short message!!