the obsession with our T's

After being on this site awhile now, it is pretty obvious most if not all of us in therapy have a "strong connection" to our T's...My first post was about transference and I was shocked to find out how common it really is

However I am a male and my T is female, so my situation may be different than most.

I finally came to the conclusion several months ago that I had too
"come clean" about this obsession.....so I did

I told her I was madly in love with her and wanted to make passionate love to her on the couch. I'll never forget her expression and reply....She just leaned over in her chair and looked deep into my eyes and said: "Uh-huh....tell me more"

After that I felt a huge weight lifted off my shoulder....The transference is still there, but we continue to work thru it
Since that day I have told her everything....from being molested as a child to being scared of the dark

Wow! Close to the worst I did in that direction was have a dream where my head was in my female T's lap and she was stroking it. I told her that. It might be a little different with male clients and female therapists; I don't think female therapists are as susceptible to allowing male clients to make passionate love to them as male thereapists with female clients are to seeing how far they can get. I was in that situation once with a male therapist.

I ended up being able to talk about everything "important" to me okay, didn't talk about her very much though and those fantasies. They just kind of wandered off as I got better and the "real" transferences got worked through; those incidences where I was responding to as-if she were a specific person in my life I had difficulties with.

Wow, it's great that your T worked with you on the issues. I'm obsessed with my pdoc but more in the fatherly way. I wish I was his kid. I have fantasies with him hugging me, comforting me, taking me to Disney World, and doing other things that parents do with their kids. I stare at his big hands during our appointments and I think about how those big hands could hug and comfort me when I'm crying.

I felt like once I told my T about the erotic transference stuff it made everything else seem like less of a big deal. Like one I was directly able to say, "I have sexual feelings for you" (and then die under the couch) it made everything else seem a lot less of a risk. It's awesome that you took that step with your T. I'm sure you will find your honesty and openness nothing a great benefit, even if it does get really painful at times.

wow. sounds like your therapist handled that really well. i've told my therapist (in a round about kind of way) about my childlike transference to him (where he is fatherly). but i certainly haven't told him (not even in a round about way) about my erotic transference to him. i'm sure i will one day... but not in the forseeable future, i don't think.

there has been quite a lot of stuff written on male transference for female therapists. surprisingly... more stuff (i think) than has been written about female transference for male therapists. similar... but different, perhaps. sometimes my erotic transference takes the form of my taking an active role... sometimes my erotic transference takes the form of my taking a passive role... i'm not sure how similar vs different it is...

I haven't told my T about any transference related to her yet. I think mainly because I really don't think I respond to her as-if she were a specific person in my life. I think most of the transference I am experiencing at this point is my husband. His behavior and multitude health problems is triggering a lot of negative childhood memories of my dad. I've disclosed this fairly clearly in my writing to my T but we have not talked about this directly yet.

I did manage to tell my T last session that I deliberately hide some physical symptoms--post session side effects from her. This was really difficult for me to disclose. I was relieved when she simply accept it as if it was normal and allowed me to redirect to another concern.

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I don't think female therapists are as susceptible to allowing male clients to make passionate love to them as male thereapists

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while this is strictly true in a factual sense
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national study found that 87% of the participants reported sexual attraction to at least one client; that 9.4% of men and 2.5% of women reported acting on such feelings

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the rate of either gender of therapist acting on such a thing is under 10%... that's pretty low for a group of people who routinely deal with clients who feel so strongly. i read just a couple months ago about a british T getting sued for having a relationship with a client... i wish i could find it because i followed some links in it and what i discovered was that although female T's were less likely (again, not big percentages) than males to act at all.. the female T's were doing some powerful damage because they were more likely to engage in longer term or ongoing relationships which were inappropriate. Many were living with the client whereas the males seemed to be more inclined to have a one-time thing.

and geez.. i feel like i am a broken record here, but erotic transference doesn't have a whole lot to do with gender... and yeah, i actually met a woman on another site who had it really bad for her female T and she was not gay.. talk about massive internal confusion! She had been so ashamed.

and somehow i keep getting the impression here that parental transference is somehow "safer" for the client than erotic transference. NO WAY JOSE. Not IMO anyway... the danger is in the balance of power and the vulnerability and suggestiveness of the client... a powerful parental tranference relationship can lead to a T having almost absolute power over a client and that can lead to a HUGE amount of inappropriate behaviours and damage.. the biggest one i see come up in my reading is borrowing money - you can see now what other possibilities there may be? The line between appropriate and inappropriate is more blurry IMO too... a T may have an easier time justifiying borrowing money than having wild sex.. no?

the gender is a personal choice.. not a safety barrier guys.. that part depends on the character of the T

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MzJelloFuff said:
the danger is in the balance of power and the vulnerability and suggestiveness of the client... a powerful parental tranference relationship can lead to a T having almost absolute power over a client and that can lead to a HUGE amount of inappropriate behaviours and damage.

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I agree. For better or worse this is always in the back of my mind.

Brian, I do have a "strong connection" to my therapist, as you wrote, but I am not "obsessed." I think there is a difference. I don't transfer specific people onto my T so I don't have the parent or lover thing going on, but I do care about him very much, and feel deeply partnered to him. In fact, I do love him, but in the sense of being extremely close and bonded, not romantic love. I am comfortable with it. There was a time I felt more obsessed, early on, and was searching for info on him on the Internet all the time, constantly thinking about him, looking at photos of him, etc. But that subsided into a less obsessive, strong attachment. I don't know if that has happened for others here? Any others who were once more obsessed but now are just strongly attached?

Brian, I really liked your T's response when you told her you wanted to make love to her. She handled it so well! My T and I have talked a number of times about how close we are to each other, so we have acknowledged our bond out loud.

gee and I thought I was the only one who went to the internet for info on my T!.........I even have her house marked on Google Earth......