[MissCharlotte]

It seems like a lot of people here are surprised or unaware or frightened about the attachment to T. I am anxious about it, but accepting. I think that deserves it's own thread, so I might bump this topic over to a new one.

So, here we go! I have been in therapy with T for a bit over 2 years. I am very attached to him. Like many of you, I used to hide this attachment--from myself, from him, from H. Now I realize that this attachment is a good thing (albeit painful). I have told T: "I am incredibly attached to you." AND I did not feel ashamed to say it! Whoa. Of course it took almost 2 years to admit that. I am also able to discuss this stuff with H now.

So, are you attached? Do you tell T? Do you feel ashamed of the attachment?

[MissCharlotte]

ME TOO! Heck the first drawing I shared, I left her chair empty. Included her steaming coffee mug...but she wasn't there. In discussing another picture I shared ... it took 10 minutes of prodding about who a figure might represent before I finally mumble "it could me you."

LOL-Chaotic--I remember when I drew a picture of T's office and left him out of it, and he quickly pointed that out.

Oh--Even though I have told T that I am attached it doesn't mean I am always safe with that feeling. Just last week I decided that the attachment was a mistake--that I wasn't supposed to be attached to him. But in my heart I know it's a good thing. Oy.

I am attached to both my T's. One way more then the other. I've told both of them.
I am not so much ashamed as I am scared of the attachment. For me, attachment always leads to abandonment.

[chaotic13]

I think I'm attached. I just don't like it sometimes. I don't like when I realize I care what she thinks and that I can be profoundly affected by something said or or not said (e.g. a no reply to email when I wanted one). I think that if she is able to affect me this way, I must be somewhat attached. Otherwise, I wouldn't care what she said or did. I don't like that I care about these things.

[sittingatwatersedge]

Originally Posted by MissCharlotte

are you attached? Do you tell T? Do you feel ashamed of the attachment?

I had said that I don;t feel especially attached, but when I was trying to figure out what to give her for a Christmas gift I noticed that I was puttng a surprising amount of attention on it. this is too tacky... not good enough... good enough but too expensive (aiming for very inexpensive)... that was interesting. I suppose I feel her importance more than I realize.

But if our relationship must reflect me & my Mom, I don;t see a lot of hope for it. I do have a lot of abandonment fears (something my mother used to play on, biiiiig problem there) and still struggle with my level of trust, in spite of all her good efforts. Last session I apologized in advance for this, saying that it was going to fluctuate in future, and she said, "I know".

Do we talk about it - sometimes -
Do I wish it different - yes -
am I ashamed of it - no, should I be? that's a large % of why I'm there at all.

thanks for asking, good thread

[gimmeice]

I am really attached to my T and I have told her many times that I was and she always has acknowledged my feeling and insured me that it was normal. Then one time we had a wonderful yet scary discussion, we talked about how the attachment went both ways(in a healthy manner) and what our therapy relationship meant to both of us and how much it effects us outside of therapy. Afterwards my T told me that I was further along in talking about my therapy relationship with her then she is with her therapist and that I was very brave to have that conversation.
There is a bit of the feeling of being ashamed that goes along with this but only in certain company that would reject the feelings that I have towards my T because they don't believe in therapy.

Of course I have mixed feelings about my attachment to my T because of the effect her announcement that she was leaving had on me which has since been resolved but the pain I experienced makes me really think about my attachment and it can be scary.

[sittingatwatersedge]

Originally Posted by gimmeice

my T told me that I was further along in talking about my therapy relationship with her then she is with her therapist

wow! that must have been great to hear!!!

[gimmeice]

Originally Posted by sittingatwatersedge

wow! that must have been great to hear!!!

Yes I was rather proud of myself that night.

[Liberada]

Originally Posted by MissCharlotte

It seems like a lot of people here are surprised or unaware or frightened about the attachment to T. I am anxious about it, but accepting. I think that deserves it's own thread, so I might bump this topic over to a new one.

So, here we go! I have been in therapy with T for a bit over 2 years. I am very attached to him. Like many of you, I used to hide this attachment--from myself, from him, from H. Now I realize that this attachment is a good thing (albeit painful). I have told T: "I am incredibly attached to you." AND I did not feel ashamed to say it! Whoa. Of course it took almost 2 years to admit that. I am also able to discuss this stuff with H now.

So, are you attached? Do you tell T? Do you feel ashamed of the attachment?

My first T I only saw for about 4 or 5 sessions. We were hit and miss with appointment settings... But at each one (even the first one) I laid out all my deepest darkest plans and feelings. I believe she was surprised. But I didn't go there to pussyfoot around, I knew I needed help and quickly.
After the absolute darkest had passed I went in with plans to terminate. I went in and she terminated me. At the end of the session she was like ...by the way, this will be our last visit, I'm moving on to greener pastures. I was completely crushed! And amazed at my own feelings! I came home and just sobbed uncontrollably! I'm still surprised today at the effect the relationship had on me.

The T I have now I've had for about a year. I haven't gotten as close to her either. ...Maybe I feel burned in a way... But I'm making it a point of trying to keep my distance. Which I'm sure doesn't do any good.

So, am I attached? ... I hope not.

Originally Posted by MissCharlotte

So, are you attached? Do you tell T? Do you feel ashamed of the attachment?

Yes, I'm attached, intensely at times.

No, I don't tell my T this directly, but she is well aware. I have trouble talking about it, so she's the one that usually says things about our connection.

I don't know if I feel ashamed. I definitely feel avoidant about the attachment. I alternate between intensely wanting to connect, and then afterward feeling like I want to push away and never go back. I haven't completely figured out why that happens. I think I feel like I don't want to be that way, so I stop, and I don't want to be reminded that I was. Maybe shame is why I don't want to be that way?? I haven't gotten that far yet.

Good questions! A fourth related question that I have, if MissC doesn't mind, is that for those who are attached to their Ts, do other people in your life know and accept this? For me, I do not want other people to know (because I think they wouldn't understand and because in the past it has caused jealousy problems). I am especially curious about having a significant other who doesn't mind that you are attached to your T.

I am super attached to T. I love him so much!

He knows how attached I am...we both worked really, REALLY hard to make it safe enough for me to be attached. I really think I could tell him anything about our relationship now, and it would be okay.

Today, I was telling him about something Teacher T said that REALLY bugged me, but I can't bring myself to tell her. I told him "if YOU had said it, I would have just told you what a stupid thing it was for you to say, and what I needed you to say instead" - and I realized right then how comfortable and safe I feel with him.

I really feel like I can ask him for anything (within the therapeutic boundaries) and it's fine. Including a phone message about how much he likes me (which he left for me! lol)

It feels good to feel safe and loved. I wish that for ALL of us here.

[peaches100]

I am pretty sure my attachment to t is insecure/disorganized. I feel intense desires to connect but fear it also. It is always a see-saw of stepping forward and then pushing away out of fear.

[searchingmysoul]

Originally Posted by MissCharlotte

So, are you attached? Do you tell T? Do you feel ashamed of the attachment?

Am I attached?
Yes. Very. The part that has gotten me flustered is that it seems all of a sudden. I have always liked my T. But I have, up until recently, been somewhat ambivalent about the relationship. I could take it or leave it. I did not see it as an "essential relationship" as I would my DH or best girl friends. This has recently changed to being strongly attached to her. We have also recently been through a "rough patch". I don't know if her sticking it out with me helped the attachment, but it sure has seemed to.

Do I tell her?

Recently I have said "I am thankful for you" and "I am strongly attached to you". I am still thinking a real discussion needs to happen. I am planning on bringing it up in my next session.

Am I ashamed?

I have been quite startled by my sudden intense feelings...I find attachment to others quite vulnerable ( as I am sure many do) and this particular relationship feels vulnerable x1000, do to the nature of the relationship and the disclosure aspect.

Originally Posted by notme9

..... is that for those who are attached to their Ts, do other people in your life know and accept this? .....I am especially curious about having a significant other who doesn't mind that you are attached to your T.

Up until recently I never talked about T with my DH. Recently I have begun to. Some of that is because of the nature of what is being disclosed in therapy (stuff that leaves me triggered and raw) I need for my DH to understand my distance or detachment. Some is because I have needed to explore my feelings about her and he has been available for me to chat at. He has said that it seems as though I am very connected to her and other things that would signal he is fine with it. He hasn't seemed distressed in any way...He also has a T whom he sees regularly and is quite attached to. (He started seeing her before I started seeing my T.) I am also fine in that area. I will say though that at first when he started to see his T I was a bit jealous. I think I was feeling left out of the intimacy. After he would tell me about his sessions though that stopped.

Great post (((((MissCharlotte)))))! Thanks for bumping/moving the topic (and introducing it even) so that it could be explored.

~Searching

Attached? Nah... I don't really think so.



Yes, I have told him that I am attached to him. I seriously doubt I even had to tell him-- I think he probably picked up on it.

One time he said that the feeling was mutual. However, I'm thinking his attachment is slightly healthier than mine.

I don't think it is unhealthy to be attached. It is just that there are different styles of attachment, and I am definitely anxiously attached.

Also, here is John Bowlby's description of attachment. This is interesting:

Characteristics of Attachment

Bowlby believed that there are four distinguishing characteristics of attachment:

1. Proximity Maintenance - The desire to be near the people we are attached to.
2. Safe Haven - Returning to the attachment figure for comfort and safety in the face of a fear or threat.
3. Secure Base - The attachment figure acts as a base of security from which the child can explore the surrounding environment.
4. Separation Distress - Anxiety that occurs in the absence of the attachment figure.

[ECHOES]

I am and I'm not ashamed of it at all.

I think our relationship is based on it. It's the therapeutic answer to the anxious attachment I experienced in development. I wouldn't have it any other way.
I love it. I do worry at times that I shouldn't or that I love it too much.

[hangingon]

I am not attached to my T, but then again, I just started seeing her about a month ago.

Perhaps I could become attached but since I have never allowed myself to really attach to people due to fear of abandonment, not sure that will ever really happen. I have always been the one to ditch people before they ditch me. Bad cycle.....

Personally, I don't like that I do that, it just is. Maybe therapy will help in that area.
If I were becoming attached, I don't think I would have the nerve to share that with my T for fear that she would terminate me. Like there is something bad about it. I wonder if some T's actually believe that it's bad. I don't want to be the one to find out that mine does.

Hangingon

[phoenix7]

I was definately attached to my first real T - I didnt find it out till our last session when he told me to ring himif i had a prob and that he may not answer straight away because he had cancer and was going in to hospital

boy did i find out i was attached then - I kept my "im ok" face on in the session although the session sort of died after that with me saying well ok then its good im cured - thanks a lot from the minute i left his building for the next day i couldnt stop crying - and i havnt cried since my mum died about 9 years before or since this - I knew I could trust him from the first time i spoke to him on the phone and he got me to talk about things i had never talked to anyone about before SA and SI - it was incredibly painful to know not only that the sessions had finished but that he was/is very seriously ill.

So with my next t who i admitted to myself i needed to see after about 6 months of... well .... anyway I try to keep my shields up - I guess im attached a little because i do care what she thinks of me but i try to take a step back - I cant go through that again. P7

[MissCharlotte]

I used to think I had to hide the attachment from my H. Now I don't even try. Sigh. IT's such a relief to be out in the open.

[coconut64]

I've been seeing T for a year and a few months, I'm just starting to deal with attachment. Things with last T ended abruptly, maybe that contributes to my being so guarded. Since I have started going x3 weekly, I've noticed that our relationship has improved considerably. T told recently that I have taken huge steps. I responded that it was bound to happen but he replied that some people come there x3 weekly for years and it never happens. I guess I need to give myself some credit. I fight it though with all my might. I put up walls, push him away, etc but he never gives up. He always manages to bring me back. I've gone through rough times lately and he has made himself available to me to get me through it. It both felt good and dangerous to accept that help. I do well in his absences and almost never call him between sessions. I have a really hard time discussing our relationship. It feels dangerous. My heart starts racing, I start sweating and my breathing gets all messed up. It's like fear is ingrained in me. I tell him that I hate to talk about us and he says he understands.

As far as how my relationship with my parents affects my attachment style, I have read the articles ppl have posted and it seems I'm in the avoidant quadrant. My father was dangerous, my mother didn't protect us. I guess this answers why. Like I said I'm just starting to trust this T and trying to get over my fears of letting him in. When it comes to therapy, I feel like Philippe Petit, the French guy who walked the high wire between the Twin Towers in the 1970s.

[skeksi]

I'm realizing that I am attached, and I'm quite ashamed of it. As though needing someone makes me weak, a child, a lesser person. But then, I expect iron strength and invulnerability from myself in every other situation, I don't know why I expected this to be different!

Proximity Maintenance - The desire to be near the people we are attached to.
Safe Haven - Returning to the attachment figure for comfort and safety in the face of a fear or threat.
Secure Base - The attachment figure acts as a base of security from which the child can explore the surrounding environment.
Separation Distress - Anxiety that occurs in the absence of the attachment figure.

Pinksoil, thanks for this, it casts my recent feelings in a clearer light. What I've been experiencing lately is a need for a safe haven--when I was recently very, very scared, I wished I could talk to my T, and I've been awfully embarrassed by that. Perhaps it's not so unusual after all.

[Simcha]

I don't really know what "attachment" means here.

I like my T as a person and I trust him. He's a good T with real empathy. I would be upset if God forbid something would ever happen to him and/or I couldn't see him anymore. I don't have fears that he doesn't "like" me or whatever either.

Does that mean that I am "attached" to my T?

I don't struggle with a lot of the same anxiety issues as others here have with "getting close" to someone, and I don't struggle over anxious thoughts of abandonment either, so maybe that's why I see "attachment" as nothing more than liking and respecting someone else?

Someone please explain this to me. I get lost in therapy lingo.

[Brightheart]

I was in therapy for 5 months and became very attached to my therapist, and did tell him so. I actually went through a full grief response when contact was broken that lasted many months. Separation distress big time! Contacting him during the grief felt like a need. I could barely stop myself from calling or writing him. I cried every time I saw a car like his. I woke up at night literally craving his presence. Definitely attachment. I had to go back to fully express my feelings to him...even told him that I loved him...and then felt very peaceful for having told him. I wouldn't trade the pain for the love.

[sunrise]

Originally Posted by MissCharlotte

So, are you attached? Do you tell T? Do you feel ashamed of the attachment?

Yes, I am strongly and securely attached. I have been in therapy for over 2 years and attached fairly quickly. I had a very intense period the first few months, in which I wondered WTH is going on???? Why am I feeling this way about my therapist? I had no idea this was not unusual. This strong feeling for my T was what prompted me to look for information "out there" and I found PC and felt reassured when I learned it was OK to bond and attach like this. Sometime later, I made it through the obsession phase and settled down into a secure and healthy attachment with my T. It's been wonderful. I am not a person who wants to be friends or lovers outside of therapy with her T. I am really happy with our relationship just the way it is--an intensely close therapist-client relationship in the safety of his office.

My T and I never discuss "attachment" and use that word. However, we do discuss our relationship--how close we are, how special it is, how healthy, etc. At one point, very early in our therapy, probably within the first 5 sessions, I was telling him how I was not depressed anymore (I was still somewhat depressed when I went to see him, although not as badly as a year prior) and how that felt great. I always felt that the last of my depression went away because T gave me hope that I could make it through the painful things happening in my life, that I didn't have to remain stuck in this horrible situation. However, what T said when I told him I was not depressed anymore is that when we are in love, our bodies and brains release molecules that make us feel good, and these counteract depression. And that is why I was not feeling depressed anymore. I'd only seen the guy a few times and essentially he told me I felt better because I was in love with him!! Wow, I was so not ready to hear that or accept that. What a ballsy thing for my T to say, don't you think? So yeah, he knew what was going on all right, but I sure didn't. I just skipped right over that comment when he said that. No way could I talk about that then with this guy who was practically a stranger. Ha, ha, it seems funny to me know--sunny who knew nothing, and T who totally knew what was going on. (Although I still think it was tremendously important that he gave me hope.)

No, I don't feel ashamed I am attached to my T. I am proud I was able to do it. I think it shows I was not damaged irrevocably. However, I don't gush all the time about it to T. I think I want to just enjoy it but not overtalk it because there is a line somewhere that says what you can and cannot feel for your T without it being inappropriate and I don't want to accidentally cross that. I think my T tends to gush more about our relationship than I do. I love when he does, but yet, it is also intensely, intensely hard for me to sit there and let him say those things. It is like so much positive emotion directed only at me, like a laser, and there is no place to hide and it is not a feeling I am familiar with--to have someone feel that way about me. It is almost too too much. But I love it. I feel things just bloom inside when he says those things, but at the same time I squirm. I'm getting better at being able to take it and at reciprocating too.

[sunrise]

Originally Posted by notme9

for those who are attached to their Ts, do other people in your life know and accept this?

My H went to see T with me for couples counseling. During this sequence of about 12 sessions, I told him I wanted a divorce, and we worked on uncoupling. My H could totally see how attached I was to T. I did not do anything overt, but he could tell how close we were and that we could communicate, often wordlessly. I give my H a lot of credit for being able to do couples therapy with a therapist who has a close bond to his wife. I think a lot of men wouldn't have been able to handle that. I also give a lot of credit to my therapist, who is able to work with multiple members of a family and show no favorites, hear each person's story equally, and support each person. I know not all T's can do this--my T is amazing that way. Anyway, my H certainly knows how close I am to T. My T told me once that (in divorcing couples), the spouse is often really glad to know that their spouse has a T to whom they are close and who is supportive, helpful, etc. This relieves them of some of the guilty feelings of leaving the marriage and concern over how their spouse will handle it. I was surpised to hear that, but T says it is very common.

My kids know too. They can just tell. I am happier after I see my T and they sense that. Also, they came for a session with the whole family, so T has met them, and so they too got to see me and T interact. My youngest daughter especially is very sensitive to these things. She will say things to me sometimes like, "don't you wish you could marry T?" Aside from my family, others don't know I am so attached. I think people who haven't been in therapy wouldn't understand or would think it is aberrant (that's what I thought when I felt myself attaching so strongly in the beginnning).

Question number 1: Yes!
Question number 2: Yes!

I just saw T today (he granted me an extra session). The attachment issue is, in my opinion, the core issue. If I can't 'get rid of' this attachment pull or at least lessen it so it's bearable, then I suspect I'll deal with the resulting mood swings the rest of my life.

I have made progress in that I am now able to verbalize how I feel instead of just instinctually acting on them. When I was on the phone with T (a return call), he told me that he didn't know if he could fit me in his schedule but would try. He said, "Does that sound good?" At first I answered, "No." I would rather have just dealt with not seeing him than having him NOT be able to fit me in. That would feel like a rejection to me (yes, I know differently but it's how I feel) and I would rather just feel antsy for another week until I see him than feel rejected and endure tumultuous emotions.

Anyway, he did fit me in today Yes, I changed my mind. I did feel better after leaving the session, but as always, I also leave with another problem to work through. My T has done amazing work with me. I have persevered and think I have an amazing drive in me that won't let me give up. I CAN do this. I CAN do this.