[moonlitsky]

Hello everyone

I have noticed that a number of questions/potential discussions have come to light on member's personal threads where I replied. I am not quite sure how you feel about it, but I feel it might be letter to bring those discussions here so we can stay with the posters on their threads?

So I thought I would bring some of the questions directed at me here and make a start - feel free to come and contribute - this isn't my thread but somewhere we can all come and talk together.

Here goes for starters:

Originally Posted by rainbow8

Moon, I'm very much interested in what you posted above. When I first saw a T, years ago, I thought my feelings for her were sexual. She told me something like what you wrote. She said they were sensual, not sexual. I've been seeing my current T for about 3 years. She does IFS, SE, and EMDR. In the beginning, a child part hesitantly held her hand because it felt safe and wonderful. It never felt sexual. However, I got very attached to her and once when she tapped on my knees during EMDR it did feel sexual. I like my T very much, and always thought I was straight, but the touching felt "too good", as I called it. We didn't touch during EMDR anymore, but holding her hand still felt safe.

This year we are doing a lot of SE, somatic experiencing. Once we did touch again, and it stirred me up. I wanted to hold her hand but she wouldn't let me. She said that she felt something sexual in the room. We discussed what happened, and she believes me that holding her hand never felt sexual. She knows my child parts want to be loved, but says it makes T about her, not about me. I agree with that, but my question is this. Can it be both? Can most of what I feel for her be the way you describe it in your post, that the infantile needs get sexualized because I'm an adult? I don't think my T understands that. She keeps talking about how most people are bisexual, and if I am, she doesn't judge me. I'm going to read some of your post to her, if that's okay with you. And, by the way, I'm married for many years but for a long time we haven't had much of a sexual relationship. So I think some of those needs ARE met by my T but in general, the love feels like you describe. Thanks again, for your helpful posts in this forum!

Hello Rainbow

I'm glad my post helped you. I don't agree with your therapist that your feelings can't be sexual - because they are!! You are an adult and as adults that early transference does often feel sexual - that is normal - they are being translated into adult sexual feeelings. But I think I hear your therapist struggling with it? It doesn't matter what the sex of the therapist is it will still be felt if it needs to be felt and needs to be handled and understood with the utmost care and respect. The trouble is it will happen even with therapists who don't work with or understand transference - and that can cause problems, often with the client being pushed away. It is very important when the transference becomes sexual that there is no acting out on the part of the therapist - as we have heard horror stories about on this forum - but it needs to be felt and understood. Does your therapist think it's about your adult sexuality? - that because you feeel sexual feeelings towards her that suggests your sexuality? I think that it detracts from what it is really about? Yes, we are all naturally bi sexual and can swing wither way at any time, but it feels there is some sort of confusion as to what this is about for you on the part of your therapist? Please don't be ashamed of your mind and body for having those feeelings - they are beautiful and very normal in any close relationship.

A powerful erotic transference can cause great confusion for us - e.g. suddenly we want to have sex with someone of our same sex when we have always believed ourself to be heterosexual - it really frightened me I remember.

I feel strongly that there is always the need to be cautious around touch and what it may create for the client. In my first therapy, after several years of building an attachment my therapist, who just didn't get transference at all, she decided to practice her newly found tool of EMDR with me - the physical touch involved caused powerful erotic unconscious material to surface which she couldn't handle - and all she could do was push me away by telling me I was ok now and no longer needed therapy. She had no idea about what she could potentialyl create and couldn't hold the aftermath - dangerous. It nearly killed me. I believe (and I heard Nicole say the same) that all therapists, even if they aren't relational/transferentially based, should know something of what can happen in a regressive maternal transference and the danger of causing great harm to a client - as part of their training/CPD. This doesn't mean they could work with it but might mean they better know their limits and can refer to someone who can work with it safely, as a way of limiting the damage that can be caused.

The discussions here have really got me thinking about love and intimacy and how all love is transferential as in the way we handle intimate relationships derives from that early relationship with mother and how well or how badly that went? That early attachment has so much to answer for. What do you all think?

I'm not an expert, none of this was taught to me in my trraining - I have learned from my own therapy and also my clients - aswell as doing CPD, etc through the years. I think that's really the only way we can really feel it for others. I feel it intuitively but am not so good at writing it sometimes and I apologise in advance for that!!.

I will go through all the posts and try to answer any questions asked directly. If I miss someone please re post it here so I can find it and try to answer. I don't have much time during the week so please don't be offfended if I am slow at answering.

Moon

[moonlitsky]

Questions from Rainbow8:

Thank you, Moonlitsky, for explaining transference so well. I have a question about what you posted above. WHY do we need the transference to do the work in therapy?

I work psychodynamically - the transference is a way in which we can find out what happened to the client very early on, often preverbally, how that felt and how it shaped who we are as adults. We don't consciously remember what it was like for us when we were babies and little ones - but the memories are there stored in our unconscious (neuroscience has proven that memory is set from the second trimester in the womb) In a transferential therapy the relationship (transference) is worked with as a way to understand unconscious material - other windows to the unconscious are dreams and fantasies - whether waking or sleeping - that are worked with to help us understand. If the therapist doesn't work transferentially I feel it excludes so much potential for understanding and working through. For me it was useless to only work with what I knew consciously because the main damage that occured was very early and preverbal - i didn't even consciously know about it other than I felt only half alive. It wasn't until all my fears came into the relationship with my therapist that we could piece together what happened.

WHY does the frame need to be that way to enable healing? Not everyone goes through this "agony" of love for their Ts, yet they are helped by their Ts. What good is it for me to care so much about my T, and want her to be with me forever, and all the rest of the feelings?

Not all of us need to do this type of work because we don't all have the same early traumas. For many of us, that early attachment didn't go so bad so we don't need to go back there to work anything through. The psyche(unconscious) will always take us back to the point just before the trauma occured - so, for me, because the trauma was so early - i have had to go back to being a helpless infant with fantasies and dreams indicating a return to the womb - and that is where the painful and frightening dependancy that we are all talking about comes from - because without it an infant would die - the transference connects us to that horror - the horror of what already happened to us. We wont have these fears or need to do this work if they didn't happen to us in the first place (although all of us will have experienced early trauma just in the process of being born!) One of the most useful pieces of writing I have ever found was a quote from Donald Winnicott about the fear of breakdown:

"Winnicott (1974 ["Fear of Breakdown"]) has shown that, when people in analysis speak seriously of a fear of a breakdown or a fear of death, they are projecting into future time what has already been experienced in the infantile past. One can only truly fear what one knows about through experience. Terrifying and often disabling fears of breakdown and death are distinct ways of remembering traumatic experiences that actually happened in a person's infancy. What is dreaded and feared as a potentially calamitous future event is the necessity of experiencing through the memory of the evolving psychoanalytic transference the horrible, regressive, and once death-threatening breakdown the person experienced in a dependent state in infancy.... [/] One way for a therapist to collude with resistance to therapeutic progress is to focus on external perpetrators or long ago traumas to prevent having to live through [with the patient] deeply distressing, and frightening breakdown recreations together in the here and now therapeutic relationship. [/] The breakdown fear a person felt in infancy lives on as the somatic underpinning of all subsequent emotional relatedness but cannot be recalled because: (a) No memory of the experience per se is recorded -- only a nameless dread of re-experiencing the dangers of infantile dependence and breakdown, (b) the memory of the breakdown experience itself is guarded with intense pain, somatic terror, and physical symptoms of all types, (c) the trauma occurred before it was possible to record pictures, words, or stories so it cannot be recalled in ordinary ways, but only as bodily terrors of approaching breakdown and death. If one way of conceptualizing attachment status is that it is a form of affect regulation that occurs in the context of relationships in general, and how individuals deal with emotions associated with separation, loss and reunion specifically, it seems that attachment theory would be relevant to one of the most significant areas affecting the work of psychotherapists: the therapeutic alliance.

The frame is there to enable the transference to develop - too much information or disclosure by the therapist weakens the transference and therefore the potential to use it to heal. The way a client reacts and feels about the frame is an indication too of what happened - and their transference - e.g. for some the frame and the boundaries will feel ok and safe, for others they may feel punitive or withholding, cruel or unkind - according to their own stories. As we say - 'it's all grist for the mill'.

The feelings you have for your therapist, although very painful, are what will enable you to work through your pain - because you have accessed the feelings of the infant and now something can be reworked for you within the relationship with your therapist.

Hope this makes some sense

Moon

[unaluna]

Moonlitsky, thanks so much for doing this.

Something that comes up frequently on these pages is, well I didn't have it as bad as some other person, so... But part of that "equation" then should include, WHEN did it happen? Because the younger you were, the more lost you can be. On the other hand, the older you were, the more aware of your losses. So no one is a winner. Not really a question there.

Just wanted to thank you for the Winnicott quote. My t quotes him relatively frequently. I consider myself lucky that we have been able to work thru my compulsive asking my ts to marry me. Once we realized that the reason WHY I wanted him to marry me - "then everything would be alright" - was straight out of the past, out of my mother's crazy head, and not really anything to do with what a stud he is (?! - cuz sometimes he just looks like my pervy uncle Bob) - well, then things started progressing.

Oh wait - here's a question - sometimes I think that the laws against doctor-patient affairs are more to protect the doctor than the patient. I mean, that's who is really in danger. That's who can be convinced this is real by a patient who doesn't understand and therefore thinks the feelings are based in current reality, not transference. Ie can't the doctor be vulnerable to a crazy person? Or does that make the doctor a crazy person by definition?

[1stepatatime]

Originally Posted by moonlitsky

Hello everyone

I have noticed that a number of questions/potential discussions have come to light on member's personal threads where I replied. I am not quite sure how you feel about it, but I feel it might be letter to bring those discussions here so we can stay with the posters on their threads?

So I thought I would bring some of the questions directed at me here and make a start - feel free to come and contribute - this isn't my thread but somewhere we can all come and talk together.

Here goes for starters:



Hello Rainbow

I'm glad my post helped you. I don't agree with your therapist that your feelings can't be sexual - because they are!! You are an adult and as adults that early transference does often feel sexual - that is normal - they are being translated into adult sexual feeelings. But I think I hear your therapist struggling with it? It doesn't matter what the sex of the therapist is it will still be felt if it needs to be felt and needs to be handled and understood with the utmost care and respect. The trouble is it will happen even with therapists who don't work with or understand transference - and that can cause problems, often with the client being pushed away. It is very important when the transference becomes sexual that there is no acting out on the part of the therapist - as we have heard horror stories about on this forum - but it needs to be felt and understood. Does your therapist think it's about your adult sexuality? - that because you feeel sexual feeelings towards her that suggests your sexuality? I think that it detracts from what it is really about? Yes, we are all naturally bi sexual and can swing wither way at any time, but it feels there is some sort of confusion as to what this is about for you on the part of your therapist? Please don't be ashamed of your mind and body for having those feeelings - they are beautiful and very normal in any close relationship.

A powerful erotic transference can cause great confusion for us - e.g. suddenly we want to have sex with someone of our same sex when we have always believed ourself to be heterosexual - it really frightened me I remember.

I feel strongly that there is always the need to be cautious around touch and what it may create for the client. In my first therapy, after several years of building an attachment my therapist, who just didn't get transference at all, she decided to practice her newly found tool of EMDR with me - the physical touch involved caused powerful erotic unconscious material to surface which she couldn't handle - and all she could do was push me away by telling me I was ok now and no longer needed therapy. She had no idea about what she could potentialyl create and couldn't hold the aftermath - dangerous. It nearly killed me. I believe (and I heard Nicole say the same) that all therapists, even if they aren't relational/transferentially based, should know something of what can happen in a regressive maternal transference and the danger of causing great harm to a client - as part of their training/CPD. This doesn't mean they could work with it but might mean they better know their limits and can refer to someone who can work with it safely, as a way of limiting the damage that can be caused.

The discussions here have really got me thinking about love and intimacy and how all love is transferential as in the way we handle intimate relationships derives from that early relationship with mother and how well or how badly that went? That early attachment has so much to answer for. What do you all think?

I'm not an expert, none of this was taught to me in my trraining - I have learned from my own therapy and also my clients - aswell as doing CPD, etc through the years. I think that's really the only way we can really feel it for others. I feel it intuitively but am not so good at writing it sometimes and I apologise in advance for that!!.

I will go through all the posts and try to answer any questions asked directly. If I miss someone please re post it here so I can find it and try to answer. I don't have much time during the week so please don't be offfended if I am slow at answering.

Moon

Hi, Moon : )
I feel compelled to post; the more that I read about our needs as infants not being met the clearer my reality is becoming..it is really, really frightening. I have always been child-like...as a kid, as a teen, as a young adult and here I am as a middle aged adult and STILL feel like a child. Having said that, I am fully able to operate as an adult, work full time, manage my home, kids, bills, etc. But...I have this ever-present little girl,baby,infant,,not sure which one...and I thank you for helping me realize this from prior postings : ) I let me ex take care of me during our relationship...it went from what I think was normal to where she cared for me, made important decisions, she lectured me,,,it almost turned me on! It is so hard to explain,,,but I just feel like this child is there, waiting for something, and I struggle with it. My T. is aware of this I am sure. She knows that I have abandonment issues. What is frightening for me is to learn what happened...what didn't I receive as an infant? ( or whatever stage it was)...what went so terribly wrong? I almost don't want to know...do we ever really find out? This reality is hard..and for me, embarrassing. But I know that if I ever want to be at peace it needs to be addressed. Thanks for your continued support!!

[moonlitsky]

Originally Posted by hankster

Moonlitsky, thanks so much for doing this.

Something that comes up frequently on these pages is, well I didn't have it as bad as some other person, so... But part of that "equation" then should include, WHEN did it happen? Because the younger you were, the more lost you can be. On the other hand, the older you were, the more aware of your losses. So no one is a winner. Not really a question there.

Just wanted to thank you for the Winnicott quote. My t quotes him relatively frequently. I consider myself lucky that we have been able to work thru my compulsive asking my ts to marry me. Once we realized that the reason WHY I wanted him to marry me - "then everything would be alright" - was straight out of the past, out of my mother's crazy head, and not really anything to do with what a stud he is (?! - cuz sometimes he just looks like my pervy uncle Bob) - well, then things started progressing.

Oh wait - here's a question - sometimes I think that the laws against doctor-patient affairs are more to protect the doctor than the patient. I mean, that's who is really in danger. That's who can be convinced this is real by a patient who doesn't understand and therefore thinks the feelings are based in current reality, not transference. Ie can't the doctor be vulnerable to a crazy person? Or does that make the doctor a crazy person by definition?

Thank you for sharing your experience Hankster - sounds like you are doing some good work! I agree that the younger we were when the trauma occured the more difficult it can be to get to and understand what is happening - because it is going to be all preverbal and unconscious.

I understand what you are saying about the danger to the therapist but I believe the laws against therapists having sex with their clients are there for the client. The client is the vulnerable one - as in the parent/child dynamic. Having sex with a client is incestuous - it is about succumbing to the projections of the client rather than being aware of them, not acting them out, and using what is felt to help the client. Yes, as therapists our minds are susceptible to the projections - but we are responsible for getting good support ourselves, and for learning about this, so we remain safe. There are no excuses in my opinion - we have to know and recognise our limits and, when there is a danger of something falling into a dangerous acting out, to get the help to understand it without causing harm. It is the clients job to project - that is what is meant to happen - it is the job of the therapist to receive it, feel it and let the information his or her body/mind is giving to understand what needs to be understood for the patient.

For example , there may be a time when I feel that I can't help - that it is hopeless and pointless to carry on the work. I don't act on those feelings but sit with them. I realise that I have received something hopeless from my client. If I don't understand this then I might suggest the work is done and abandon, but instead I gently reflect that perhaps something feels impossible, that he/she is struggling with feeling alone and hopeless right now. Although there has been no other indication of how the client feels, it has been otherwise hidden, the client suddenly begins to cry and is able to tell me of the hopelsss feelings she/he has been experiencing lately. She was able to uncosciously put these feelings into me (the projection) and I picked them up. Rather than identify with them (believe they belong to me) I realised they were hers and used them to empathise with what was happening. If I had identified with them (projective identification) and believed it was hopelsss and I couldn't help I might have abandoned and re traumatised. It it this process that a good enough mother will do over and over again with her baby - receiving the unbearable feelings and giving them back in a way that the baby can manage.

So, it is the job of the therapist to keep the client safe - we choose to do the job, must know our minds are in danger, and must look after ourselves. It isn't the client's job to look after us. Unfortunately it happens often that therapists burn out or become vicariously traumatised and turn on the client - but it is never the client's fault.

Moon

[moonlitsky]

Originally Posted by 1stepatatime

Hi, Moon : )
I feel compelled to post; the more that I read about our needs as infants not being met the clearer my reality is becoming..it is really, really frightening. I have always been child-like...as a kid, as a teen, as a young adult and here I am as a middle aged adult and STILL feel like a child. Having said that, I am fully able to operate as an adult, work full time, manage my home, kids, bills, etc. But...I have this ever-present little girl,baby,infant,,not sure which one...and I thank you for helping me realize this from prior postings : ) I let me ex take care of me during our relationship...it went from what I think was normal to where she cared for me, made important decisions, she lectured me,,,it almost turned me on! It is so hard to explain,,,but I just feel like this child is there, waiting for something, and I struggle with it. My T. is aware of this I am sure. She knows that I have abandonment issues. What is frightening for me is to learn what happened...what didn't I receive as an infant? ( or whatever stage it was)...what went so terribly wrong? I almost don't want to know...do we ever really find out? This reality is hard..and for me, embarrassing. But I know that if I ever want to be at peace it needs to be addressed. Thanks for your continued support!!

I think you are finding out - your feelings - those childlike feelings, are telling you what happened - listen to them, respect them and allow yourself to feel them. Use the way you feel in the relationship with your therapist to show you how it was for you back then. Always hold on that you do have a capable adult self - that part is ok, but perhaps look at it as there is a poorly part that needs help - the part whose dependency needs weren't properly met? and who needs another to help you to work through the pain, to internalise something to help you - what you didn't get back then. It can feel very humiliating as adults to discover we have parts of us that are so needy and vulnerable - and that can make therapy very hard to bear. It's not your fault you feel this way - but now you are aware you can, and are, doing something about it - and that takes courage.

I hope your journey does eventually bring you peace and healing.

Moon

[ReddClay]

Moon, I second everyone else's kudos - thanks for doing this! My question: if we are experiencing erotic transference and don't say anything, do most T's who are transference-minded pick up on it anyways at some point?

[moonlitsky]

Originally Posted by ReddClay

Moon, I second everyone else's kudos - thanks for doing this! My question: if we are experiencing erotic transference and don't say anything, do most T's who are transference-minded pick up on it anyways at some point?

Hello Reddclay

I think that experienced psychodynamic/ Analytic /attachment/relational therapists who are trained to work transferentially,(and preferably have had their own in depth therapy) and understand about a regressive infant/maternal transference won't be phased by an erotic tranference - because it's normal! And, yes they will be aware of the possibility.

It can be hard for us to talk about as clients - but to do so can bring about great healing. Are you struggling to tell your therapist about it?

Moon

Hi moon,
Thank you also for this thread, I have found it very helpful as I am sure does everyone else.
I have a problem with my therapists. I have had three females all older and I find myself (I am a gay female) having transference for all of them. Maybe it is some unconscious thing, I don't know but it hurts every time. I only told one t about it, my first t, who I seen for two years and she terminated me so I am afraid to tell my current t. Is there some particular reason I keep falling in love with these women?
I am grateful for any help

[ReddClay]

Originally Posted by moonlitsky

Hello Reddclay

I think that experienced psychodynamic/ Analytic /attachment/relational therapists who are trained to work transferentially,(and preferably have had their own in depth therapy) and understand about a regressive infant/maternal transference won't be phased by an erotic tranference - because it's normal! And, yes they will be aware of the possibility.

It can be hard for us to talk about as clients - but to do so can bring about great healing. Are you struggling to tell your therapist about it?

Moon

Yes, I am struggling to share with my T but also because of this as well:
http://forums.psychcentral.com/psych...riggering.html

I am starting to think the two are related. I KNOW I should not be worried because my T has mentioned transference before so I know it is something they work with. But still...

[moonlitsky]

Originally Posted by monalisasmile

Hi moon,
Thank you also for this thread, I have found it very helpful as I am sure does everyone else.
I have a problem with my therapists. I have had three females all older and I find myself (I am a gay female) having transference for all of them. Maybe it is some unconscious thing, I don't know but it hurts every time. I only told one t about it, my first t, who I seen for two years and she terminated me so I am afraid to tell my current t. Is there some particular reason I keep falling in love with these women?
I am grateful for any help

Hello MLS

I am so sorry to hear that a therapist terminated you. Did she terminate you as a result of you telling her that you were having an erotic transference? If that is the case I am so sorry but also not surprised. It's not surprising you struggle to trust telling another T. Unfortunately, some therapists haven't done the training or the work on themselves to understand anything about an erotic transference and what it means.

The therapeutic relationship is such that normal feelings are amplified. Sexual and erotic feelings are as normal as sad or angry feelings so it is normal that we will experience them in therapy too. I expect you are accessing (in the transference) a part of you that needs to be healed through an intimate relationship with another (just as we need that intimate and often erotic early relationship with a primary caregiver/mother as a blueprint for healthy relationships). So, in that, many of those early love feelings that we get intouch with get translated into adult love/sexual feelings - that is how we all fall in love - drawing from the blueprint of the past - that first love affair we have with mother.

Falling in love as an adult will be influenced by how well (or not) that early love affair with mother went - and we will bring through the good and bad bits from that, which, with a sensitive and caring therapist, who can work through those early conflicts with us, can enable us to have much healthier relationships - it's reparative. It sounds like you are doing what you need to do - you are attaching to and falling in love with the therapist, who, in the transference becomes the mother you need but perhaps never had. You need to replicate that early love relationship to redo the bits that went wrong - you are doing just what you need to do. Your love feelings should be treated with care and respect - and a working through of the feelings around that will enable you to understand yourself better. But - it's often painful when we realise that the love cannot be what we need it to be in our fantasy - a full blown adult sexual relationship with the therapist. For the therapist to succumb to the projections of the erotic transference/love, and to act something out, is highly abusive - it is focused on adult needs and forgets the littlle child who is looking for healing - it is incestuous, repeats past trauma and abandonment and mainly ends in disaster for the client (even if in the client's fantasy it feels that is what is needed, in reality it never is the answer). The answer is to work through the issues with the therapist allowing us to be able to find a partner 'out there' to have a healthy relationship with. The therapeutic relationship becomes the new, healthier blueprint.

I hear it happens to you with all your therapists (who represent the mother in your transference)- so it is important when interviewing a therapist that you check they understand and can work with the erotic and what it symbolises for you. Not all therapists can do it. Some, if they have no understanding, will abandon - that isn't about you, it's about them. Look after yourself - you are normal and ok and your feelings show what work you need to do - and it sounds like you need to understand love and all those feelings, using your feelings towards your therapist as a way to do that. Your love is a beautiful thing and the feelings are all normal and ok. The therapist needs to be able to enter into it with you but must never act out with you in a concrete way (having sex with you). I hope the therapist you have now would honour your feelings, but if not, it is important to find someone who can work with you in the erotisised transference without losing the symbolic nature of it.

Good luck

Moon

[moonlitsky]

Originally Posted by ReddClay

Yes, I am struggling to share with my T but also because of this as well:
http://forums.psychcentral.com/psych...riggering.html

I am starting to think the two are related. I KNOW I should not be worried because my T has mentioned transference before so I know it is something they work with. But still...

Hello Reddclay

Yes, you are on the right tracks - your feelings come from a child part/s of yourself. The therapy relationship enables us to regress to that part of us in order to heal it. It can be scary, especially when we first realise we have that part of ourselves, which has often been shut away for many years.

I think it's normal to be worried, because it is scary to find ourselves so needy and vulnerable and then to have to speak about it. When we are vulnerable is when we can be hurt - and that will trigger all the hurts of the past. These fears will be transferred onto the therapist and we will fear being hurt and abandoned - and that makes it so hard to talk about - but if we can talk about it, and receive a different response than we expected , it can lead to healing. The adult part of us may understand what is happening (logically) but the child part is about our feelings and they aren't logical and can be painful, scary and messy.

I hope your therapist is experienced enough to understand and to help you to speak about all your fears. It can't be forced or hurried and trust needs to form gradually.

Best wishes

Moon