Erotic Transference

I thought this might help those who are experiencing the pain of transference (especially the erotic type) to understand how it can be worked through and what it's about, and perhaps to normalise it abit.

Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist: Hypnosis, EMDR, Somatic Experiencing: Psychotherapy and the Erotic Transference: Falling "In Love" With Your Psychotherapist

Moon

Very helpful indeed!

Are all transference's caused by unmet childhood needs?

Can a patient genuinely have affections for their therapist without having to root it in some childhood neglect?

The patient is an adult in the 'here and now'.

Good Question BL!

I think it's important to remember that transference is involved in how we relate inside and outside the therapy room. The way we relate to others - how we are in loving relationships - is influenced by our early life and those primary caregivers. So, all affection/love, etc is rooted back in those months/years and how well, or not, that went.

We are far more likely to relate from the here and now if we work through the transferences that get in our way.

Moon

Thankyou Moon
This article explains the feelings/longings we have for our therapists and it normalises the experience too. In fact it is expected and encouraged that we develop feelings for our therapist.
In some ways it feels like a trap, a hurtful and confusing one. A patient comes in with a broken heart and through the therapists patience and understanding they learn to fall in love again, or rather the therapist encourages these feelings only to tell their client - No this cannot happen.
It hurts and it confusing.
I fell in love my therapist, we are both female and I am gay. I feel like she encouraged me to text her and when I did she gave me a talk on boundaries. She text me first and I felt confused, like we were both friends but she told me we couldn't be friends. I liked her from the moment I seen her, she didn't disclose any personal information, so I obsessed over her constantly and after a year and a half of seeing her and fuzzy boudaries, many ruptures, my head was so confused. I manged to work up the courage to tell her how I felt, I sent her a long email explaining how I fell in love with her from the moment we met and that it was nothing to do with transference. She emailed me back and said she understood how difficult it was for me to tell her that. As soon as I went to next session she said we had to terminate- no explanation, nothing.
I felt like a weirdo for falling in love with her, like she wanted me to just dissappear so she wouldn't have to see me again. I hope this never happens to anyone else because it hurts, so I don't think it should be encouraged if the therapist can't deal with it.

Loved my t for 7 years; ;the feelings haven't changed. He doesn't remind me of anyone in the past that I know of. Sometimes we love people just because...not having anything to do with childhood or unmet needs.

Thanks for your post Bunny. With all this talk of transference, I feel like the meaning of true love has been lost in psychological terms. You never know where you will find love but if it's real, I think it will stand the test of time.

I just want to add that transference isn't all about unmet needs - because much of it is positive!! - which is why so many of us are able to have meaningful and loving relationships. It doesn't have to be analysed or pulled apart - if it works then don't fix it!!

However, for many of us who didn't get what we needed as babies and children, it can lead to disasterous and painful adult relationships and great insecuries - and that is where a transferential therapy can really help us to work through and understand how we relate to others - and in that is love and all that means to us.

My own therapy has allowed me to love as I have never loved before and, in turn, to be able to receive love like I have never known - and it is very real in every way. It has healed me for sure.

The most horrendous thing my therapist could ever have done to me would be to have acted out the erotic parts with me when they came along - even though, at one time, my fantasies were that I needed that - the merging that we feel during an intimate sexual relationship (and also in mother's arms).

Moon xx

thanks, this article is great

Is this what therapists do? Suck you in and then, when you really care, lower the boom and say, no we can never have a real relationship? This is confusing. No wonder there are so many hurt feelings.

My T says that we do have a real relationship, but it's different from other relationships. I think that most clients realize that a T is a T and it's unethical to have a relationship outside of therapy. But even knowing that, the transference happens, and it hurts worse than any feelings I've ever had in my life.

I started seeing a different therapist just to help break my attachment to my original therapist. I just started this week reducing sessions to everyother week. I just can not take the attachment I have to him and it hindering my recovery. I told him I started seeing the other therapist because I was to attached to him. He still has not addressed the issue. Either he does not understand himself or he is avoiding the subject.

i agree with rainbow 8 it hurts bad

I have been following your posts Moon and they have been very helpful. This one has prompted me to make my first post on here. In my case, I am going through all of the painful feelings for my therapist. I'm male and she is female and we are close in age. The whole transference thing snuck up on me and I am working through it with her now, although her training does not lye in this specific area. Her training is in "systems" therapy which works great for all the issues I am experiencing with my mentally ill wife. I also have four kids, two who have special needs. So while I need the support, I don't necessarily need to fix what isn't broken as you stated above. How does one handle these powerful transference feelings when they aren't necessarily broken, but came up anyway?

Hello secretworld

Thank you for sharing your experience. I am glad you have found my posts helpful.

Your feelings are normal, especially when someone is giving their undivided attention and care (and we are in a vulnerable place) - they are about needing to be close and connected, but can also be hard to deal with alone. If they aren't spoken about and understood they can't be worked through and out. So, I think the only way to handle them is to keep on talking about how you feel. I hope your therapist is able to work with these feelings for you and has enough understanding of what is happening to help you.

Moon

I feel so sad when I read your post Moodswing - because I beleieve that the key to your healing is in being able to attach to the therapist and work through how it feels. This would need a therapist who is sensitive to, and understands attachment and dependency and can hold, and respond to, your very painful feelings with you as you do the work. It is about early attachment and attachment needs that weren't met. And I hear how frightening attachment feels for you - because it was frightening for you I suspect?

It feels he doesn't have the skills to help you - and his own attachment seems avoidant - he hasn't helped you to address the issue. It may be he hasn't done his own work and so can't enter into it with you.

When a client tries to lessen the number of sessions because the attachment is so painful, I would see that as an indication that more sessions are needed and would respond accordingly to hold the client in and allow them to do their work - i wonder if you could find a therapist who is more attachment/ relationally based - who can respond to your needs?

Moon

A therapist who knows what he/she is doing would never do that Sadendings. It's not about that. In the way I practice I believe it's about entering into a relationship with the client that heals, not re abuses. A very real relationship but with boundaries that enable the work - and yes, it does mean that there will never be a sexual relationship - because for that to happen would destroy the work. Without those boundaries there is no therapy and we lose our therapist. Yes, we need to work through all the feelings around this, we need to grieve for all we never had as little ones (which the therapeutic relationship gets us intouch with), and we need to access our rage, envy, hate, etc. It is the therapists job to bear all of this but not succumb to the projections and repeat something for the cllient - to hold a boundary that enables not harms. And as clients it's our job to express how the boundaries feel and to push against them - and to feel something SAFE!

The therapeutic relationship is a place where we learn to have a close intimate and healthy relationship - and then we can go 'out there' and find the partners/lovers we need as adults. That is what our parents should have given us - and eventually we leave home and find partners to have loving relationships with. Same applies to therapy - if done properly we gain the internal tools to go out and get what we need for ourselves. Even little children have erotic and sexual feelings regarding their parents - and the parents should never act them out with the child. That's what the oedipus complex is about - and is a phase of development we all pass through - you can often hear it spoken when a child speaks of marrying mummy or daddy one day. It is the childs job to test the boundaries and the parents job to hold them firm but not rigid - just like in the therapeutic relationship.

Hope this makes some sense

Moon

I became very attached to my first therapist, I was only with her 4 months, I did CBT with her, I felt abandoned by her so now I am in longer term therapy been with my new T 3 months, I am afraid of becoming attached to her, what happens if she abandons me?

Thanks for posting the article Moon.

T#2 is skilled at what he does and he "Gets it!". I think his actions were inlined with having me become attached to him quickly in order for me to feel safe for the trauma processing to happen. I am hoping that as I heal I will move away from him naturally like a child growing up and leaving the nest. Until then I have to believe he won't abandon me. You have to believe also and not dwell on that thought.

I've heard this before, but the major flaw I find with this theory is this: if we are supposed to attach to a therapist to have a relationship but with boundaries where we don't get gratification, then how are we learning to go out and get the partners we want? In other words, with our therapist, aren't we just teaching ourselves to find a partner who will always draw a boundary and never give us what we want?

How do you have an intimate and healthy relationship with someone who only responds in the context of therapy? It feels like a manufactured arrangement that is totally unnatural.

Thanks so much for posting this, moonlitsky. It's really great to have someone on here who is experienced from both sides of the couch, so to speak.

The article was really interesting and the story she describes really resonated, which was at one level good because it makes me feel normal for having these feelings but on the other hand scary, because it makes me realize that I probably need to talk to her about them. It's strange too - what I have doesn't really seem to fit into erotic transference so much, like I don't fantasize about her sexually etc but I do have a desire to be close to her, feel jealous of her other clients/friends, would freak out if I saw her with a boyfriend or partner and feel somewhat obsessed. Unlike the woman in the story, I would hate for her to be a lesbian (I am same-sex attracted). I want her to be asexual!

It's weird though, because on some level I know that it's not about her. The feelings are there, and they are directed towards her, or at least having the T relationship with her has brought up these feelings, but I'm not sure that I really love her so much as what she represents. It's very confusing. I kind of hate it. And it makes me realize how attached I am to her, and frankly, that's terrifying.

I'm really scared because I want to talk to her about it but absolutely feel like she will reject me or laugh at me. Even if she is accepting of me in session, I could only imagine she would be laughing at me in her head or with her supervisor. I can't imagine revealing something so huge, painful and embarrassing. I HATE feeling vulnerable and exposed!! But if healing occurs through the transference then I guess at some point I'll have to. The thought of it makes me feel sick though

Those of you on PC who have 'fessed up to transference are so brave. I admire your courage so much!

I feel the same way about sharing my feelings. I have had an obsessive fascination with my T for the past 2 years and the thought of telling him scares me to death. I wish I had the courage as it would have made therapy so much easier.

I would have rather her use a real vignette with changed names than a fictional one. It is difficult for me to believe that there is much reality in the fictional case she presents. I have read and heard of many many other vignettes that ended not so full of roses and candy.

I feel the same way and feel guilty about it too. I am so alone and he is so warm and intellgent. I had a T 20 years ago that I felt the same way about the difference now is this one is handsome. I still would never cross that line with him, I need him and don't want to injure the relationship we have now. Last year I saw him about 17 weeks everyday if I add all the inpatient days up and he always came daily and say down and spent time with me , not all doc do that. I feel lucky and blessed to have him as my pdoc and although i'd love for it to be romantic i will not cross that line I remember what it was like to hold his hand before. The feeling made my heart skip a beat, he is far to important to lose because I cant keep it together, they are not feeling of love though;

Therapy is a unique relationship - it can actually be the most intimate we will ever have, with a therapist who can really enter into it with us in a healing way. It is therapy so has to remain therapeutic. That means it stays about the needs of the client, not the therapist, but doesn't mean it can't be gratifying. Once it becomes a friendship or a sexual relationship the therapy is over, the client has lost the therapist, there's no going back. It teaches us how to be close, how to trust, what a safe relatioship looks like - and then our job is to move away and find relationships 'out there' where we can have our emotional and sexual needs met. It doesn't mean we can't speak our wishes and desires, it doesn't mean we can't have needs met or that we can't love or receive love, but it does have it's limits in that it will never be anything other than therapy - that is the whole point of it. The frame is such to preserve the therapy. A successful therapy should teach us that we can go out and create a life for ourselves where needs and wants can be met - and having healthy internal boundaries is all part of that.
Remember - not all therapists will or can work this way - many are more cognitive and problem solving and will not work tranferentially - they cannot help us to do attachment based work.

Yes, it takes some getting used to - it is a relationship unlike any other - but it works. It is the only way we have found that can heal deep attachment wounds - and yes, sometimes it can feel very cruel.

Moon