"It's all in your head".. Transference

I hope I can interject some thoughts on transference and it being worked through and then leading to a relationship between the client and the T. As someone who is experiencing high levels of ET towards her therapist, I also think about what would happen if I did engage him in a real life relationship. For me, I would always be worried about another client taking him away from me. What if he falls in love with someone else and here I am left lonely and even more damaged? I like the fantasy and it hurts to know I cannot have him but I will keep it just a fantasy as this pain is less traumatic than the pain I would feel it fell apart later. I am assuming it is less painful and I am not willing to find out otherwise. I hope this makes sense

I hear that is how you feel, but want you to know it is not what I feel, nor what I am trying to say. I do not believe that at all.

I am not convinced by the stories you give. It is fraught with difficulty as the person you describe found out. We don't know what is going on behind closed doors and appearing to be happy doesn't mean it is the case.

I know you are in pain and I respect that for you - and part of that means you are defending something for yourself and your therapy - I hope it can be talked about. Much as a child can't bear the thought of losing a parent, we have the same feelings when we are in therapy and experiencing powerful transference love. I know because I too have been there, am still working through it. But now the thought of sex with my therapist repels me - much as we grow to that as children. Fathers or mothers should never have sex with their children - it is the same dynamic. But it doesn't mean there can't be love.

I am not here to upset and I have the greatest respect for all on these boards and the struggles being faced.

Moon

I think, and please know that I do not mean to attack you, that there is a fundamental disrespect or ... maternalistic attitude that underlies what you say in your response to me. A sense that a client can never be more than a child in your eyes, exhibited by this part of your response:

"I believe that if the tranference is fully worked through, and the therapist rally understands the potential damage, it would never happen - because incest should feel repellent - and to have sex with a client is incestuous to me. A truly safe therapist would never cross that line. "

This shows that you continue to see your client as a child, long after the therapy relationship is over.

In my case, I do not want nor need anything even vaguely paternal from my therapist. The thought of it it repellant because I am attracted to him. I actually did experience incest, but from my mother, and so please know that incest IS repellant to me and has nothing to do with my relationship with my therapist.



Fair enough. All of that is true.



Again, I agree with you on parents not having sex with children. But again, I think the fact that you continue to see your clients as children is fundamentally disrespectful.

I am not actually in pain about my relationship with my therapist now. I was, and talked to him about it and struggled with it. My struggle was not as great as some on here, because I am married, and trying really hard to work through issues with my husband. I plan to stay married. My therapist is married and plans to stay married. So, I knew all along that nothing was ever going to happen between us.

My struggle was in trying to deal with what I mentioned above, what seems like a fundamental disrespect underlying the rule against relationships and my therapist's statement about not having even friendships with clients. What was hugely healing for me was my therapist finally sharing his feelings about me and that he does not see me as a child or have any thoughts about incest.



I'm not actually upset -- certainly not upset with you in particular. I dislike the paternalistic/maternalistic attitude of the profession toward clients and former clients -- that we are never healthy enough to make our own decisions.

I hear you but will say again I do not feel that way. I talk about the child in reference to therapists having sex with clients in their care and I hold by what I say. But I do not hold the same view as you about what the profession believes because i don't think that is the case - but I acknowledge that is how you interpret my words.

Moon

In any relationship, when we first meet, the feelings we feel for the other person will be transferential - either negative feelings or positive ones, or something inbetween. It can only be transference because we actually know nothing about that person. So the love we feel when it's 'love at first sight' or in those heady days of love that we feel when we first meet and 'falll in love' with someone is mainly transferential. We project onto the other person our idealised fantasies of who they are. Eventually, as we get to really know the other person, spend time in their lives, etc, that transference drops away and we start to see them for who they really are - and often it is at this point that things go wrong and relationships become messy and difficult - we will often hear people saying 'he/she isn't the person they were when I met them' - they aren't because the way we saw them was transferential.

Often though, when the transference falls away, we see someone we really do love and want to be with. It won't ever be heady like when we first met because we know more about them now and it has all settled down and is more 'normal'. Those relationsips are the ones that work. It might be that the two people involved are quite secure in their attachment s and the transference wasn't far wrong. But for many, especially those with attachment difficulties, the fantasy of who the other is and who they really are is way off. When we really find out who the other is it turns out they are more like someone who hurt us than someone who can love and care for us.

In the therapy room the same thing happens - we often 'fall in love' with the therapist - it is at that time transferential because we don't really know the therapist at all. But, this continues and the transference doesn't drop away so quickly - and that is what enables us to explore ourselves and better understand our past and what we replay in relationships. So, for sometime we are embroiled in an idealised transference and all the erotic and love feelings remain. It is important that the therspist holds the boundaries to allow it all to be played out, and the parts that went wrong can be re worked.

Just as happens in relationships 'out there', negative pathology eventually clicks in as the idealisation wears off - and feelings of love, hate, rage and envy come into play (depending on the level of early attachment damage) - and the therapeutic relationship allows them to be acted out and understood. 'Out there' it is likely this would be the point at which the relationship fails, but if the therapist is good enough, he/she will withstand and help to resolve these conflicts with the client. That is the job of the therapist, not to use the client as a potential sexual partner.

Unfortunately, due to the regressive nature of this type of therapy, it is very unlikely that trying to convert it to a real adult relationhip would work, because of the intense dynamics concerned. It often ends in the client being terribly hurt and a therapist losing his or her job. It's a recipe for disaster. I have read of such relationships failing disasterously - when the transference falls away and the reality of the relationship is far from the fantasy - and the client becomes powerless and enraged. A therapist who even attempts to do this is highly unskilled and unethical and has fallen into, rather than working with, the projections. It is abusive.

I don't believe, that while in such a powerful transference, we are capable of judging what is right for us, just as we aren't able to see things when we are in those first throws of love. Brain scans have shown that while in that state our brain is in a state similar to that of a psychosis - a losing touch with reality. It is therefore very important that the therapist can hold and maintain boundaries with the client to maintain a non abusive therapeutic relationship.

It's different, say, if a client saw a therapist a handful of times for CBT and there was no such transferential feelings. They meet up by chance 2 years later at a party and hit it off. That would be less likely to damage.

Moon

In any relationship, when we first meet, the feelings we feel for the other person will be transferential - either negative feelings or positive ones, or something inbetween. It can only be transference because we actually know nothing about that person. So the love we feel when it's 'love at first sight' or in those heady days of love that we feel when we first meet and 'falll in love' with someone is mainly transferential. We project onto the other person our idealised fantasies of who they are. Eventually, as we get to really know the other person, spend time in their lives, etc, that transference drops away and we start to see them for who they really are - and often it is at this point that things go wrong and relationships become messy and difficult - we will often hear people saying 'he/she isn't the person they were when I met them' - they aren't because the way we saw them was transferential.

Often though, when the transference falls away, we see someone we really do love and want to be with. It won't ever be heady like when we first met because we know more about them now and it has all settled down and is more 'normal'. Those relationsips are the ones that work. It might be that the two people involved are quite secure in their attachment s and the transference wasn't far wrong. But for many, especially those with attachment difficulties, the fantasy of who the other is and who they really are is way off. When we really find out who the other is it turns out they are more like someone who hurt us than someone who can love and care for us.

In the therapy room the same thing happens - we often 'fall in love' with the therapist - it is at that time transferential because we don't really know the therapist at all. But, this continues and the transference doesn't drop away so quickly - and that is what enables us to explore ourselves and better understand our past and what we replay in relationships. So, for sometime we are embroiled in an idealised transference and all the erotic and love feelings remain. It is important that the therspist holds the boundaries to allow it all to be played out, and the parts that went wrong can be re worked.

Just as happens in relationships 'out there', negative pathology eventually clicks in as the idealisation wears off - and feelings of love, hate, rage and envy come into play (depending on the level of early attachment damage) - and the therapeutic relationship allows them to be acted out and understood. 'Out there' it is likely this would be the point at which the relationship fails, but if the therapist is good enough, he/she will withstand and help to resolve these conflicts with the client. That is the job of the therapist, not to use the client as a potential sexual partner.

Unfortunately, due to the regressive nature of this type of therapy, it is very unlikely that trying to convert it to a real adult relationhip would work, because of the intense dynamics concerned. It often ends in the client being terribly hurt and a therapist losing his or her job. It's a recipe for disaster. I have read of such relationships failing disasterously - when the transference falls away and the reality of the relationship is far from the fantasy - and the client becomes powerless and enraged. A therapist who even attempts to do this is highly unskilled and unethical and has fallen into, rather than working with, the projections. It is abusive.

I don't believe, that while in such a powerful transference, we are capable of judging what is right for us, just as we aren't able to see things when we are in those first throws of love. Brain scans have shown that while in that state our brain is in a state similar to that of a psychosis - a losing touch with reality. It is therefore very important that the therapist can hold and maintain boundaries with the client to maintain a non abusive therapeutic relationship.

It's different, say, if a client saw a therapist a handful of times for CBT and there was no such transferential feelings. They meet up by chance 2 years later at a party and hit it off. That would be less likely to damage.

Moon

In any relationship, when we first meet, the feelings we feel for the other person will be transferential - either negative feelings or positive ones, or something inbetween. It can only be transference because we actually know nothing about that person. So the love we feel when it's 'love at first sight' or in those heady days of love that we feel when we first meet and 'falll in love' with someone is mainly transferential. We project onto the other person our idealised fantasies of who they are. Eventually, as we get to really know the other person, spend time in their lives, etc, that transference drops away and we start to see them for who they really are - and often it is at this point that things go wrong and relationships become messy and difficult - we will often hear people saying 'he/she isn't the person they were when I met them' - they aren't because the way we saw them was transferential.

Often though, when the transference falls away, we see someone we really do love and want to be with. It won't ever be heady like when we first met because we know more about them now and it has all settled down and is more 'normal'. Those relationsips are the ones that work. It might be that the two people involved are quite secure in their attachment s and the transference wasn't far wrong. But for many, especially those with attachment difficulties, the fantasy of who the other is and who they really are is way off. When we really find out who the other is it turns out they are more like someone who hurt us than someone who can love and care for us.

In the therapy room the same thing happens - we often 'fall in love' with the therapist - it is at that time transferential because we don't really know the therapist at all. But, this continues and the transference doesn't drop away so quickly - and that is what enables us to explore ourselves and better understand our past and what we replay in relationships. So, for sometime we are embroiled in an idealised transference and all the erotic and love feelings remain. It is important that the therspist holds the boundaries to allow it all to be played out, and the parts that went wrong can be re worked.

Just as happens in relationships 'out there', negative pathology eventually clicks in as the idealisation wears off - and feelings of love, hate, rage and envy come into play (depending on the level of early attachment damage) - and the therapeutic relationship allows them to be acted out and understood. 'Out there' it is likely this would be the point at which the relationship fails, but if the therapist is good enough, he/she will withstand and help to resolve these conflicts with the client. That is the job of the therapist, not to use the client as a potential sexual partner.

Unfortunately, due to the regressive nature of this type of therapy, it is very unlikely that trying to convert it to a real adult relationhip would work, because of the intense dynamics concerned. It often ends in the client being terribly hurt and a therapist losing his or her job. It's a recipe for disaster. I have read of such relationships failing disasterously - when the transference falls away and the reality of the relationship is far from the fantasy - and the client becomes powerless and enraged. A therapist who even attempts to do this is highly unskilled and unethical and has fallen into, rather than working with, the projections. It is abusive.

I don't believe, that while in such a powerful transference, we are capable of judging what is right for us, just as we aren't able to see things when we are in those first throws of love. Brain scans have shown that while in that state our brain is in a state similar to that of a psychosis - a losing touch with reality. It is therefore very important that the therapist can hold and maintain boundaries with the client to maintain a non abusive therapeutic relationship.

It's different, say, if a client saw a therapist a handful of times for CBT and there was no such transferential feelings. They meet up by chance 2 years later at a party and hit it off. That would be less likely to damage.

Moon

Moon,

Do you think that clients have a hard time expressing their feelings towards their Ts due to embarrassment? Would a T be so inclined to address it if they thought the transference was becoming out of control? I am assuming most Ts can sense when a client has 'fallen' for them and it is then the big, white elephant in the room, so to speak. Should it only be brought up by the client or would it help if the T brought some clarity to their client's feelings of 'love'? This question has plagued me for some time, lol. I feel like he can see right through me.

I found this to be very interesting, thanks for the post! When I was in therapy with my xT, I had massive paternal transference, and I couldn't see it, so I didn't leave. He was CBT and I had attachment issues and his rationalizations were invalidating. Now that I have a different T, he is able to help me in a compassionate, kind way and has flexible boundaries. He validates my emotions. All of this has helped me feel more centered, and I am more myself.

1Step, I wanted to address your reply about your T holding strict boundaries. This is a case where I think that you aren't being helped by them, and I hope you can discuss this with your T. It has been difficult for me because my T is allowing me to email him over his vacation. If he hadn't, I would have been preoccupied by not being able to contact him. I am so much stronger than I used to be thanks to him knowing how to help me. I haven't emailed him yet and it has been two weeks (doesn't sound like a big deal,) but I have gone through some intense emotions and have not been compelled to email him, instead, I have felt safe enough to work on things on my own. This had taken time and it has taken him being flexible with his boundaries. To me, he is trusting me and at the same time still allowing me to have him as a safe base, so I am working on things at my own pace, and I am FREE to do so I hope you can talk to your T, 1Step.