[geez]

This question goes out to any and all therapists who are reading this. I'm interested to hear what the statistics are on Transference.

Meaning what percentage of your clients experience transference? Is it 50%, 80% or 20%? If so how many (percentage) of those who have transference actually say that they have those feelings?

Also a couple of other questions:
Is being a therapist about listening to people all with the same general complaining or self loathing?
If so I can imagine this must be discouraging and exhausting at best?

Just curious.

[LearningMe01]

I'm not a therapist, but I have asked my T the same question (about it being exhausting) She said to her, it's not. Because she truly loves what she does, and finds it extremely interesting. She said "I basically get paid to sit and talk with people I like." Now, keep in mind she is fairly new (phd candidate, graduates next year) So that may change...but I suppose the answer to the question would depend on what therapist you ask.
I've also asked her about transference. She said she doesn't believe in it. Which sucks for me, because I have "those" feelings for her, and I don't think she knows how to handle them. I've mentioned it only once (and danced around the topic a bit today) she just smiles, and then reminds me of professional boundaries. Yea, not really what I need to hear.

Good luck in finding your answers!

[Tamster]

my pdoc brought up transference once and I said possibly at the time but now after time to think about it , no not at all. Its not that he is not good looking but I didn't have any feelings for my first doc and i dont have them now. So no transference there.

[JeffLawrence]

Originally Posted by LearningMe01

I'm not a therapist, but I have asked my T the same question (about it being exhausting) She said to her, it's not. Because she truly loves what she does, and finds it extremely interesting. She said "I basically get paid to sit and talk with people I like." Now, keep in mind she is fairly new (phd candidate, graduates next year) So that may change...but I suppose the answer to the question would depend on what therapist you ask.
I've also asked her about transference. She said she doesn't believe in it. Which sucks for me, because I have "those" feelings for her, and I don't think she knows how to handle them. I've mentioned it only once (and danced around the topic a bit today) she just smiles, and then reminds me of professional boundaries. Yea, not really what I need to hear.

Good luck in finding your answers!

I surely do empathize with "those" feelings. Very strongly, in fact. I've had them for my T for about 5 years now, and have only just started to wean myself away. The feelings are still there, and I write about them in my personal journal and on this site. The difference is now I feel less desperate. I get jealous if she comes to a session looking as if she will be going out on a date afterwards, just a little more made-up than usual. I feel jealous knowing she sees other male clients. At this point I want her to be my friend (with or without benefits) after my therapy is one day completed. That may happen, but I no longer am so desperate to know.

Being reminded of "boundaries" stings, definitely. I'm sure many people have the thought, "I am special. Can't you break the boundaries just for me, please?" But then it wouldn't be therapy. My T didn't go into her profession to meet guys. Many easier ways to do that. "But I'm not just any guy, I'm me, the man who adores you and who you have known intensely for almost 7 years."

Yup, I know how you feel. Like exercise, "no pain, no gain."

[LearningMe01]

Originally Posted by JeffLawrence

I surely do empathize with "those" feelings. Very strongly, in fact. I've had them for my T for about 5 years now, and have only just started to wean myself away. The feelings are still there, and I write about them in my personal journal and on this site. The difference is now I feel less desperate. I get jealous if she comes to a session looking as if she will be going out on a date afterwards, just a little more made-up than usual. I feel jealous knowing she sees other male clients. At this point I want her to be my friend (with or without benefits) after my therapy is one day completed. That may happen, but I no longer am so desperate to know.

Being reminded of "boundaries" stings, definitely. I'm sure many people have the thought, "I am special. Can't you break the boundaries just for me, please?" But then it wouldn't be therapy. My T didn't go into her profession to meet guys. Many easier ways to do that. "But I'm not just any guy, I'm me, the man who adores you and who you have known intensely for almost 7 years."

Yup, I know how you feel. Like exercise, "no pain, no gain."

Yes, it surely does sting. And we have such a wonderful "working" relationship (although it often feels like more than that) and there is always that little part of me that hopes she'll feel something intense enough to break those boundaries. My rational side knows it won't happen....not to mention I'm married and she's in a committed relationship. I'm still in the phase where I feel desperate. I hate it. And the worst part is, she's going to leave (graduate, she's a phd grad student) before I'm ready for her to. As a matter of fact, today, she referred to herself leaving as "something that is certain, our relationship is going to come to an end". We weren't even talking about "those" feelings at the time...and I busted out in tears. And to be honest, I can't even swear that these feelings are romantic, they're just a very strong "connection" feeling, she is someone that I want to keep in my life, and it hurts to hear her so bluntly say that she will be "leaving my life forever." I cried most of the way home from our session.

I'm not sure she knows how deep my feelings actually run. Everytime I think I need to really tell her, my stupid pride gets in the way. I get all embarrassed and clam up. And no one else in my life knows...so this is a battle I'm fighting alone. As if I didn't have enough to deal with (I mean, hello...I'm in therapy for a reason lol)

[nicoleflynn]

There would be no way to know that, since not every client talks about their feelings for their t's---transference is just a fancy word for feelings. It exists in most relationships. I am an undergraduate in counseling.

Powerful feelings of love (and other emotions) can arise in the therapist/client relationship. It may be the first time a client is validated and heard and as humans we all need that. THerapy is an intense experience.

I did see a study about it somewhere, but cannot remember the statistics. I do remember reading that women with male therapists who are gay have dramatically less transference issues, so the author of the study was saying that additional work needed to be done to see if straight therapists were somehow unconsciously encouraging the transference. Maybe it was by Pope?

Originally Posted by My kids are cool

I did see a study about it somewhere, but cannot remember the statistics. I do remember reading that women with male therapists who are gay have dramatically less transference issues, so the author of the study was saying that additional work needed to be done to see if straight therapists were somehow unconsciously encouraging the transference. Maybe it was by Pope?

That is very interesting, maybe subconsciously ts do encourage these feelings.

[geez]

Originally Posted by nicoleflynn

There would be no way to know that, since not every client talks about their feelings for their t's---transference is just a fancy word for feelings. It exists in most relationships. I am an undergraduate in counseling.

Powerful feelings of love (and other emotions) can arise in the therapist/client relationship. It may be the first time a client is validated and heard and as humans we all need that. THerapy is an intense experience.

I guess when I say transference it would be the one I see most on the boards as being tough to deal with: wanting to be with t etc... (not angry transference - I think that one would be the easiest for us to tell our t's)

[moonlitsky]

Originally Posted by geez

This question goes out to any and all therapists who are reading this. I'm interested to hear what the statistics are on Transference.

Meaning what percentage of your clients experience transference? Is it 50%, 80% or 20%? If so how many (percentage) of those who have transference actually say that they have those feelings?

Also a couple of other questions:
Is being a therapist about listening to people all with the same general complaining or self loathing?
If so I can imagine this must be discouraging and exhausting at best?

Just curious.

Hello Geez

I have been thinking about your post and wonder if it might be more helpful to you to talk about your fears - because I think that's what you post is realy about? Perhaps you are frightened because you are experiencing a very powerful tranference with your therapst? And you want to know it's ok, that your therapist wiill know how to help you if you speak about it? You are afraid the therapist won't be able to cope with you or your needs or your powerful feelings of love or hate or rage?

I may be wrong but I think your post is trying to tell us something about you because you need some help?

It might help you to know that I am a therapist and I never become tired of my clients because I know it is all about pain. Infact I find my job very rewarding and very much care about how my clients feel, the bad feelings as well as the good ones - they are all welcome. Yes, I have to manage some very powerful and painful feelings/projections - it is my job to remain well and I have a therapist and supervisor to look after me, not the job of my clients.

All of us experience transference - it's how we relate to others. It's normal, including the erotic. The powerful erotic transference where we regress to little ones having that first 'love affair' with mother and needing mother 24/7 is about the infant and should never be acted upon by the therapist in a sexual way. Even though the client may feel they are wanting a sexual relationship it must be understood that the early stuff is being translated into adult stuff. To only identify with the adult sexual feelings is to ignore the child part and to repeat early trauma for the client. All the fantasies need to be understood - the longing, the need, the wish for fusion, all of that - and the therapist has to understand what it is they are working with to enable the client to work through it and then move away to find healthier adult relationships. Sometimes the client will seduce in many different ways - but it is the therapists job to understand what they are feeling (including sexual feelings) to help the client, not enter into a sexual relationship.

It is painful but rewarding work - if it can really be brought out into the open, worked with and understood, so the transference can be weakened eventually.

I think that sometimes the client remains trapped because the therapist enters into something that is gratifying to them (maybe unconsciously) - they haven't worked through their own transference issues and it doesn't allow a 'growing up' and leaving home to find healthy intimacy. If the therapist/ client relationship are male/female and both are heterosexual I wonder if it makes it harder. I had a powerful erotic transference with a female therapist but knew we were not gay and I think that helped me to know it was early transference - one reason that i would never have a male therapist - not yet anyway! I would really have to know the therapist was very safe to go anywhere near a male therapist. I think that's the reason why a heterosexual woman with a gay therapist may find it easier to separate the transference - because the gay therapist isn't attracted to women and she knows he isn't at some level, even if the fantasy may be he is? - she is more likely to know it is a fantasy? I think I'm waffling now!

Moon

[rainbow8]

Moon, I wish you were my T!

[moonlitsky]

Originally Posted by rainbow8

Moon, I wish you were my T!

Thank you!

But in reality that might not be the case!!

Moon

[rainbow8]

I "fall in love" with all of my Ts. I'm sure I would experience transference with you too! Then you could reassure me and tell me all the good answers like you post here.

My T has let me talk about those parts for 3 years but now I feel ashamed that I still feel the same way, as I posted in here, "in love with T's smile". I've always told her how I feel, but she wants me to move on. She says she isn't rejecting the parts who love her, but I think she is.

I won't be able to quit therapy because I won't be able to leave her. That's the way it is with me. So, I'm in DBT and trying to radically accept the reality of my relationship with my T. It's hard and confusing.

[chumchum]

I am terminating with my T due to the fact I am too attached. I have already reached all of my goals, my dx was rescinded and I am off all meds. I am hanging on because I am scared to let go. It's like a Band-Aid, I am just going to have to pull him off!

I am not saying you should do this the same way. I am hoping for me that it will work. *fingers crossed*

[geez]

Originally Posted by moonlitsky

Hello Geez

I have been thinking about your post and wonder if it might be more helpful to you to talk about your fears - because I think that's what you post is realy about? Perhaps you are frightened because you are experiencing a very powerful tranference with your therapst? And you want to know it's ok, that your therapist wiill know how to help you if you speak about it? You are afraid the therapist won't be able to cope with you or your needs or your powerful feelings of love or hate or rage?

I may be wrong but I think your post is trying to tell us something about you because you need some help?

It might help you to know that I am a therapist and I never become tired of my clients because I know it is all about pain. Infact I find my job very rewarding and very much care about how my clients feel, the bad feelings as well as the good ones - they are all welcome. Yes, I have to manage some very powerful and painful feelings/projections - it is my job to remain well and I have a therapist and supervisor to look after me, not the job of my clients.

All of us experience transference - it's how we relate to others. It's normal, including the erotic. The powerful erotic transference where we regress to little ones having that first 'love affair' with mother and needing mother 24/7 is about the infant and should never be acted upon by the therapist in a sexual way. Even though the client may feel they are wanting a sexual relationship it must be understood that the early stuff is being translated into adult stuff. To only identify with the adult sexual feelings is to ignore the child part and to repeat early trauma for the client. All the fantasies need to be understood - the longing, the need, the wish for fusion, all of that - and the therapist has to understand what it is they are working with to enable the client to work through it and then move away to find healthier adult relationships. Sometimes the client will seduce in many different ways - but it is the therapists job to understand what they are feeling (including sexual feelings) to help the client, not enter into a sexual relationship.

It is painful but rewarding work - if it can really be brought out into the open, worked with and understood, so the transference can be weakened eventually.

I think that sometimes the client remains trapped because the therapist enters into something that is gratifying to them (maybe unconsciously) - they haven't worked through their own transference issues and it doesn't allow a 'growing up' and leaving home to find healthy intimacy. If the therapist/ client relationship are male/female and both are heterosexual I wonder if it makes it harder. I had a powerful erotic transference with a female therapist but knew we were not gay and I think that helped me to know it was early transference - one reason that i would never have a male therapist - not yet anyway! I would really have to know the therapist was very safe to go anywhere near a male therapist. I think that's the reason why a heterosexual woman with a gay therapist may find it easier to separate the transference - because the gay therapist isn't attracted to women and she knows he isn't at some level, even if the fantasy may be he is? - she is more likely to know it is a fantasy? I think I'm waffling now!

Moon

Hi Moon,
Thank you so much for your well thought out and thorough response.
Do I have transference with my therapist? Yes a part of me does. The child part. The adult current self does not in the same way the child part does. The child part wishes she could be mothered and truly loved by T. The adult part loves my T and all that she has done for me in terms of encouragement to face my fears. She also helps me with my anxiety and my depression. I confided in her when I was planning on ending my life because she is the only person I felt I could share that with at the time. She has been there for me time and time again and I feel very fortunate to have such a good relationship with T.

As of this weekend I've decided I need to do some IFS therapy to which my current T does not do so I have to find another T and I have a name my T gave me to call. I told my T that I would like to do IFS with a T and then come back to her as my 'home base'.

I am afraid to some degree of leaving my therapeutic relationship with my current T. Ok very afraid

I've never had unconditional acceptance from anyone before like my T has given me and I'm terrified of losing that.

I have told my T that I love her before ( a long while ago) and she asked me where that is coming from and we talked a little bit about that. I never felt rejection from her but I feel like if I tell her again I have feelings for her it will be one time too many.

I'll write more later.........

[geez]

...... continuation........

Moon I'm glad you never get tired of your clients. I have the feeling or a part of me has the feeling that my T can't wait to get rid of me. She has said nor done anything that shows she wants to get rid of me however that's my fear. A huge fear of abandonment. I'm playing it out in my head to prepare myself for rejection from her.

Do I have anger? yes but not towards my T even though it seems to be coming out that way a little. Again my inner self trying to protect myself from being hurt so a part of me wants to play offense and push her away before I'm pushed away.

Moon the question about weather or not T's get sick of hearing their clients self loath etc... was because I've been seeing my T for 5 years and I can't help but think she is sick of hearing me talk already.

Another reason I asked the question about self loathing is I'm considering about pursuing a career as a counselor because I want to help people. The part that I worry about is I'm going to be sick of hearing some of the same or like stories from different clients and I will feel about them the way I think my T feels about me

I guess it's just me projecting. Ugh.

[moonlitsky]

Originally Posted by geez

...... continuation........

Moon I'm glad you never get tired of your clients. I have the feeling or a part of me has the feeling that my T can't wait to get rid of me. She has said nor done anything that shows she wants to get rid of me however that's my fear. A huge fear of abandonment. I'm playing it out in my head to prepare myself for rejection from her.

Do I have anger? yes but not towards my T even though it seems to be coming out that way a little. Again my inner self trying to protect myself from being hurt so a part of me wants to play offense and push her away before I'm pushed away.

Moon the question about weather or not T's get sick of hearing their clients self loath etc... was because I've been seeing my T for 5 years and I can't help but think she is sick of hearing me talk already.

Another reason I asked the question about self loathing is I'm considering about pursuing a career as a counselor because I want to help people. The part that I worry about is I'm going to be sick of hearing some of the same or like stories from different clients and I will feel about them the way I think my T feels about me

I guess it's just me projecting. Ugh.

I think it might be about your past although I don't know about your therapist's feelings for you - you need to talk to her about that! But it sounds like, in the transference, your therapist is becoming the mother who wasn't interested in you and who pushes you away? It also sounds like your feelings weren't tolerated so part of you believes that to have such feelings is wrong? If that happened to you you have internalised it as your view of others too, so if you were to become a therapist, it's important that you can work through your transference so you can tolerate what is being given to you. It can be hard to tolerate ourselves in others if we don't work through our issues.

You seem to have some good insight, especially around wanting to leave before you are pushed. I hope you can talk with your therapist about all your fears so you can understand where they come from.

Moon

[geez]

Originally Posted by moonlitsky

I think it might be about your past although I don't know about your therapist's feelings for you - you need to talk to her about that! But it sounds like, in the transference, your therapist is becoming the mother who wasn't interested in you and who pushes you away? It also sounds like your feelings weren't tolerated so part of you believes that to have such feelings is wrong? If that happened to you you have internalized it as your view of others too, so if you were to become a therapist, it's important that you can work through your transference so you can tolerate what is being given to you. It can be hard to tolerate ourselves in others if we don't work through our issues.

You seem to have some good insight, especially around wanting to leave before you are pushed. I hope you can talk with your therapist about all your fears so you can understand where they come from.

Moon

Thank you Moon you are spot on about my mom and I am transferring that onto my T. My mother always pushed me away emotionally through neglect or she would berate me. I could never speak out about anything if it didn't go along with my moms opinion for example. I was also told as a child that I talked too much.

To this day I don't have a real relationship with my mom. There will always be a lack of closeness with my mom because she isn't capable of having that type of relationship. I feel sad for her and yet sad for me because we are both missing out but I need to keep protecting myself from her.

Thanks for listening Moon. It helps me to write.

Note: Just came back from a retreat and it has helped me identify things more.

[JeffPowers]

Originally Posted by moonlitsky

Hello Geez

I have been thinking about your post and wonder if it might be more helpful to you to talk about your fears - because I think that's what you post is realy about? Perhaps you are frightened because you are experiencing a very powerful tranference with your therapst? And you want to know it's ok, that your therapist wiill know how to help you if you speak about it? You are afraid the therapist won't be able to cope with you or your needs or your powerful feelings of love or hate or rage?

I may be wrong but I think your post is trying to tell us something about you because you need some help?

It might help you to know that I am a therapist and I never become tired of my clients because I know it is all about pain. Infact I find my job very rewarding and very much care about how my clients feel, the bad feelings as well as the good ones - they are all welcome. Yes, I have to manage some very powerful and painful feelings/projections - it is my job to remain well and I have a therapist and supervisor to look after me, not the job of my clients.

All of us experience transference - it's how we relate to others. It's normal, including the erotic. The powerful erotic transference where we regress to little ones having that first 'love affair' with mother and needing mother 24/7 is about the infant and should never be acted upon by the therapist in a sexual way. Even though the client may feel they are wanting a sexual relationship it must be understood that the early stuff is being translated into adult stuff. To only identify with the adult sexual feelings is to ignore the child part and to repeat early trauma for the client. All the fantasies need to be understood - the longing, the need, the wish for fusion, all of that - and the therapist has to understand what it is they are working with to enable the client to work through it and then move away to find healthier adult relationships. Sometimes the client will seduce in many different ways - but it is the therapists job to understand what they are feeling (including sexual feelings) to help the client, not enter into a sexual relationship.

It is painful but rewarding work - if it can really be brought out into the open, worked with and understood, so the transference can be weakened eventually.

I think that sometimes the client remains trapped because the therapist enters into something that is gratifying to them (maybe unconsciously) - they haven't worked through their own transference issues and it doesn't allow a 'growing up' and leaving home to find healthy intimacy. If the therapist/ client relationship are male/female and both are heterosexual I wonder if it makes it harder. I had a powerful erotic transference with a female therapist but knew we were not gay and I think that helped me to know it was early transference - one reason that i would never have a male therapist - not yet anyway! I would really have to know the therapist was very safe to go anywhere near a male therapist. I think that's the reason why a heterosexual woman with a gay therapist may find it easier to separate the transference - because the gay therapist isn't attracted to women and she knows he isn't at some level, even if the fantasy may be he is? - she is more likely to know it is a fantasy? I think I'm waffling now!

Moon

Hi again Moon,
There is a phenomenon that I would like to call “The Marilyn Monroe Effect”. Once something or someone has been strongly and repeatedly impressed onto our psyches as a representation of something else, eg.”sex symbol”, it is almost impossible to see an image, or even hear the name, without immediately conjuring the concept which it now represents. I see the words “Marilyn Monroe”, I think “sexy”. I don't have a strong visceral connection to Marilyn Monroe, but I still jump to "sexy".

The connection doesn’t have to be one that is popular in society. It can be of our own creation. This is what I have done with my T, and why it is, and I’m afraid will continue to be, so difficult for me to separate her name and her face from “trust, caring and [especially] love”. It has become my automatic go-to. Even if I never see her again, when she comes to mind I will get a emotional pang that makes me feel love, and with the pang the pain of unrequited love. I already do this between sessions. This is going to make it extremely painful for me to separate from her, to end therapy and never again be in her presence.

[moonlitsky]

Originally Posted by JeffPowers

Hi again Moon,
There is a phenomenon that I would like to call “The Marilyn Monroe Effect”. Once something or someone has been strongly and repeatedly impressed onto our psyches as a representation of something else, eg.”sex symbol”, it is almost impossible to see an image, or even hear the name, without immediately conjuring the concept which it now represents. I see the words “Marilyn Monroe”, I think “sexy”. I don't have a strong visceral connection to Marilyn Monroe, but I still jump to "sexy".

The connection doesn’t have to be one that is popular in society. It can be of our own creation. This is what I have done with my T, and why it is, and I’m afraid will continue to be, so difficult for me to separate her name and her face from “trust, caring and [especially] love”. It has become my automatic go-to. Even if I never see her again, when she comes to mind I will get a emotional pang that makes me feel love, and with the pang the pain of unrequited love. I already do this between sessions. This is going to make it extremely painful for me to separate from her, to end therapy and never again be in her presence.

I think the feelings you are explaining are transferential feelings - the analogy you give is the transference - it is what pulls you back to an early memory that isn't conscious, except in the feelings that you won't survive without your therapist/of an unrequited love - these are very early feelings being felt as the adult you are - it's about what happened in your first love affair with mother. In the transference your therapist has become your mother, with whom you could not have survived without. The relationship with her has pulled you back to those early feelings in the transference. They are very real feelings and also very painful and need to be treated with the greatest respect while not being acted upon by the therapist. They need to be worked with and really understood, and you need to be able to access your pain, including your rage (directed towards your therapist) to be able to come out the other side. She has to be able to enable this or you will remain stuck in a phase of idealisation, having her put on a pedestal of perfection. She needs to fall off the pedestal! It's a grieving for what you can't ever have - we can never go back to that symbiotic state of babyhood. These feelings are transferred onto the therapist and you will experience them as a grieving for all the therapist can never give you (that is really about what you were never given) - and in that you will come to see too that she can give you something very special - your freedom from the past. If these feelings can be worked through, the transference will weaken and you will eventually see her as someone who played a very important part in your healing, but not as someone you cannot live without. She will be internalised as a sense of security inside (just as we internalise the good enough mother), and you will be able to draw internally from all she gave you - it will not be so painful to leave her because she will be internalised.

Moon

[JeffPowers]

Originally Posted by moonlitsky

I think the feelings you are explaining are transferential feelings - the analogy you give is the transference - it is what pulls you back to an early memory that isn't conscious, except in the feelings that you won't survive without your therapist/of an unrequited love - these are very early feelings being felt as the adult you are - it's about what happened in your first love affair with mother. In the transference your therapist has become your mother, with whom you could not have survived without. The relationship with her has pulled you back to those early feelings in the transference. They are very real feelings and also very painful and need to be treated with the greatest respect while not being acted upon by the therapist. They need to be worked with and really understood, and you need to be able to access your pain, including your rage (directed towards your therapist) to be able to come out the other side. She has to be able to enable this or you will remain stuck in a phase of idealisation, having her put on a pedestal of perfection. She needs to fall off the pedestal! It's a grieving for what you can't ever have - we can never go back to that symbiotic state of babyhood. These feelings are transferred onto the therapist and you will experience them as a grieving for all the therapist can never give you (that is really about what you were never given) - and in that you will come to see too that she can give you something very special - your freedom from the past. If these feelings can be worked through, the transference will weaken and you will eventually see her as someone who played a very important part in your healing, but not as someone you cannot live without. She will be internalised as a sense of security inside (just as we internalise the good enough mother), and you will be able to draw internally from all she gave you - it will not be so painful to leave her because she will be internalised.

Moon

Thank you, Moon, for writing so eloquently. The problem is, I have been in therapy with her for about 7 years, and if anything, my adoration for her is stronger than ever. A few sessions ago she told me that the transference has not worked. (I'm not quite sure I know what that means.) This came after I admitted to finding some personal information about her on Facebook that she thought was posted within a secure "friends-only" page. She is extremely protective of her personal info., which has made me want to know about her life that much more. I have been trying to learn if there might be some way that I could fit into her life when my therapy with her is done. Contrary to what some people write on this site, she never lets on as to whether she likes me at all, and if she would even consider the idea of she and I being friends one day. I have to say, I get stronger pangs of being left out of her life, wishing that she could say that she does (or does not) cares about me, jealousy, etc. when I look at a picture of her, than I do when I look at an old picture of my mother who died almost 40 years ago. I don't know if the feelings I have for her are at all related to my mother. By the way, I think one of the people she represents to me is MYSELF; the self I wish I could be.

[gaia67]

I don't think Ts being friends with former clients is ever a good idea...is it?

[JeffPowers]

Originally Posted by moonlitsky

I think the feelings you are explaining are transferential feelings - the analogy you give is the transference - it is what pulls you back to an early memory that isn't conscious, except in the feelings that you won't survive without your therapist/of an unrequited love - these are very early feelings being felt as the adult you are - it's about what happened in your first love affair with mother. In the transference your therapist has become your mother, with whom you could not have survived without. The relationship with her has pulled you back to those early feelings in the transference. They are very real feelings and also very painful and need to be treated with the greatest respect while not being acted upon by the therapist. They need to be worked with and really understood, and you need to be able to access your pain, including your rage (directed towards your therapist) to be able to come out the other side. She has to be able to enable this or you will remain stuck in a phase of idealisation, having her put on a pedestal of perfection. She needs to fall off the pedestal! It's a grieving for what you can't ever have - we can never go back to that symbiotic state of babyhood. These feelings are transferred onto the therapist and you will experience them as a grieving for all the therapist can never give you (that is really about what you were never given) - and in that you will come to see too that she can give you something very special - your freedom from the past. If these feelings can be worked through, the transference will weaken and you will eventually see her as someone who played a very important part in your healing, but not as someone you cannot live without. She will be internalised as a sense of security inside (just as we internalise the good enough mother), and you will be able to draw internally from all she gave you - it will not be so painful to leave her because she will be internalised.

Moon

Hi Moon,

Thank you for your thoughtful letter. I am thinking of taking a hiatus over the summer as a test for myself. I imagine that my life without her will be miserable. Since I so strongly want to be friends with her after therapy is finished one day, and don't know if that will actually happen, this hiatus will serve as a test for me to see how I feel without seeing her for a few months. Will I miss the therapy, will I miss her, or will I be fine? Maybe I will slowly ease away from my dependency on her as the summer goes on. I will bring it up in my session with her tomorrow and see how it goes.

Jeff

[geez]

Originally Posted by JeffPowers

Hi Moon,

Thank you for your thoughtful letter. I am thinking of taking a hiatus over the summer as a test for myself. I imagine that my life without her will be miserable. Since I so strongly want to be friends with her after therapy is finished one day, and don't know if that will actually happen, this hiatus will serve as a test for me to see how I feel without seeing her for a few months. Will I miss the therapy, will I miss her, or will I be fine? Maybe I will slowly ease away from my dependency on her as the summer goes on. I will bring it up in my session with her tomorrow and see how it goes.

Jeff

Jeff how did things go with your therapist?

[JeffPowers]

Originally Posted by geez

Jeff how did things go with your therapist?

Geez,

How did you get over a thousand hugs?! Wow!

No hiatus taken. We seem to be in the middle of things, so taking a break at this time seemed to be poor timing. I'll see about it at another time.