Possible to work on transference and warm feelings for FORMER T with a new T?

I was terminated nearly one year ago and I was terminated against my will. I´ve gone through heavy grief and I still grieve and find myself crying intensely sometimes but more rarely than just after the termination.

Even if I then felt my T did wrong and couldn´t handle the situation very well, I back then felt she should have been more understanding about why I acted as I did, I now still have warm feelings for her. I don´t know if they classifies as erotic transference but I can feel like "a warm feeling in my chest" when thinking about her and I realise I still idolize her a bit.

I really liked her and I felt she opened up things I didn´t think of before. My thoughts of her are so intense sometimes even as much time has passed and I know it´s transference.

The hard thing is that my former T was the one terminating, she suddenly said she wasn´t the right T for me and she recommended me another kind of therapy. That´s why, even if I thought about it, I don´t want to contact her again and I therefore need another T to take me through those intense feelings for my former T.

Is that at all possible? How would that be done if possible?

Has anyone else experienced this?

I'm getting ready to do that with a new T. The T. I think I'm going to meet with said she can help me process the transference feelings I had for my exT. I think you will have to ask a potential T. if they can do that and find someone who is willing. I know how hard it is and how hard it is to look for someone. But, it sounds like it would help you.

Yes, it is. I had negative transference with my previous T and have worked through it/ am working through it with T.

I did exactly that. Much of my first few months with my current T were spent discussing my feelings for T1. This included unpicking the transference and coming to understand its roots, and why it occurred, but also simply mourning the loss of someone who was important to me and that I cared about.
The loss of T1 still resurfaces from time to time 9 months after starting with current T, but much of the uncomfortable transference has now been resolved through understanding.
I hope you can find some peace about the situation

I have not experienced this myself in therapy but did in ordinary life with different people close to me and it was a pretty fascinating and productive journey. Just thinking about it... why would it not be possible if a new therapist is willing? In a way, I believe your transference to the first T was the manifestation of a repetitive process that pre-existed in you already but it sounds like it did not get resolved with the first T. To me, it means continuing to work on the issue. I hope it works out, Sarah.

Thanks for sharing. Did you ask for something specific when looking for a T, like you wanted to work through transference towards your former T? What kind of therapy did you went in to? Psychodynamic?

Nice hearing that you worked through your transference issue.

The thing is that to me it seems like most T:s aren´t willing to work on those issues. If I speak about transference and such I feel like they think I´ve "read to much about psychology" or something like that.

How do you mean more exactly tht the process pre-existed in me already? Transference, as you said, was never dealt with with this T.

My reasoning started from the actual phenomenon of transference, as it is defined by psychology. That it is defined as feelings projected ("transferred") onto the therapist but the process has origin elsewhere. I meant that if their origin (however obscure) is older, then working on it with a new T would probably eventually get back to the original source. If they are interested, willing and have the skills to do so, that is.

The experience I had with it in ordinary life was that I had a strong and repetitive tendency to "fall in love" with teachers, mentors and the like. People that I accepted and admired as authority as a source of learning and wisdom. I don't easily accept just anyone as authority because they are placed in a position like that relative to me, but when I do, it's usually because they possess some sort of knowledge, life experience, skills or just traits that I desire to have in myself. The idea here is that it's not the actual person or persons in front of me that I desire and want to be one with in fact, but their qualities. And my mind creates this pattern of longing for and wanting to merge with these qualities via loving the person that I perceive possessing them (often projected) and being loved by them. I fell for these idealized figures in my youth quite a few times and was unable to distinguish what I am describing from genuine sexual or romantic interest. Took a few trials and errors and actually experiencing what I apparently longed for in a few ways with different people, to come to these realizations this clearly as I did not have a therapist to guide me. They were, of course, father figures for me but when I was young I tended to confuse paternal figures and a desire for experience and wisdom with romantic love or even sexual interest.

This is how I needed to get back to the origin and become stably aware of the whole mechanism in order to not repeat it more in that form and to have the transference dissolved. Wish I had someone to help me in a more unbiased way! I now have a good therapist and one thing I want to discuss with him (have not gotten into it yet) is the fact that at this point of my life I find myself on the opposite end (ET) very often when I supervise or manage people. I want to learn how to deal with it best from my position now to hopefully help these people have an easier and more straightforward understanding. I think what I am describing are typical and textbook transference reactions that have benefited and will hopefully benefit more in the future from thorough analysis of their origins in my own personality.

I would definitely ask potential therapists if they are willing to work on this issue with you if that's a main goal, before committing. When I chose mine, his self-confessed interest (obvious online and from his publications) in transference and countertransference was a main factor behind my choice, I did not even need to ask. I still have issues (other than what I was talking about) that can probably addressed this way, I think.

oh my goodness, I hope I won't need therapy again after not seeing current T anymore. I know I will miss him a lot. He pops up in my dreams sometimes.

I chose a very experienced person-centred counsellor. I told him straight away at the initial session that my purpose for coming to see him was to work through the transference and we focused on that almost entirely for the first couple of months. I didn't tell him anything via email, I waited till I saw him in person.
I hope you can find a good T to work through the painful feelings soon, it does get better

Thanks for your rich comment on my post. As you say both transference and countertransference can occur in many other situations but it gets stronger when experienced in therapy because of the very special kind of relationship.

To me there´s a problem to get to work on transference issues as I can´t pay for therapy out of my own pocket but have to turn to public mental health care. They offer almost only short CBT treatments and transference as you know is more often to be found and worked on within psychodynamic therapies. It has to be a T who is really qualified as it´s not about just talking like "I miss my T".

Thanks. Did you find this T within public health care or do you pay for therapy yourself, to a private T? What kind of therapy did you choose? It sounds like you are within some kind of relational PDT perhaps?

I pay privately. There isn't a lot of provision for therapy within the public health system in my country. The approach is humanistic (person-centred) based on theory by Carl Rogers. He doesn't teach me techniques or anything like that, he mostly allows me to explore the feelings at my own pace and it's worked very well for me.

Would you say your new T "helps you mourn" or what does the healing consist of? Do you focus only on working through transference or do you mix it with talking about other stuff as well?

If a new T isn´t as warm as my former T I find it hard to trust her and I just feel what a huge loss it was to be terminated. I also think many T:s don´t realise how a termination can affect a client and a lot don´t know how to work with transference. That´s my impression.