This is Torture

That's fantastic! Congrats to you, and a great example of a positive outcome. It's good and I think very important to hear about such positive experiences working through transference with a T.

I could really use a similar experience, but after my personal experiences and all the anecdotal experiences I read about there seem so few therapists that can deal with strong transference in a constructive way. Plus for me personally these sentiments can run so incredibly deep and have brought me close to suicide many times, so frankly I myself would not dare to try this out with a (random) therapist.
As I said somewhere I saw a pubmed-article about transference leading to suicide attempts as a result of the reaction of the therapist (althought the 'mistakes' the therapist would have made were very vague, not clearcut, nothing major), and I can totally recognize myself in the way I could react to such a ''mistake'' from the therapist.

Hugs (((luco)))
My T is the most beautiful man alive too
Sometimes I can't breathe when I look at him
I'm not in love with him... But I love him. LOOOVEEEE. While I'm nothing to him. Yes, it's painful.

I think I can understand you, but i can't imagine how it hurts
All I can say - the pain will go away. For sure.

Does he know about your feelings?

This is soooo good to hear. So many people on here with the opposite story I was beginning to get disheartened. Online forums though often tend to be filled with people who are struggling with tough times, having difficulty and in pain whilst generally people who have had success or are feeling good don't always feel as much need to write. I'm hoping thats the case here. Kind of like when someone has a bad restaurant experience they are more likely to write a review than share a good one!

Good to know it can be done. My T is very professional, kind, caring and empathetic and although I haven't really tested boundaries much I know she holds them in place quite well so am hoping for the same result as you eventually. Fingers crossed....

fishwithoutabowl and smileygal, Thank you both. I wish you both the very best!

100% true. Excellent job of describing the different factors that can result in this perfect Fustercluck of a storm....

Negative transference and countertransference is .. impossible for a clone of pooh bear to explain

Never expected any of that crap when I handed over my first few pay checks to that dude

Hi Luc,

I am sorry this is still so troublesome. Having followed your posts over time, I actually disagree with the suggestions to run away from this, given that you are a trainee T yourself and that you often wrote good things about your therapist in other contexts. Perhaps taking a break to calm down a bit and to gain some more objective perspective?

Fishwithoutabowl had some wise words.

I'm one who benefited from working through this type of transference, but find myself years later questioning if the pros outweighed the cons.

This 'working through transference' and falling in love with your therapist "idealizing transference", a child-parent dynamic, originated from Freudian times, where the therapist worked with the socially elite/wealthy client 7 days a week. I think that these 2 factors differ today (in addition to what I said on another thread about therapists who are not competent) is part of the trouble with obtaining full benefits from doing the same. Those with earlier traumas, less social supports, less resources, or a combination of a variety of issues, seem to have more stacked against us.

For therapists in training, I agree doing this depth work is a good thing and am glad to see you doing this, really great to see that. But generally, I don't think there's often much benefit after doing it for say-two years. In other words, 10 years of working through erotic transference feelings may not add much benefit to what was gained by working through two years of it. I think therapists definitely should spend longer than a year, so please don't misunderstand.

The reason I question my own work is dealing with this level of emotional intensity for years really wore me down. It is mentally draining after time. However, I had life stressors that led me to have less ego strength. It would been ok had they leveled out but then after I was weakened mentally, I had a serious health problem and now am having regrets from expending so much energy on focusing on a man old enough to be my father, with whom I sat in a room with for an hour a week vs using that energy to build my life to a place where I wanted it to be (ideally, these aren't mutually exclusive but it often ends up that way). Always longing for him, being sexually euphoric/aroused a good deal of time, counting down the hours until I saw him next, torturous needs to be closer to him, etc., diverted focus from my friends, family, career. And the intensity of it all weakened me physically, since it does cause continuous release of stress hormones. I did the gym and did what I could.

Notably, knowledge I obtained before making the decision to continue did not change my prognosis. I had informed myself through psychoanalytic literature about the mother-infant sources of erotic transference before the psychoanalytical thinking about this concept was ever accepted and discussed on these forums from the child development perspective.

I think of all the money I spent working through feelings for this man who goes home to a wife and children, a good life of his own, while my life wasn't really benefiting despite the benefits of processing these feelings and learning about myself for an extended length of time. I wonder-would I have been better off with a cottage on the beach or maybe invested in starting my own surfing business, where I could live a peaceful life, yet having not worked through erotic transference? I became more in touch with my feelings, sense of self improved, and learned a great deal about myself, but I think there were little benefits in continuing say-past 3 years or so. Now I'm afraid it's become a permanent part of my life as I am so dependent upon him. I don't see an end in sight.

As I said, I did benefit a great deal. But years and years of this-I don't know. Some people speak of doing this for 20+ years and are still doing it. If there is such a great return on investment, why does one need to keep spending money on a therapist? People do what's best for them, I get that, and I am getting up there in the number of years spent too, but these are my thoughts that come to mind in writing this post. The fact I still come to forums like this after being in therapy 7+ years leaves me questioning it all.

I could still benefit from therapy for say, 50 years, but is that a good thing? I would prefer to keep my therapy more contained to the sessions after 7 years and not have it take up so much space in my mind at this point. Therapy taking so much space in my mind means more living in transference land and less in life that really counts.

I do love and respect my therapist; he has helped me a great deal, and I have benefited from working through all of the love feelings with him, but I do think that this concept of 'working through' erotic transference can be overly romanticized/idealized on this forum. After all, you are talking about torturous feelings. I can really relate, but the notion that these feelings have to be endured for an extended length of time because it has to be worked through...well, I have many doubts now.

I just realized you haven't posted in a couple of days. Lucozader-I hope you are ok and out enjoying the weekend. Take care.

Hi Laurie,

Can you say more? Did you quit therapy after 6 years of it, or is it something you still do? Were you married at the time? How old were you when you started?

I don't see an end in sight, so wanting to find out more about successfully stopping (rather than working through) after working through these types of feelings.

Hope that's not too many questions. Thanks for sharing your perspective.

Hello, everyone. Thank you for all your responses.

Wow - four pages of discussion and I barely said a thing.

It's not really what I was soliciting or expecting, but I appreciate that people want the best for me and are sharing their own experiences with that in mind.

I also really appreciate those who have shared their understanding of my feelings. Everyone who has agreed that it's torture. I have found it very comforting to know I'm amongst people who understand.

This post was really just another 3am howl of misery. I'm not sure what I expected from it. I guess I feel kind of embarrassed about it now.

It remains true though. I'm still tortured.

I have thought about leaving him. Of course I have. But if I'm totally honest, I don't know if it's ever seemed like something that might seriously happen. Every week I count down the hours till I can see him again, every week I look forward to it... How can I let go of that? Maybe it's all that's keeping me going? Whilst my rational side realises that this might not be doing me any good at all anymore, I don't think the side of me that is consumed with transference can give up the fantasy.

The other thing is... Whatever is causing these feelings, whatever it is inside me... I think I need to work on it. I think something is very wrong with me. If I leave... I might never fix that. So, even though I feel sometimes like this is hopeless... I have to keep trying.

I can't leave him. Not now. Maybe one day. I'm sorry.

I hate myself.

For those who aren't familiar with my process/my T, I suppose I should clarify that he knows about and is open to working with the erotic transference. We are actively trying to work through it, I suppose. He has not behaved at all unethically. There have been occasions when I've felt that he's quite affected by it - but that's just been my feeling. He has handled it all pretty well so far.

It's been... five months. Five months since I started having these feelings and told him about them. I suppose that's not very long at all. Feels like forever.

He is a total arse sometimes though.

"Every week I count down the hours till I can see him again, every week I look forward to it... How can I let go of that?"

OMG is that me... I don't have erotic transference but I am attached as they say although I hate that word.

He gave me my first ever real hug on Tuesday, so that really upped the attachment and then yesterday he came to my car to check on me after I had a panic issue at the building.

Is it Friday yet again? LOL

What a fantastic, insightful post. For several reasons that I have more or less expressed I have not chosen the route to 'work through' transference with a T, but I can relate so much to what you wrote, and your post was so insightful. Thank you for sharing this experience.

I understand you. I have this creepy love for my therapist and I feel stalkerish and weird about it.

I am deeply in love with my therapist too, but she is twice my age.
She is the most beautiful woman I have ever met in my life and that I will ever meet. Sometimes, I cry thinking about how beautiful she is. and yes. it does hurt.

I'm glad I see people who feel similar to what I'm feeling.

I wrote her this letter where I told her that she was my hero and that I loved her. She received it pretty well, but I still feel weird.

Gosh, I feel so blessed to have met her, but it f-ing hurts so much.

I understand you. I have this creepy love for my therapist and I feel stalkerish and weird about it.

I am deeply in love with my therapist too, but she is twice my age.
She is the most beautiful woman I have ever met in my life and that I will ever meet. Sometimes, I cry thinking about how beautiful she is. and yes. it does hurt.

I'm glad I see people who feel similar to what I'm feeling.

I wrote her this letter where I told her that she was my hero and that I loved her. She received it pretty well, but I still feel weird.

Gosh, I feel so blessed to have met her, but it f-ing hurts so much.

Would it be possible for you to see him more often? Even, say, twice a week? It would probably make tolerating those feelings much easier and the process of getting anywhere with this work quicker.

I would caution against this. See him more often could foster more dependence. It certainly did in my case. My whole life became about waiting for therapy and finding ways to pay for therapy. My personal insight would be that if you want to keep going to him one of the most important things to figure out is how to manage the time in between sessions with other support systems or outlets. Increasing the amount of time you spend with this one person strong feelings for but can never be with can suck you deeper into the hole.

((((Luc))))

I hope the pain eases...

The pain is awful, it's the worst pain ever. I hope you can be kind to yourself, though the whole self-care thing can be incredibly lonely too, especially if you've always had to do it. x x

But isn't your situation different, ramona? Because as far as I understand your therapist was clearly behaving unethically and fanning the flames? In this situation I understand why you would caution against that. It seems that luc's therapist is handing the situation well right now and more frequent sessions would probably make the situation to luc more manageable - with more frequent sessions the outcome might be (it has been for me at least) that the transference feelings will get finally contained in the session and they don't spill much over to the rest of the life.

I did have an unethical therapist who was fanning the flames, but Luc has also mentioned that her therapist is kind of a jerk sometimes. I'm not seeing that this is going entirely well for her and it doesn't seem like there's a clear treatment "method" for containing these feelings. I'm worried more sessions will suck her in deeper as they did for me. Also, since I've broken away I've had a lot of people talk to me specifically about how unethical it is for any therapist to see a client multiple times a week unless they're in a specific crisis. It fosters dependency in an unhealthy way. Therapy was my entire life for years.

I think when you have these feelings your inclination is to want to see your therapist every single day. Unless Luc's therapist is doing a TERRIFIC job at this, it's my personal recommendation that seeing him more frequently is not a great idea. Fostering healthy "real" relationships outside of the therapy as much as possible is what I'd recommend instead.

And Luc SO sorry you're going through this torture. I'm still suffering over my situation, especially in the mornings, but woke up today thinking back to how things were six months ago when I was suffering every single second of the day. I'm so grateful I'm not there anymore even though I'm still in pain. Just sending you lots of empathy.

Surely the above statement is just an opinion of some people and not any kind of ground truth. I'm not in crisis (never been really) and I have seen my T several times per week for four years. My T for instance in general doesn't see anyone less frequent than 2x per week because meeting less frequently just makes working with intense material so much more difficult. Sure, my example is also just an anecdote but I wanted to bring this as a counterexample to point out that it is not a general or objective truth that more frequent sessions are warranted only due to crisis. My guess is that if you would have had a skilled and ethical therapist and you've had seen him let's say 3x per week then most probably the most intense transference period would be already over.