Posted by tinydancer on August 14, 2004, at 15:51:14
In reply to Are relationships with T's real, or not?, posted by shrinking violet on August 14, 2004, at 12:49:07
I don't think that this topic has been talked to the death, because it is so complex that I don't think it is possible to really draw any hard conclusions, thus everyone wandering around pensively scratching their chins on this one...
This is a HUGE issue for me. Almost not a day goes by that I don't ruminate over the meaning of our relationship, the importance of it, the realness of it.
I can try to summarize my T's opinions on this, and he has always been very forthright and clear about all feelings being real. After all, our feelings are based on perception, thus making our experience in the therapy room a real, concrete thing. Transference is a way over used word, and any good therapist will tell you that. (Mine did!)
I have sat and spent my entire hour discussing my feelings for my T and the fact that this has never happened to me before. I've never felt this strongly for any other person before, and certainly never someone who falls into the category of a "caretaker" (i.e. doctor, dentist, ect) In the last discussion we had, I told him how much it hurt. That I couldn't understand how I could like him so much, and feel like there was such a fantastic connection, and his response was, "Why can't I like you so much right back and feel the same towards you?" He has been trying to illustrate that just because we can't have a relationship outside of the therapy room doesn't make the relationship we do have less meaningful. With his help I've been trying to make my way through this, and there has been a lot of grieving and pain, but he has never been anything less than totally honest with me. I have been as honest as possible about how I feel because that is my way of getting through this-by better understanding my feelings, my reactions, my grieving and the pain I feel because I can't have him, I tell him all of it, and he helps me to sort through it all and try to look at it in all the possible existing ways.
The bottom line is that my T has always respected my feelings, he isn't afraid of my feelings, and has allowed me to have those feelings and bring them in full force into the therapy room. (One of his favorite things to say, "Bring it on!")
He has let me know that I'm special to him. And maybe I would never have gotten an answer if I hadn't asked. It is so important to be brutally honest with your T. I trust my T with my life, and I mean that in the truest sense possible. He knows what I entrust him with and treats that with the utmost compassion and kindness. At the same time, he is very clear about boundaries, amazingly without making me feel too rejected or ashamed. This has been a big issue for me, and truth be told, I don't know if there will ever come a day that I can say I'm free of these feelings, because for me these feelings sort of transcend anything I've felt before, and they haven't gone away, even after a year with him. If anything they have just gotten stronger, but I won't quit the therapy because of the connection we have-I see that as being the key, finally, after 15 years of therapy, to having a new level of unspoken trust and thus giving me the chance to live life again with stability on an everyday basis.I have no clue if I answered anything, I rambled a lot. Try doing a search under tinydancer, I have written a number of posts over the last 2 years about transference.
But the most important thing I want to stress is that the relationship is REAL. If you feel a connection with her, a closeness, you feel that because it is reciprocated! Do you feel close and feel connected to people that don't like you? Never. It's easy to question the nature of it when it seems so confusing, but try to believe in your T. She sounds great!
poster:tinydancer
thread:377579
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20040812/msgs/377660.html