Posted by fallsfall on May 6, 2005, at 18:22:49
In reply to Re: Something that interests me. » happyflower, posted by Tamar on May 6, 2005, at 3:10:36
Tamar,
You asked what happens if someone develops transference but the therapist doesn't deal with it. Unfortunately, I know the answer.
I saw a CBT therapist. They don't do a lot with transference. They tend to be more directive (at least she was).
I believed that she was mad at me because I wasn't doing what she wanted me to do. But I couldn't figure out what she wanted me to do. I would ask, I would try this or that, but still she seemed angry at me. I started panicking and obsessing about figuring out what it was that I was supposed to be doing. I was truly miserable, and it even led me to being seriously suicidal.
I was very dependent, and she kept trying to loosen my dependence. Her method was to reduce sessions, so I could see that I *could* survive without her. That just made me panic more. Eventually (after 8 1/2 years), she talked about me with her supervision group and they told her that if I didn't make progress on the dependence that she would have to refer me to someone else. So the topic of my leaving her was on the table (and I was completely panicked). But I was, at the same time, so miserable because I felt like I was failing so badly and she was always mad at me. I did manage to decide to change therapists (how could it be worse than being seriously suicidal?). In our last session, I asked something about whether she understood that I had been miserable for the past 4 months, and she honestly said that she didn't know. I bet that if I told her I thought she was angry at me, she would have been clueless about that as well. She (probably) *wasn't* angry at me - so it didn't occur to her that I thought she was.
6 weeks after I started with my current (psychodynamic) therapist, I was convinced that he was mad at me the same way she was. It was eye opening to me how I could have the exact same feelings about two different people. That was a clue to me that it was about me - not about them (which is what transference is all about). My current therapist spent 3 or 4 sessions telling me over and over that he wasn't angry at me. And I kept telling him that I was sure that he was. Eventually I did believe that what I was *seeing* as anger, really wasn't anger on his part. That I was attributing things to him that he didn't feel. When I could finally believe that he was telling me the truth - that he wasn't angry at me (even though I was convinced that he was), then the transference dissipated. And I was able to see that he wasn't angry at me.
So what happened with my first therapist was that my beliefs (that she was angry) were never discussed, and therefore never corrected. And it kept building and building until the only solution I saw was suicide.
Most people don't see CBT therapists for 8 1/2 years. I honestly think she didn't know what was going on, and that she wouldn't have known what to do about it if she *did* know what was going on. I knew I needed to look "deeper", but she wasn't able to do that (we tried, even though she said that she didn't work that way).
Now, if I think someone is angry at me, I might ask them about it - so I can do a reality check. Because I know that I can tend to see anger in people when they aren't angry.
A therapist who works with transference will recognize it because they will see that the patient has beliefs about them that don't match reality.
poster:fallsfall
thread:493400
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20050504/msgs/494656.html