Posted by Dinah on June 21, 2005, at 0:09:25
In reply to Re: Ch 5 - Transference, Not Just for Therapy Anymore » Dinah, posted by Tamar on June 20, 2005, at 5:03:02
> > I know that there are one or two personal characteristics that can turn me off a person entirely because I base my opinion about their entire personality on that. Totally unfair of me.
>
> And yet those are real feelings. It’s not like you can just switch them off. Besides, transference can be quite useful in helping people judge which kinds of people they’re likely to get along with (or not). Despite its apparent shortcomings, transference can work quite well as shorthand when getting to know new people.Yes, it can. That's true. But if I use the wrong characteristics to judge people by, I might lose out on getting to know a lot of terrific people.
> > My personal opinion is that human brains are programmed to respond in certain ways to certain types of relationships. And therapy mimics other relationships. Since we haven't had therapy for millenia, or long enough to develop ingrained responses to the therapeutic situation, our brains respond as they might to similar situations.
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> Yes, I agree. And if our brains start recognising the therapeutic relationship as distinctive, maybe it won’t be so therapeutic any more!
>
Yes, possibly. :) But since I am a big fan of supportive psychotherapy, I have a special fondness for therapy as a unique sort of valuable relationship.
> > So IMHO, a major cause for erotic transferences is the similarity of therapy to love relationships. There is increasing intimate disclosure (however one sided), acceptance, the listening and attentive posture most closely associated with a lover. I think it's sort of normal for erotic feelings to crop up in those circumstances because our brains are programmed to respond that way.
>
> Yes, and I also think it might have a lot to do with the reasons we’re in therapy (maybe that’s what you mean by life circumstances below?). In my case perhaps it’s about erotic potential that’s been neglected… or something like that.
>
> > It can also mimic a parental relationship in some ways. Especially in the lack of reciprocity. And we can respond in the ways that are programmed in us to respond as children to parents.
> >
> > Maybe our life circumstances can influence which of the ways we respond. My erotic potential is very stunted, so I would respond as a child to a parent.
>
> I wonder about this. I wonder if it could go either way. Either a person who doesn’t experience much erotic inclination for others would experience no erotic transference in therapy, or that person might find that the therapeutic relationship is the one place where erotic feelings could develop. I suppose the latter possibility depends on the idea that erotic feelings can be deeply repressed. What struck me about this chapter is that it’s so hard to pin down the reasons why a person might have a particular kind of transference in a particular therapeutic relationship!Yes, I guess that's something that is best explored in therapy. What did strike me was that some women found themselves having similar transferences with all their therapists, while others had different ones with different therapists, and none at all with some. Which could have at least two possible causes, I suppose. Perhaps the women who all had the same sort of transference always sought out the same sort of therapist. Or perhaps they are especially strongly programmed to respond in a certain way.
I've seen several mental health professionals over my lifetime. Not all therapists. But the most common feeling I had in this admittedly small sample was intense dislike. Then a few that I felt discomfort with for one reason or another, but not dislike. And exactly two (well, maybe three depending on definitions) that I had positive feelings about. Hmmmm... wonder what that says about me?
> > I'm not sure if I buy into the analytic transference models. It's possible I guess.
>
> Do you mean all that oedipal and pre-oedipal stuff? I think I’m willing to accept that there may be some basis in truth there, but I think its significance has often been rather overstated.I think partly it's because analytic concepts are like trigonometry to me. I can grasp them momentarily, but I can't get a firm hold on them and they flitter away from me.
> I liked the chapter on transference because although I knew it was normal, it was very helpful to read about different ways it could work. And I was particularly glad to see Lott call for some serious scientific enquiry into transference.
Yes. I remember the most useful part of this book to me when I first began reading it was learning what I didn't feel for my therapist. :) It would be great if researchers put greater efforts into understanding it. Thus far those who are most likely to want well defined research studies are also those who have been most likely to dismiss transference altogether. Perhaps as it becomes clear that transference happens whether you encourage it or not, it will be considered a more legitimate phenomenon to study.
poster:Dinah
thread:491935
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20050615/msgs/516390.html