Posted by orchid on October 21, 2005, at 15:53:57
In reply to Re: Confused, need some advice, please help please » orchid, posted by happyflower on October 21, 2005, at 15:40:58
Would it surprise you that almost all the clients feel the way that you do? And that most therapists feel attracted to their clients to a certain extent?
I think all the clients think like you do. "I am special", "He really likes me", "He is unable to understand himself and he is confused about me", "I should take care of him and teach him", "HE really likes me but is lying to me", "He is struggling with himself to control his liking to me", "WE are soul mates", "He is like me in the male form", "WE would have been attracted to each other even if we had met in any other social circumstances", "There is something magical about us", "There are so many things that are common between us". etc etc.
Every single client thinks like this. And a part of it is true also. I think a T will get attracted to various degrees to almost all clients (maybe not to a few), and there are some common things between any two human beings. I have so many things in common with so many of my colleagues.
Only when we focus on the common things and attraction comes into play, we get misguided into thinking that "we are meant for each other" etc.
All of us fall into this trap. Don't believe it.
Now that I am out of it, I can see so clearly, how almost all the feelings I had during my therapy, are so very untrue. It was all my projection. And for all this, I was quite special to my T too. He didn't charge me even for the whole treatment. Our sessions used to always run into 2 - 3 hours (it was due to other circumstances though). Plus I knew his family very well, and he knew my family well etc. And we really had some common interests also. But all that only ended up really confusing me in the end even more. If I had believed I was just a regular patient, it would have been much more easier for me to move on in the end.
But looking back, I made mountains out of a molehill. The speciality and the common things exist between me and any other colleague of mine also if I look at it objectively. But I don't think about it and extrapolate it. In therapy, there is a huge deal of projection of internal feelings that goes on. That is why we kind of tend to extrapolate all these otherwise common occurences into thinking we are soul mates etc.
It is simply untrue, and it is only our own projection.
poster:orchid
thread:569871
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20051018/msgs/569931.html