Posted by special_k on April 7, 2006, at 20:09:03
In reply to Re: real feelings » special_k, posted by pseudoname on April 7, 2006, at 12:32:59
> I should point out that I'm not thinking of transference as just love-for-the-therapist. In psychoanalysis, transference feelings can be love or anger or whatever.
sure.
> If you present to a therapist who does NOT subscribe to transference theory, say, some very troublesome emotional reactions about her, she and you can look freely through a wide range of possibilities for *any* features of the situation that may be involved in triggering your responses.including the fact that she might have actually done something which anyone in their right mind would be rather pissed off about!
yes. i hear what you are saying. sometimes 'transference' is used to write off the clients experience / perception. i agree: the feelings are real. so then what is transference? if it is about the origins of the feelings then maybe it is about whether the feelings are responses to the present or the past situations (might be a matter of degree) but to consider a feeling to be 'transference' might incline the therapist to emphasise past causes over looking at their present actions.
> The assumption that transference is going on cuts off inquiry as soon as enough superficial similarities to prominent childhood figures are found.
ok. i don't think it has to... but sometimes concepts are abused...
> But what if I was angry with my analyst because of things I'd more recently learned about scientific validation and the ethical obligations of service providers? What if recent changes in my political thinking led me to demand greater accountability from people like him? What if his attitude was contrary to the spirit of honest inquiry I was getting steeped in by my friends at school?ROFL!!!! yeah. you are too funny :-)
though... a therapist who didn't take those concerns seriously... well thats not so good. but then by the same token if you are getting really very wound up about this kind of stuff...
when you are supposed to be in therapy to help you figure out how the past impacts and affects the present (i mean that is what this brand of therapy is about - right? so you have agreed to participate in that process and your therapist is supposed to help you out with doing that...
> > but i guess it is in the effort to explain / understand why you feel as you do.
> I think you have nailed the attractiveness of the theory of transference. As I said yesterday, the fact that feelings come out of nowhere without any control or identifiable reason is itself scary.yeah. and people are 'active information processors' we actively engage in creating meaning, sense, narration, we like to tell ourselves stories to answer the why why why's.
> But when we rely on a comforting fictitious explanation to the extent that it cuts off inquiries and interventions that really could improve our lives, it has to go.ah. yeah.
where should you spend your time?
in the past to learn about how you got to here.
in the here to figure where to go from here.
balance IMO.
and sometimes one can get lost in the past
(at the expense of presnt functioning for example)
and sometimes one can get lost in the present / future
(at the expence of coming to grasp patterns and cycles that have impact you don't recognise)balance.
sigh.
poster:special_k
thread:628935
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20060406/msgs/630332.html