Posted by emmanuel98 on May 26, 2009, at 22:36:54
In reply to can't handle the transference, posted by blahblahblah on May 26, 2009, at 18:58:36
When I started seeing my T four years ago, I felt just as you do. I felt such love for him and yearned for him. He loomed so large in my mind that I thought of him all day and dreamed about him all night. It wasn't romantic or erotic. I wanted him to be my father. I talked to him about this, not all the time, but occasionally when the feelings would just overcome me in session.
I don't know how it went away, but it did. Or at least it got a lot less intense, gradually, over time. It helped that he maintained excellent boundaries and told me repeatedly that the only relationship we would ever have was in therapy. It also helped that he was honest and compassionate and told me that the relationship we had was itself a caring and ongoing relationship; that he wasn't going anywhere and I could continue to see him once a week for as long as I needed to.
That helped me to carry on in therapy, despite the pain and frustration and yearning and heart-breaking sense of loss. Therapists are like parents for people who, like me, didn't have good parents. The relationship, as my T says, is a corrective emotional experience. At the beginning, you feel this childlike adoration for your T, but you grow up in the relationship, gain more independence, incorporate their compassion into your sense of self.
It's a transformative process if you can work through the pain and yearning. T's get a lot out of it too, or so my T tells me. My T once said that he lends me strength and in return sees me reflect that back to him.
poster:emmanuel98
thread:897814
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20090515/msgs/897846.html