Posted by Little Soul on December 30, 2008, at 15:30:28
Hi everyone - I'm a new member and am seeking your advice on an issue. I'm currently experiencing some strong transference issues and want to know if anyone here has experienced the same thing? Just to give you some context, I've been in therapy for about 2 years with a wonderful therapist whose been extremely helpful. My therapist's husband died two months before I started therapy with her, recently she has started seeing someone and I find myself unbelievably jealous. I think about this relationship all the time and find it more intense than my initial transference with her. My thoughts are that I don't want her to have a man in her life, although I don't want to be her lover as I'm married to a wonderful man, as well as I don't want her to be happy without me (slightly embarrassed to admit this). My history is one of childhood trauma and abuse as well as of infant abandonment by my mother. Although my mother came back, there was no relationship between us that could resemble a healthy mother/daughter relationship. In addition, my dad started abusing me when I was about 8 years old.
I've just begun to mention my jealously to my therapist, but feel embarassed to dwell on her relationship too much. She is very willing to discuss with me, but this feels to me like it's going beyond the normal transference stuff and so I'm reluctant to go too much further in therapy sessions. Not only do I think about her relationship with him in general - dinner with friends, going on trips together but specifically - I've started to think about them together sexually and that really "freaks me out".
I know transference is normal and critical to the theraputic relationship, but I feel like I've gone over the deep end with this one. Can someone give me some perspective?
Thanks,
Little Soul
poster:Little Soul
thread:871442
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20081222/msgs/871442.html