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Dr. Bob is Robert Hsiung, MD,
bob@dr-bob.orgShown: posts 1 to 4 of 4. This is the beginning of the thread.
Posted by Joslynn on November 13, 2003, at 16:28:09
I am a lurker who has finally decided to jump in with a long post. I’ve been following the transference posts with great interest! Overall, I am doing well after my second severe depression a couple years ago. But the transference issues can leave me with a sense of yearning sometimes. I have a female therapist I see once every other week. She’s an MSW and the transference isn’t so much with her. It’s more with my pdoc, whom I see once a month for an hour of therapy and quick med check. When I was in the worst of the depression, I saw him every day for an hour for a couple weeks, so that is what started the bond I guess.
Unlike many pdocs I have heard about, he seems just as interested in therapy as in meds. Trusting him and revealing so much to him, while he is patient and steady, always reminded me of my good points, has helped me realize that there are good men out there. I think it’s helped with some of the emotional wounds from having an alcoholic father who was not physically abusive, but raged and criticized when he was drunk. (He became sober when I was an adult, thank God.)
The transference actually has gotten more subtle I think. It used to feel more romantic (even though he is not someone I would normally be attracted to, though he is nice looking enough, just older and not my usual type). When I felt rejected by various men I have dated, and he matter-of-factly told me that I was pretty, smart and most men would be glad to have me, this actually helped the transference get less intense. You would think it would have fueled the fire, but it was as if hearing that he objectively saw me as attractive physically and mentally made me feel more confident and less longing.
I have talked to him about the transference without spelling it out. I have talked about abandonment fears, even mentioned an erotic dream with him, and he has been very calm about it all and will point out parallels between childhood and the relationship now, how I was emotionally abandoned etc.
But still, the transference is there, more subtle now, and mixed in with a more fatherly transference too. I cannot decide if I subconsciously want him to be my father or if I subconsciously want him to be my lover.
It is like that Roethke poem, about his students, where he ends with "I, with no rights in this matter,/Neither father nor lover". It is that in-between, parallel universe relationship that is not one thing or the other, not a personal relationship but not just a business transaction either.
The longing is, why couldn’t I have had a father like him? How come his wife gets a nice husband like him and I keep dating guys who don’t know what they want? If the longing does not go away, would it be easier to eventually stop seeing him and not be reminded of what did not occur in my childhood and what is not occurring in my "love life" (or lack thereof).
Posted by Dinah on November 13, 2003, at 17:45:46
In reply to long transference post, posted by Joslynn on November 13, 2003, at 16:28:09
It seems like you've come a long way already in working through the transference. Is there any reason to believe you won't complete the process?
Maybe one day you'll have internalized this warm and caring figure. Maybe you'll be able to be happy you've had him in your life without regret for what might have been. And maybe you'll decide that while you can't have that sort of person in your past childhood, you can be that sort of person to others in the rest of your life.
I've come to see therapy, not as a poor imitation of another type of relationship, tainted by the exchange of money, but as a valuable relationship in itself. An odd one that only works because of the things that make it frustrating.
Posted by Joslynn on November 13, 2003, at 20:55:00
In reply to Re: long transference post » Joslynn, posted by Dinah on November 13, 2003, at 17:45:46
Hi, thank you for replying. Intellectually I know that you are right. Emotionally, I still do not know where to put this form of love, which does not fit in any of society's preapproved boxes. And I envy the people who get his "real," non-work love.
Of course, his family has to compete with all of his patients for his time. They do not have it so great either, since as far as I can tell, he works at least 60 hours a week & six days a week.
Well, thanks for the insightful reply.
Posted by kitkat33 on November 14, 2003, at 16:57:26
In reply to Re: long transference post, posted by Joslynn on November 13, 2003, at 20:55:00
Hi Joslyn,
It was really enlightening reading your post. I too have had this transference with my T. I kind of view her as a mother I never had and sometimes I felt very similarly about why didn't I get a mother like this her etc. Your post really helped me see the transference. I think the post above is really correct in that we'll both be able to get through the transference and abe glad the person was in our lives.
Good luck
Kit
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