The situation you describe sounds really confusing. It bothers me about his shirt, how you say it, that you are not allowed to ask him to wear or not wear that shirt. I don't see any reason you shouldn't be able to ask. He should be able to tell you that he will choose what he wears, or that he'll try to not wear that shirt for you or whatever.

I guess, here's an example I had. I was terrified of talking to my T about his upcoming (and now past) vacation of 2 weeks. I told him I was so afraid that while talking about my fear, that I would be asking him, in a roundabout way, to not go on vacation. So he asks me "what do you think I'd say if you asked me not to go on vacation?" He said that if I asked him not to go on vacation, he would tell me, basically, that he enjoys his vacations and that he will be going on vacation. He never said anything about me not being allowed to ask him not to go on vacation. I guess that's why what you describe bothers me. You should be able to ask anything and he should be able to reply.

I don't think I have any good advice. The way you write, it sounds like you two are not connecting the way you need to in order to work on your feelings. Maybe you can negotiate and find a way to work on these feelings together without the constant "threat" of being transferred to another therapist.

Hi Z,

Thanks for replying. I'm glad you pointed out the "I can't ask" remark because I was upset when I wrote this and ended up writing this quite the wrong way. I shouldn't have written "I can't ask". He did say it was good that I asked, that I brought it up. What I really meant was, he told me (gently, but it still stung) I can't expect him to change what he's doing just because it triggers me. He handled it much the same way your T handled your request about the vacation. His point was we need to work on changing me, not him. That part I actually understood.

Thanks for pointing that out to me, Z. I'll continue to try to work through this with my T. I guess this is the part that gets really hard. Onward, right?

SG

((((SG)))) I am so sorry you are suffering. I have had very similar sessions and so I can understand your pain very well. A few things happened in your session. One was that you bumped into a boundary about the shirt. This is not the end of the world and it should not effect the relationship. Yes, it is worth discussing and I see where your T is saying that it's not what he wears that is the issue the issue is how you feel about him. But for those of us who never had our own boundaries respected we have no good past experience in dealing with boundaries. We are learning about this in our therapy relationship. I bumped into one recently and was told "no" by my T. It really upset me and I got so scared that I did something terrible but I realize that was an "old" reaction from my past and that the next time I saw my T he (and the relationship) was just as he was before I bumped the boundary!

As for "saying" they want you to talk about the transference and then not wanting to "go there" with you... I had the same experience. The blunt truth is that they are scared and don't know how to handle it. They are blundering along just as we are in this situation. My T got defensive and then totally changed the subject and took over MY session when he got the idea I had feelings for him. I was hurt, confused and angry with him. I confronted him in my next session and told him that his reaction was unacceptable and that even if I had confessed undying love for him that he should be able to hear my feelings, accept them and be willing to discuss them. He admitted that I was his first case of ET and he was really at a loss because this is not something they really teach in school (My T is a PhD). In fact, I knew much more than he did about transference! And then he told me that if not handled correctly it could compromise the therapy. I was NOT happy hearing that and I was terrified that he was going to terminate me. I have severe abandonment issues myself and I cried buckets over all of this.

You ask what you are missing here....I will tell you what point you are both missing in this. I don't know you but I would risk a guess that you have an attachment injury from childhood. That you never formed a secure attachment with your caregivers and now as an adult you have developed an attachment to your T. He is your attachment figure, your secure base and when this relationship feels threatened by anything you go into blind panic because it feels to your limbic system that you cannot survive without him. This are basic survival instincts that exist to keep us safe and attached to our caregivers as children. For example, I have disorganized attachment and a classic symptom is the urge to run towards my T when I'm scared or in pain but at the same time I'm also trying to find reasons to run away from him. It's wanting the closeness but being terrified of it at the same time. I am always worried that he will abandon me or refer me away. We talk about this all the time. He finally wrote it down that he would be there for me NO MATTER WHAT and if things seem not to be going well then we will fix it. The thing is ... when you have attachment issues you need to hear this over and over and over again... a million times (AG where are you? You explain this so well). Your T needs to be aware of your need for reassurance and if he continues to threaten to refer you then you will never be able to develop the trust you need to confide in him, to feel SAFE with him and to experience what it is like to have that corrective emotional experience.

So I would advise you to maybe do a bit of research on attachment injury, attachment theory, or unsecure attachment and then talk to your T about it. Ask him if he knows and understands attachment theory. And then decide if this is something that needs to be addressed in your therapy. When there are attachment issues the relationship with the therapist IS the therapy. This is where the bulk of the work gets done. You learn what it means to have a safe, trusting, secure and intimate relationship with someone in a healthy way, not in a dysfunctional way which sometimes happens in our childhoods. Our Ts must also become our emotional regulators, meaning they model how we need to regulate our emotions.

From my experience in therapy and around therapy boards transference usually comes with attachment issues and/or childhood trauma. Our Ts are meeting our needs that were never met in childhood and this fuels the transference with them and they become our attachment figures which is how we learn healthy attachment.

I hope some of this makes sense and helps you in some way. If you have any questions please ask. I hope you are feeling better.

TN

Hi Hummingbird,

Thanks for your advice and your compassion, it does help. I've been writing some stuff down. I also made an appointment to see the other T tomorrow morning, hoping it will help clear up a little of my confusion.

Hi Echo,

Thanks, I totally agree that I can't expect him to change his shirt. What I really wanted was to open up the subject of transference again. But then I got stuck on his "What do we do about it?" question. I don't have the answer to that, I said. He said he doesn't, either.

I went back and reread your other posts. I'm sorry about the way your therapy ended. Is there any chance for you to work out what happened with a new T?

Hi True North,

Thanks for the e-hugs & encouragement And I love your quote (well, Eleanor's, really) about gaining strength, courage, and confidence every time you stop and look fear in the face. That's exactly what we're doing in therapy, isn't it? You know, fear really kind of ticks me off sometimes. I don't just want to stop and look at it; I want to grab it, shake it, and yell "What do you want, already?" I don't want to be afraid of anything!

Now if I could just stop melting into a puddle of tears whenever I'm challenged by someone I've grown to care about...it is so aggravating. But the harder I try to stop it, the worse it gets. I think this is evidence of attachment injury, which is why I want so much to work through it. Again, I hate being afraid.

Anyway...sometimes I wonder how many times my T has helped someone through this before me. I never really asked him, but I will next time. Thanks for explaining the attachment theory stuff, and you are right, I do have attachment injuries from childhood, which my T knows about. I will bring this up with the other T tomorrow. If nothing else, maybe it WOULD be better to switch to another T so I don't have to keep worrying about being transferred. I can still work through and learn from the issues with someone else, now that they've been triggered, right?

Thanks again everyone,
SG

Hi all,

Just an update...I met with our couples therapist a couple of days later to try and figure out what I wasn't understanding with my T (he had suggested I might want to talk to her), but when I described our conversation, she seemed surprised that we had been working through transference issues. I gave her some printouts from the guide to psychology website also. She said she was going to talk to my T again, and have a discussion with her review team (which is different from my T's), and then get back to me.

TN and AG have both said maybe my T just doesn't know how to get me through this, and I think they're right. It's a touchy subject and the safest thing to do is refer me if he doesn't know how to handle it. He really is a good T and I'm glad he's being honest about not knowing what to do next. I won't know for a few more days what the next step is. It's okay with me if I have to work the rest of this out with a new T.

Thanks, everyone, for being there - I really appreciate your responses and encouragement.

SG

Hi SG,

As painful as it might be to get referred, it really is the responsible, ethical thing for your T to do if he doesn't feel qualified to work through this problem with you. And I will tell you that someone as motiviated as you and as willing to work as hard as you are WILL heal given a therapist with the correct know how. Let us know how it works out. We'll be to hear to listen no matter which way this goes.

AG

PS There was no bearing of brunt and that was barely ranting.

Just got home from vacation a little while ago and had a couple messages on voice mail. One from our couples T on Tuesday asking me to call her back so we could "touch base." The other one was left by the front desk today, saying there's a meeting scheduled between my T and a new female T on Wednesday at 9 a.m. They said to call back and they'd put me through to my T's voice mail so I can leave him a message to let him know I got the message.

Now I can't stop crying again, even though I knew this was coming. The way the message was left by the front desk, and how he wants me to go through the desk to leave him a message, just triggers more shame. Like they think I'm dangerous or not to be trusted. I went as far as getting through to his voice mail, but then hung up without leaving a message. Instead I called our couples T back (she left me her direct number) and left a voice mail for her that I got both messages. We'll probably connect on Tuesday. I was supposed to have an appointment with my T at 1 p.m. on Wednesday. I'm assuming it's canceled but the front desk didn't say anything. I guess I'll find out from our couples T when I talk to her on Tuesday. I don't want to see my T again anyway.

I'm really not wanting to start over with another T. I'm not even wanting to step foot into that clinic again. I feel angry and misunderstood and helpless to do anything about it. I really think I'm going to quit. The thought of walking into that clinic again and running into my T accidentally just makes me sick. I feel rejected and ashamed and angry with him for repeatedly encouraging me to tell him about transference, telling me not to worry about the boundaries, because we're "a team" and "we're in the same boat" and he'll help me through it...but then referring me as soon as I crossed his invisible "line". I feel tricked and embarrassed and foolish. I worked really hard these last 8 months thinking this was going somewhere useful, but now I feel like I'm out in the middle of the wilderness. And what really burns me up is that I knew this was happening, and when I asked him about it he reassured me he would help me through it. How could I have been so stupid? Maybe I really did screw up the therapy somehow. This was the third therapist I tried. Maybe I'm too sick for therapy. Maybe I should just leave therapists alone and try to live my life the best I can.

I'm sorry if I'm offending anyone with my ranting, but I don't know where else to put this. Next step is to talk to our couples T on Tuesday. I can handle that much. But I really think I'm going to give up on therapy.

SG

quote:

How could I have been so stupid? Maybe I really did screw up the therapy somehow. This was the third therapist I tried. Maybe I'm too sick for therapy. Maybe I should just leave therapists alone and try to live my life the best I can.

((((((((SG))))))))))))

This is the reason that mishandling transference is SO very damaging. Most people who have experienced long term childhood trauma see themselves as defective and worthless. You went into therapy determined to do what you needed to do. You went out looking for information to understand how you were feeling and to bring clarity to your experience. You found people who understood and you gained insight into what was going on. Despite the pain and the difficulty of dealing with these feelings, you did NOT flee, but courageously opened up to your T about your feelings in order to work through them NOT act on them, respecting the necessary boundaries of theraputic work. Your T promised to see you through this and work through the feelings. Then when he fails you, reneges on his promise, panics and throws you under the bus and insidiously implies that this is your problem, that you are somehow out of control instead of taking responsibility for his own failure and his shortcomings, you are so quickly agree and go straight to it being your fault and your sickness! We are SO vulnerable when revealing these feelings and even more so since our vulnerability in the past led to such damage. And so it is all too easy to make us turn on ourselves.

I will not accept this. You are NOT screwing up therapy and you are not too sick. You are not defective in the least. You're courage, insight, compassion, intelligence and sensitivity come through so strongly in your posts. The problem is NOT you, it is what was not given to you, that your needs were not met so that you could develop the way you needed to. And that was compounded by the failure of your therapists' to understand your situation and to put your needs first. Even to hiding behind the front desk and not having the fortitude (I really wanted to use a vulgar word for part of the male anatomy) to talk to you directly.

You should be upset but it should not be turned against you. You worked so hard to do the right thing and were let down by the very people who should have protected you. Again. I hate that this might prevent you from getting the help that you need. I completely understand you're not wanting to go back to this clinic. Is there anywhere else for you to go for help? I wish you were closer to NY so I could send you to my T. Just know that there are competent therapists out there who can handle this issue.

Just in case it's not clear, I'm very angry and want to go scream at those people. You have NOTHING to be ashamed about in your behavior.

Please continue to post here and talk about how you're feeling. You're aren't whining; this is a painful and difficult situation and you deserve any support and understanding we can give you.

AG

Echo,

Thanks for your reply. I would really like to have a last "positive" session to wrap things up, but the last one was so bad I don't think I want to see him again. His story will be that if the transference is an obstacle to my therapy goals, then he needs to transfer me. Which is the right thing to do, I know.

I had jokingly said in my note that my attraction to his white shirt was becoming an obstacle for me, knowing that we would talk about it. I didn't really think that this was a serious obstacle, I just wanted to talk about what it says about me, like we always did. For instance, I thought it meant I'd like it if my husband would dress up a little more, or maybe it stems back to my father, who I always felt creepy and dirty around because of the way he looked at me. The combination of attentive caring, and looking at him in that clean, crisp, white shirt, just made me want to be held, protected, encircled by those arms very badly. I knew he couldn't (and wouldn't) act on it, I just wanted to talk about it. And the reason I finally said something is because it was the third session in a row that he'd worn that shirt, and I could feel myself getting more distracted every time.

He said he couldn't think of a way around this obstacle. In fact, he seemed like a different person. He's mentioned several times that he prides himself on "not acting like he thinks he's better" than his patients (he says a lot of therapists do act this way--?), and he really does have a very friendly manner so it's easy to get the impression that you're "friends". But this time, his attitude and the way he looked at me was very cold in comparison, like "How dare you" (about the shirt thing). I turned from him then and shielded my eyes from him the rest of the session, so that's the last impression I have of him.

The other specific thing that really hurt (other than the talk of transferring me) is that he got irritated with my crying (I'm not a loud crier but I couldn't stop). And when I'm crying like that, I can't think, so I told him I didn't understand his question. At one point he even got sarcastic about it, "Oh, I'm sorry, I've said it three different ways. My bad. Here, let me try again." Not that therapists aren't human - I can understand why he might have felt frustrated. But what he said certainly didn't help.

He knows from previous sessions that I'm terrified of abandonment. I've told him about the fear I've had between sessions, and I even showed him a fairly graphic picture someone else posted on another site that very well illustrates how it "feels" in that place, just to make sure he understood. And yet he didn't seem to understand why I was crying so hard. He kept saying, I know this must feel like rejection. I said no, I wasn't expecting you to gratify anything, I thought we were going to talk this through. It felt like abandonment.

Anyway, sorry to get so long-winded, but my point is...I don't think another session will help. But I won't rule it out yet. Thank you for your encouragement, Echo.

Hi AG,

Thank you for all the very emphatic encouragement . I don't really want to quit but I've just been looking at the last year and a half, thinking, how much longer till it starts to get better?

Yes, there are other places to go. You can bet I'm going to do some pretty thorough research, and interviewing, before I get invested in another therapist. I would much rather work through these feelings I'm having, than try to stuff them away. Yuck.

I read somewhere (I think it was Dr. Robert's, have you heard of it?) that good therapy has to somehow "recreate" the trauma first, although this isn't popular with patients. Then, of course, the idea is to help them learn to accept, cope, grieve, whatever they have to do. I had told my T several times, I didn't expect him to gratify me or return my feelings, but what I was really afraid of was abandonment. Now, this could be me just wanting to put him up on the pedestal again, but...is he doing this on purpose? Knowing there will be someone else to help me through the next part of it?

I guess it doesn't really matter...whether he "engineered" this or not, working through the rest of it will teach me something, but it's got me wondering.

SG

Hi Summer,

Thank you so much for replying and for your encouragement. Like most others, I've wondered about how my T "really" feels about me. I've told him many times that I'm afraid he thinks badly of me or feels negatively about me. Funny thing is, he never really denied it. For example, when I asked him if he felt "sick" when he saw my name on his schedule (I was asking him if a hypothetical statement he'd made had any truth to it), he said "If I felt that way about someone I'd have to refer them, because I couldn't be helpful to them." And the way he acted last session, maybe that is the case. It feels pretty horrible to consider, but...oh well.

And thanks for the encouragement to continue with a new T. It sounds like one has been picked out for me. Maybe I should give it a chance, but I want to be able to talk freely about all my feelings about this, positive and negative. If the new T knows my T, will they be offended or get defensive of my "old" T?

I'd better wrap this up, I'm falling asleep at the computer (it's 2 a.m.). Thank you again for your help, Summer.

SG

Hi everyone,

You're all so wonderful about answering and sharing your experiences and encouragement. Thanks a ton, it really is carrying me through this. From some of your responses, now I'm wondering if I've given an unfair description of what happened. Now I'm wanting to defend him! He really is a good T in a lot of ways. There's reasons why I'm so attached to him.

Don't worry, Hummingbird, I couldn't give you his number even if I wanted to, because I don't have it. I never felt the need to ask for it, and he apparently doesn't trust me with it now. Who knows, I might call and tell him how much I like his shirt again That was a joke, by the way. I'm just trying to see the humor in all of this. I think the shirt thing was really blown out of proportion. But ultimately, it is better to have boundaries that are too strong, than not strong enough.

Echo, I think it was a joint decision between him and our couples T after we each talked to her separately. I'll find out more when I talk to her on Tuesday.

Summer, thanks for describing your experiences, and I'm sorry to hear about how your P let you down. I've read your other posts about how your P ended things, and it sounds awful. I'm glad you found another T to work through it with. I'm sorry you had to go through it, but your description of how you got through it is encouraging to me.

Once when I was telling my T about how afraid I was of abandonment, he told me he'd never had to transfer anyone. He said one of his patients walked in drunk one day and offered to sit in his lap, but she wasn't transferred. He told me another 26-year old patient had a crush on him, and he helped her through it. This was all to reassure me that it was safe to talk about the transference. I keep looking over what I said or did that was more "offensive" or hard to handle than these examples, but I can't see it. Ultimately if he couldn't help me through it then yes, the right thing for him to do is transfer me. But one of the questions I have is, why are you transferring me, when you didn't have to transfer those other patients? I also wish I had asked more questions about "how" he helped them through it. Maybe then I would know why he can't help me through it.

Last session, when he asked what we should "do" about my feelings (so far, regarding how he looks in that white shirt, or any shirt, for that matter), I said I didn't know what to "do" about it, I thought we were just supposed to talk about it, and the feelings would eventually fade as I understood where they were coming from. He said, "I can actually see that possibly going two ways. It could make them fade, or it could make them worse." I hadn't come across anything in my reading that said it would make them worse, so I didn't know what to say to that.

It is ironic that we go to them to work through attachment and abandonment issues, and they end up being the ones to trigger the pain again. And what is up with not being able to see that? I don't understand how that's possible. But the really weird thing is, I really did want to work on attachment and abandonment issues. This is a golden opportunity to do just that.

Another really weird "coincidence" has to do with a drawing I showed him very early on. About six months before I met my T, I'd met with an old friend of mine to talk about the old feelings I was struggling with about my old boyfriend. At one point, she said I had him on a pedestal. Later I started wondering, what would that look like? So I drew it. In the drawing, I have my old boyfriend on a pedestal with all the reasons I admire him written on the front of it. I drew myself in a few days later, down in the corner, with several words describing how I thought he thinks of me around me (they're all negative).

In one of our early sessions, my T also commented that I had my old BF on a pedestal. I practically jumped up because I had brought the drawing! So I said, do you want to see it? He thought it was great it terms of symbolism. He asked to copy it and put it in my file, and he referred to it several times. Throughout our sessions he said what we really needed to do was find a way to get the old BF down to size, and build me up. That the guy on the pedestal isn't really real.

He also made a weird comment the session after I showed it to him. There was a title on the pedestal with a word in it that happened to be part of his last name. He pointed to it and said "I'd like to see my name right about here". He also said to himself that he would be my "transitional object" as he was setting the drawing down. He repeated in the next session that he'd like to be on the pedestal. He didn't know that I'd been reading about transference, but because I had, I took this to mean that he wanted me to do transference. I had read about how it could be useful in therapy to get to the real issues.

So I took him literally (I tend to do that) and made a pedestal for him. I never showed it to him, but I just did it as an exercise to see if the words on the front would be the same as the old BF's. None of them matched up. When I first tried to talk about transference a few sessions later, he said he'd just been "joking" and he didn't really mean it. That really confused me.

But the point is, I had him on a pedestal too, and now he's not living up to it in some ways. So again, the ultimate goal of the therapy IS being achieved here. The way I attached to him and began to feel about him is similar, although not as strong because there's not the force of an actual romantic relationship behind it. Having to work through the pain of being let down by someone I was depending on and even idolizing. This is exactly what I wanted to work on regarding the old BF. If I knew my T had orchestrated this on purpose, I'd say he's brilliant. But then, he's back up on that pedestal again, which defeats the purpose.

Thanks all of you for encouraging me to keep writing here. I've said to my T so many times, I never have enough time to talk about all the things that therapy is triggering in me. I've never been able to journal until about two years ago, and now I can't stop. It started with "letters" to the old BF I never intended to send, and then it was "letters" to my T (again, never intending to send - it just somehow opens me up to be writing "to" someone). I journal like a mad woman and I want to throw my ideas out there and find out what you think, but I can't do it all in just 50 minutes. He kept saying, that's okay, we'll still accomplish what needs to be accomplished. He was right, again. I'll just never know if it was accidental or not.

I'm glad you don't mind my ramblings. Again, it is probably even better this way. Making new friends is always a cool thing Thanks a gazillion for being here.

SG

Summer (et. al.),

I forgot to address how your new P didn't handle your talking about the old P very well. That's one of the things I'm afraid of about going to a T at this clinic, that they'll be biased toward my T and not allow me to explore all my feelings and perceptions about what happened. I have no desire to get him in any kind of trouble - not that he's done anything "wrong" exactly, he hasn't - but I need to process all those feelings to get to the acceptance part. I don't want to stuff them down because then they'll just turn into resentment. But then again, if I misinterpreted something, I really do want to know about it, even if it offends my pride at first. A T with access to his notes, who interacts with him, will be able to see his side of it too. It's hard to know where to go from here. I guess I just have to try something and see what happens.

I think you did the right thing not going back to that P. It sounds like she was biased toward your old P and could have really discounted your feelings. That would have just made the situation worse. I'm glad your new T has given you the help you need to process your feelings. You've got great intuition.

Okay, I'm really done for now I need to get my mind off this for a while. We're going to my mother-in-law's farm to pick apples. Pick, peel, and pack. Kind of a "Zen" approach.

Thanks,
SG

Hi Summer and Echo,

My T has a meeting with another, female T (who I'm assuming is my new T) at 9 am on Wednesday. I'm assuming the purpose is to fill her in on the situation. He has shared information as necessary with our couples T as well, and with his review team. In general whenever he has shared information he's let me know or asked if it's okay. I probably signed something in the beginning allowing him to do this but I don't remember.

Of course I'm wondering how this is being presented to her. All I can do is talk to our couples T on Tuesday and find out what has happened since I last talked to her. I don't know what to expect.

As for transference becoming stronger, my T had asked once, how would we know if transference was an obstacle? I thought of an answer later on that I never got around to telling him: It would most definitely become an obstacle if he were to act on it in any way. I wish I would have thought of it right away when he asked it. I wonder how he would have answered.

Last time when he said it could become worse if I talk about it, I have been wishing again that I would have brought up that point. But like I said, I can't think of anything when I'm upset. But your experiences show that he left out a very important point: It would only become worse if I talk about it, and then he acts upon it, like yours did.

I'm really sorry to hear that your T's confused you in that way! If my T had responded that way, of course it would have gotten stronger. I've been reading about how T's aren't really supposed to talk about themselves at all because then we're thinking about them and not the therapy. My T told me lots of little things about himself, some of his opinions, tastes, and past experiences that didn't seem harmful at the time, I rather enjoyed it, but now I see that it was enough to distract me from the work. And that's all it really takes to confuse things, at least with me.

My T has never stated anything about how he feels about me, positive or negative. My overall gut feeling and fear throughout the therapy is that he's afraid of me. Which I've told him a few times, and he's never confirmed or denied it. I attributed it to "negative transference" and we just went on to the next topic. But then I would notice in the next session he would seem much warmer, friendlier, almost eager to make me feel better. It was weird and I didn't know what to make of it.

His pedestal comments, his persistence in asking about transference, and some other comments gave me the impression that he was getting some kind of personal pleasure in hearing about my feelings for him. But I don't think it had anything to do with me personally. There were times he seemed to be saying things to encourage the transference itself, but I didn't take it as "he likes me". I took it as "he wants me to talk about transference".

It would be awfully flattering to find out he's transferring me because he doesn't think he can resist me. If that's actually true, then he's done a wonderful job of covering it up, especially with that last session. There are some things we have in common, and there were times when we seemed to think the same way about things, and conversations that started but then had to stop because they weren't "therapy" and I was left feeling really frustrated, wishing we could continue. These formed the basis for several fantasies, but I think I did a really good job keeping myself straight that they were only that, my fantasies, and not his. I didn't form any expectations in connection with them, other than that we might discuss some of them in the context of therapy only, without acting on them.

The one expectation that I'm grieving is that the therapy would be successful and it would end well. I would have grown, my marriage would be better, and even though I would never see my T again, he would always be a special part of me. Also, I had started a little project based on something he said in a session once about reaching a "pot" of therapy "gold". There were a few key ideas he had brought up in therapy I wanted to make sure to remember, so I wrote them down on a piece of paper. Then I had the idea to make the "therapy gold" idea concrete by making pieces of "gold" with the ideas written down on them. I told him about it and he seemed to really get into it, too. We brainstormed for about 5 minutes or so on how to do it. Later, I told him I'd gotten the materials at the store. He had asked a couple of times how it was coming, so I brought the materials to the last session so I could show him what I'd done so far, and to get his ideas on a part of it that hadn't turned out the way I'd liked. I was really excited to show it to him. But the way things turned out that day, I didn't get a chance. I'm sad we won't get to finish it. I walk by the unfinished project sitting on the table and it just hurts.

It had also made me think of an idea for a good-bye gift. We both play guitar, although he plays electric and has been playing for 20+ years, while I play acoustic and have only been playing for less than 2 years. Still, for the first several sessions, we would talk guitar for the first few or last few minutes of the session. Once he told me I should check out this guy on YouTube who gives guitar lessons, Frank Falvo from Australia. He likes to end his lessons with the phrase "Keep punching!" meaning keep trying, keep working hard. My T eventually started saying the same thing to me at the close of our sessions, in the same Aussie accent (my T has an uncanny ability to mimic anyone's voice). I wanted to make a gold "coin" with that phrase on it - I know a woodcarver who could show me how to make a really nice one. I'm really sad that I won't get to make that for him. It was the last thing he said to me. "Keep punching."

Thus ends another "novella". Thanks for reading, again. Today at the farm went great, by the way. Apple picking and peeling is good medicine. We had fun and made some happy memories.

Cheers,
SG

Hi All,
You are all making me do something I didn't think was possible and that's appreciate my therapist even more for how he's handled this. Any and all of my feelings about him have always been welcomed, he told me that explicitly on a number of occasions that "all of your feelings are welcome in my office and can be discussed" but he never talked about his feelings for me aside from when he needed to reassure me.

The first time I told him that I was feeling attracted to him (which was BEFORE I was working with him individually) he told me he understood why I would be feeling that way and that he was glad that I was feeling connected and cared for and that I was safe talking about these feelings because nothing would happen. He did very charmingly say that he was rather flattered and joked about it being all his charm and good looks in such a way that made it obvious that he really didn't think it had all that much to do with him.

I remember once asking him to tell me that nothing would happen because I needed to hear it in a "no way, let it go, you can't have it" kind of way and what he said was a statement of safety instead. That the only relationship we would have would be in his office and the only thing that would happen would be to discuss my feelings. But because of that NONE of my feelings were off limits. I even told him once, in a very significant session, that I realized that I trusted him in a way I had never trusted anyone before and that I loved him (not in a romantic way, but parental). His response was to affirm the feeling and he mentioned that some people including professionals, wouldn't see it as real but he understood that in this kind of intimate honest relationship those feelings can occur. Then he said that he did not find my feeling distasteful either personally or professionally. So my feelings were accepted and welcomed but we never really talked about his. So I didn't hear "I love you" back, which I knew not to expect but it felt like my feelings were accepted and validated.

He has walked that fine line between holding really clear boundaries but being emotionally accessible. And even with his ability to do that, this has been a long, messy, chaotic, confusing, painful passage. But it's also been incredibly healing and I do believe that I am eventually going to leave a much better person than I went to him as. I'm really sorry that you have not experienced that kind of clarity with your Ts. I don't want to make it worse by talking about how my T handled it; but to provide an example of how it looks when it is handled well. It takes so much courage to speak up and be honest about these feelings and to have them mishandled leads to even further pain and confusion. And what I hate the most is that everyone who experiences this keeps trying to figure out what they did wrong, when they didn't do anything but what they should have.

I think you're all being extraordinary in how you're handling this. I swear I'd be curled up in a little ball in a corner and never come back out, but here you are, talking about your feelings and supporting each other. I find it humbling and I'm grateful to know all of you.

SG, one more thing, you asked about the possibility of this being a deliberate move on the part of your therapist to recreate the trauma. The first time I ever got really angry at my therapist was when he cancelled an appt and I found out he gave it to someone else. I was able to tell him I was angry (he worked really hard to let me know it was ok and was very non-defensive, which was even more impressive because he really hadn't done anything wrong) and during talking about my feelings, I asked if he had done it deliberately just to see how I reacted. He told me that there had never been nor would there ever be a strategic canceling of an appointment. That he was human and no matter how hard he tried not to, he would eventually fail me. That if you wait long enough, everything eventually comes up in therapy, there is NO need to manufacture anything. Which has been very true. You bring your relational history to the relationship so the things you need to deal with get triggered in the normal course of things. Don't even get me going about vacations which are always very reaction rich for me. So I don't think this was a deliberate act on the part of your therapist. And if it was, then RUN do not walk away. The last thing you need in therapy is manipulation, dishonesty and game playing. That's part of what brought you there in the first place.

AG

Hello,

AG, I LOVE hearing about how your T has handled your feelings. Among other things, it helps to make sense of what went right, and wrong, in my own therapy. It also gives me the words to ask for what I need next time. And I mean that quite literally. With your permission, I could just take your last post from T to T until I find one who "gets it". Not that I can "plan" to have transference with a new T, but at least then I would know it's safe to talk about the issues that came up with the old T.

Your latest description of your relationship with your T made me think of my longing for a "safe" father. I believe in God, so for years I've tried to think of Him as my "Father", but I was never able to get that to work very well. I still long for a safe human father. There was one man who was a father "figure" to me for a couple of years, but that was almost 20 years ago and we were not able to keep in touch.

On another message board that I belong to, I've learned that when I'm longing for the old BF, it's not really love, but I'm looking for what I didn't get as a child. My old BF and I met when my relationship with my father was at its worst. I'm pretty sure the reason he still triggers so much longing in me is because I tried to get my dad needs met through him (although of course I didn't think of it that way at the time). And what little girl doesn't want to put her daddy up on a pedestal?

In my mid-20's, I had a relationship with a woman my mom's age who gave me emotionally what my mother was not able to. She's not a therapist, but she's very spiritual and down-to-earth, very wise, and it seemed to work because I don't long for a mother anymore. When you describe your T, it makes me wish for a similar relationship with a man who could give me emotionally what my father couldn't.

Thank you for the compliments and encouragement in how we're handling this...but first of all, your posts are one of the big things helping me handle it right now, your example of how therapy goes when it goes well. And second, and I know I don't know you very well, but from all your posts (I noticed you hit a grand - congratulations!) I really doubt that you'd be curled up in a ball forever. Maybe for a little while (like I was)...but then you'd come out looking for answers too. You wouldn't stay down.

As for the games, it is so hard to tell what is going on here. It may truly be transference because my old BF played games. At any rate, I will most definitely get it clear with the next T that there are to be NO games, or there is no deal.

Must get to bed...it's very late here.
Good night all,
SG