Hi there I am new here and happy to have found this site. A little background. I am a gay female with a female T. First day of therapy I made it quite clear to my T that I was gay as I did not want that to affect our relationship. We connect very well and the therapy has been very good for 6 months.

The problem. I understand what transference is and I have maintained my boundaries, but I am not sure if my T has maintained hers. She has made some comments that I am not too sure of. For example she commented on how nice my hair was, she looked up the number to the rehab I was in and phoned to see how I was doing, she phoned me when I was in the hospital. She has made comments on how funny I am, and how insightful I am. I do find her attractive, and I know that she is married, but are these comments and actions appropriate or is there something else going on hear.

I really do like her and think she is very nice, but I don't want to be thinking anything else is not warranted.

Any comments would be appreciated.

Hi Sea! Welcome to the forums. I can understand why you might be wondering what's going on, but different Ts have different styles. I am seeing a male T now but my first T (who I saw on and off for some 17+years) was female. Part of my healing was that as I got better I actually started taking better care of my appearance and dressing better, etc. She would often comment on my appearance, and I definitely had a lot of positive comments from her on my behaviors. It was very much a reparative experience with her. My self-esteem was so dismal that to have someone whom I valued so much giving me positive feedback was really important. And calling rehab and contacting you in the hospital was an important way to show her concern for your well-being. I can definitely see where all of her behaviors could be done for your good and have nothing to do with any agenda that is about her.

And the boundaries can vary from T to T. My first T would hug me when I asked for, my present T has a no hug policy. But with my first T except for when I asked for a hug, we didn't have any contact on hello or goodbye while with my current T, we shake hands at the end of each session.

Bottom line, I don't think anything else is going on, but the fact that you're wondering about it is significant. Which means, yes, you guessed it if you've done some reading around the forums, you should talk to her about it. Explain how her comments are making you feel and that you're wondering about her boundaries.
Clear boundaries are a very important part of therapy and its important that you are comfortable with where hers are and with how she's behaving towards you.

Hope some of that helped, and I'm looking forward to getting to know you!

AG

Sea, welcome and I am sure you will get lots of advice. I'll give you my thoughts but I want to warn you that I'm pretty new here and have only been in therapy for 7 months.

Her comments about your personal appearance seem unusual to me but you don't mention what kind of issues you are talking about in T so perhaps they are appropriate. My T never comments on my appearance or personality and I worry constantly about what he thinks of me.

I think the only way to work through this is to talk to her about it. Ask her what she means when she compliments? Unfortunately, the best way to deal with transference appears to be by talking to the T about your thoughts, feelings, and fears about them and therapy. It is not easy and I have only just started doing it.

Good luck

Hi Katskill! I'm new here, too. It totally sounds like something to talk about, for sure. I mean, I see AG's point about there being a reasonable explanation for it all - but personally, comments about my appearance would weird me out.

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Thankyou everyone for your comments. AG your comments sound that they may be on track. I do feel better about myself especially after I leave and I do find myself dressing better and having a better attitude about life in general.

I really don't know how to address this with her as this is part of the issue we are working on right now, my inability to speak up and voice my opinion.

I have therapy today so we will see where that goes and I will let you all know.

Thanks
Sea

Hi Sea,
Glad it resonated with you, but as far as talking to her, do it when you're ready. An important part of therapy is learning to trust yourself about the timing and when you're ready to handle what issue. Hope its a great session!

AG

Hello Sea, welcome to the forum. Everyone has already told you the best thing to do is to talk to your T and that is absolutely right. For whatever reason your T has for doing and saying what she does should be discussed as should the impact it has on you.

If I may say, the feelings her actions provoke may have little if anything to do with you being gay. So I just don’t want you to confuse your experiences with any feelings that are being triggered in therapy. FYI: I am not gay, yet I, as you may have already read, have experienced homo-erotic feelings for my T and they represent much more than what the content of my feelings/fantasies would suggest.

If I may, I’d like to share with you a recent discussion I had with my T on why my homo-erotic transference has recently been triggered again. She rightfully and immediately went into exploring what she may have said or did to unintentionally trigger it. Even though it is not intentional she explained that sometimes sharing too much personal information with a client can be boundary seduction, leaving the client feeling special and desiring more information. In the case of calling and checking on a client that too can arouse feelings of being special as can comments on our appearance and personality. Your T may not be aware of how these things make you feel and you definitely need to bring this to her attention and not feel badly about it. However, these feelings are tied very deeply into what you need to be working on and your T needs to be on board with that and aware of what your triggers are.

Good luck!

JM

Just got back from therapy and it went really well. I am not sure what I did, but I did not let my "feelings" for my therapist follow me in. We connect so well it "kills" me.

I don't think that she knows how I feel, and I don't think anything on her part in intented. She is just a caring person.

I do know that I am feeling more like a full human being working with her. I am very grateful!!!!!

Enjoy the attunement Sea. It is something very wonderful about our therapy relationship and it sounds like you have it with your T. Glad you had a good session.

JM

quote:

she looked up the number to the rehab I was in and phoned to see how I was doing, she phoned me when I was in the hospital.

I wouldn't feel comfortable with my T looking up my phone number no matter where I am. That's personal information...

Scott

Sea,
Glad to hear that your appointment went so well. It is a really precious gift to connect, and feel cared for and understood.

AG

quote:

I wouldn't feel comfortable with my T looking up my phone number no matter where I am. That's personal information...

I think that T’s determine how far they will go based on their personal knowledge of each client and understanding each ones comfort zone. What one client may feel is intrusive, may be just what another client needs to feel important and “loved.”

I have been thinking about my session yesterday, and I am not really sure how well it went. I was a different person when I went in there in that I didn't want to feel for my T. This transference thing has me all weirded out. I pushed out my feelings of her and went into therapy in a artificial way. I did cover alot of stuff, but it felt phony in me.

She said I made progress and I felt that I made progress, but I wonder if it was indeed the real me who made the progress or the person I portrayed in there

Sea

Sea,

I hear what you are saying and I wanted to let you know I know how difficult it seems when your feelings about T change over the next day or two after a session. Early on I had a session where T tried to point out how certain behaviours keep other people from getting to close to me and I was really frustrated because it didn't sound like me. The next session I told him that those behaviours weren't how I acted in real life instead it was me in therapy, when I was putting up an act. It helped me realize I wouldn't get useful feedback if I wasn't more honest in my dealings with T.

The best thing about T is that you will get another chance to express yourself the next time and the next time and the next time ...

quote:

Originally posted by Katskill:
I have been thinking about my session yesterday, and I am not really sure how well it went. I was a different person when I went in there in that I didn't want to feel for my T. This transference thing has me all weirded out. I pushed out my feelings of her and went into therapy in a artificial way. I did cover alot of stuff, but it felt phony in me.

She said I made progress and I felt that I made progress, but I wonder if it was indeed the real me who made the progress or the person I portrayed in there

Katskill

Katskill, this post really resonated with me. I don't always know if I'm _me_ in therapy or if I'm some weird public-face facet of me. I've gotten better with it - but sometimes I feel like, even when I do talk about stuff (transference stuff, too), if that's me, too, or just another face. I just decide I'm going to say something and "don't care" what Tfella thinks about it. I'm just not sure I know of some other way to be.

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