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Can someone tell me, is it ALWAYS transference when you develop a strong connection and need for your T? Does transference by definition mean "not real"? If it isn't real, isn't it dishonest for a T to encourage it?
Hi MH,
From the research I've done (and trust me I was obsessive for a long time, ok, honestly, I still can be) there are really two definitions fo transference floating out there (actually there are way too many to count but they fall in two broad categories). The first is based on psychoanalysis and was first defined by Freud. His theory was that these feelings could in no way be actually grounded in reality or based on the person of the therapist because the therapist was supposed to be a "blank screen" so how could the patient fall in love? Therefore these feelings MUST be about a figure in the past and were being "transferred" into the present. This is where the belief, that is still prevalent in many circles today, came from that transference feelings aren't real.
Interestingly enough, after examining Freud's life, a lot of people theorize that part of the reason he came up with the theory was because of his discomfort about patients having sexual feelings for him. He came from culture that was fairly repressed about sex and he himself seemed to be fairly uncomfortable about it in his personal life and marriage.
The second sense of transference and the one that I believe to be more accurate in my case, is that we form relationship schemas, or templates, based on our early relationship experiences (this definition ties nicely into attachment theory). We learn both how to relate and what to expect in relationships from what we experience as infants and small children. This becomes in effect, a filter through which we filter all later experiences. Therefore, what occurs in therapy is very real (I know my T believes that the feelings are real because we've discussed it), as a matter of fact, the whole point is that we react in therapy to our therapist in the same way we react in our relationships out in the "real" world. But in therapy, there is an environment and a person which makes it possible for us to examine how we relate, get feedback from the person we're relating to and explore how it connects to our past. This allows us to bring our unconscious relating patterns into the light where we can examine and change them thus correcting the maladaptive behaviors from our pasts.
So the feelings are real but as we examine them, we often find that the intensity of them is because they are evoking or resonating with emotions and experiences from our past, often ones we were not able to deal with. For instance, I was terrified (and I don't use the work lightly) for a very long time that my T would either abuse or abandon although there was no evidence to support that belief. But he was a male father figure with power over me so my expectation was that either or both of those things would happen. Which, frankly, based on my life experience, was a perfectly rational expectation but viewed only in the here and now didn't make a lot of sense. So in my experience some of it is from the past, but there are real emotions in the present. I do love my T and really do have a deeply intimate trusting relationship with him. There is even a real sexual attraction. But the intensity of the "real" feelings isn't beyond what I can handle. The really intense "I'm gonna die" stuff is usually connected to my past. My T tends to avoid the term transference because he doesn't like the connotation it brings of the feelings being "unreal." And he has acknowledged to me that some of my attraction may be that I really do find him attractive. But he's also made it clear that we talk about our feelings not act on them in therapy, that he has the boundaries, that I am safe and nothing will happen. That safety has made it possible for me to explore all my feelings even in areas I normally wouldn't acknowledge to a man not my husband.
My experience with people who form a really intense relationship with their T (the "I can't stop thinking about them, I terrified they're going to send me away, betray me, not like me etc etc ad nauseum ad infinitum) is that they have some form of attachment injury so that their early childhood needs were not met. When we are small, our needs are literally a life and death matter, we die without an adult to take care of us. So when we form a relationship with an attuned T who is finally meeting some of those needs (the ones that can still be met), the life and death intensity comes roaring back and all our ambivalance of "I want to move closer, but that is SO dangerous" gets played out. I hope that helps.
Hi Magpie,
I'm glad to hear you had a session that went so well. You're doing absolutely the right thing to talk to your T about all these feelings, I really believe that's how the healing takes place.
AG