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pressure

OK so I have been with my therapist for 19 years...dealing with issues around child abuse, abandonment, and sexual difficulties. My therapist has always been very open minded and accepting of anything I am feeling. It is still sometimes hard for me to open up to her even after all of these years together. She is like a Mom to me though and some of the feelings I have for her are sexual in nature. It's very confusing for me as I have been married to my husband for 30 years. But it happens at times that I have these crazy fantasies mainly at night when I am alone and afraid. My husband travels a lot. I have told her about it and she is OK with me telling her. I told her I am afraid if I discuss the issue with her that she will be uncomfortable and I am afraid that she won't want to to see me. She told me that I have nothing to worry about that my feelings are my feelings and if I need to talk about it with her I can without feeling like I will be rejected or criticized. I told her I was afraid if I talked about it with her that she would no longer hug me at the end of our sessions. She told me that if her hugs are causing me any "harm" she would not hug me but until I tell her that she will gladly hug me if I ask her to. It stll makes me feel really lousy to have those kinds of intense feelings she is 16 years older than me. You just don't have sexual feelings about someone who is like a Mom...I wish I could make it stop.

Dear Cmac,

Nice to meet you - welcome to the boards. I just want to tell you something that has helped me deal with and contain my paternal transference issues with older (non-t) men. However much your T is like a mom - she's not your mom. I'm not trying to be facetious or dismissive here, and I'm not trying to down-play the intensity of the mom-like feelings either. But it really helped me to understand that actually, my feelings were not incestuous. I didn't actually want to have sex with my dad. In real terms, I was having sexual feelings about another adult person who I felt close to - and that's pretty normal. Thinking about them as incestuous feelings just made me panicky, and it actually wasn't accurate. Relationships and feelings are complex, and that is part of their richness. I'm sure there's a lot of painful stuff tied up with the sexual feelings as well as a lot of warmth and intimacy - that makes them powerful to work with in therapy. But if nothing else, they are evidence that you are a whole, living, feeling human being.

Best wishes,
Jones

lizzygirl, i, like you, would have a hard time laying it out there. i guess, for me, knowing it would not be recipricated would just feel humiliating to me. past patterns with parents i guess, no love spoken in the house and if i would have they would have had a sarcastic tone or 'not heard me' or said i was too sensitive.

so...

but, do they sense it?? i can't imagine they don't. but only i see, altho i hear differently, in a male/female relationship (assuming heterosexual). i don't know how i would picture it with woman/woman...i guess i really think of the transference you are talking about is 'erotic transferance', which the term feels like overkill to me, but, just with a sexual nature.

i definitely had a paternal transference with t1, wanted to please, wanted to act out, rebellious, wanted to argue...i think alot of it was a teen/parent type transference. he was a minister, so i think that had a part in me not thinking sexually towards him. and i have a good sexual marriage, so, that base is covered.

t3, yes, mom issues.

dbt gal? i don't know. dependency i think i will soon feel, but mom issues? i don't know, she is younger than me, which at first i think i had a hard time taking her seriously.

so, of course they see dependence, and how their words can affect us, so, if you call that transference that they develop an important role with us, yes, i think they can see that. that SHOULD be there for the issues most of us carry. but erotic transference?? man, that is another deal, and i SO MUCH admire you brave souls willing to lay that out there. after t1 being male and my age, and some of his comments about his marriage and stuff, i started feeling really uneasy, and MAD!!! i thought he was SAFE!! after all, he is a minister!! i got furious with him, although i never told him why, i just ran. so, therefore, i will never go to a man my age again. in fact, one t i interviewed several times, kept coming back to calling him (never met him but he was refered to as 'someone my age') finally i told him my fear of transference, he asked how my marriage was, i said fine, he said it wouldn't be a problem, i told him i hoped he wasn't nice looking, he laughed, and eventually gave me a rec of an older man in his office who is the 'kindest man' he knows. much better. don't want to deal in that arena again, that, for me, just added a whole new element to the t that was hard enough anyway. and i have a real guilty conscious, and felt 'it was my fault' for being too open and vulnerable...thinking, don't all men kinda like a 'damsel in distress' who thinks they hung the moon??? ick, too tangled for me..

so, old men, gay men, women not anywhere near my mom's age, but no one too young....kind of narrows it down a bit.

can't play that game...jill is too chicken! jill

I'm trying to put the transference into a positive light. It's definately erotic when I fantasize about him making love to me. It's just me projecting what I am lacking in my marriage onto him. He makes me feel safe in my fantasies, my husband does not. So he is providing me with a wonderful diversion without even knowing it. I really dont think it is compromising our therapeutic relationship, but strengthening it. I am very dependent on him, which is probably not great, but I obviously trust him "intimately" as we sit politely sit opposite each other in session. Is it wrong for me to enjoy this? I will not let him know unless he blatantly comes out and asks me.
I'm swirming thinking of that happening!

lizzygirl, i don't think it is wrong, i think it is natural and normal. and personal. for me, it would distract me from getting what i know i need to get, as i would try too hard to be likeable. but, that may not be you, and there is a big school of thought of the helpfulness of fantasies being brought out (to talk about) in therapy. i am just chicken to lay that all out there, so i go for safe harbors...older, older men, gay men would be fine, or women that don't resemble mom.

also, keep in mind, these people are fully engaged in us in session, but we really have no idea how they are with their significant other...probably so bushed from hearing others problems that that is the last thing they want to deal with outside of work! so, it is a fantasy...sorry to be a 'buzz-kill' if i am!! jill