((((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