quote:

Originally posted by Just Me:
Hi PlaceboMan, and welcome to the forum.

I am sorry for the pain and frustration you must be feeling, but I am glad you are reaching out. I am no expert, but I think you gather that. What I understand about transference is that it can and does occur in any relationship, we all do it, but some of us to more of an extreme degree than other, as you see here among the forum. It can be projected toward authority figures, but not necessarily either. Its not black and white or easy to understand with nice clear cut rules to apply to it, unfortunately. So while I'm not personally familiar with the way you describe your transference it seems to make sense.

Basically do you find yourself looking for a mother in a girlfriend? By mother I mean someone who is nurturing, affectionate and loving no matter how you behave? I think that is very common for both genders when certain needs didn't get met in the attachment process with our mothers. **And the sexual attraction is significant because that is how you play out the desire to be close and intimate with a female figure. Not that sex had anything to do with your feelings or relationship with your mother, but that sort of longing and need for intimacy and connection naturally translates into sexual realtionships in our adult lives. As infants and children our needs get met through maternal and paternal longing and connections. In our adult lives it translates to sexual intimacy. When the first needs don't get met in our developmental years or are severely breeched later on in childhood, the latter process becomes skewed and we constantly seek those imature needs through more adult type behavior.**

You are NOT MAD at all, the fact that you recognize you have an unhealthy pattern and you want to do something about it proves that you are very sane and very sincere. That is what seperates us from those who refuse to admit there is a problem and refuse to change.

And transference does not have to occur with a therapist in order for therapy to work. But through the therapeautic process you CAN uncover much about the past and heal the long painful breech you experienced as a child. I believe you can put a lot right with your mother w/o her being here (I am) in a sense that you can learn much about the attachment process, what went wrong, and the fact that because of the brains amazing neuroplasticity, much can be recovered even late in our adult lives. So there is hope!

Are you in therapy now?

And btw, I also understand the desire to drown your misery in goood ol JD! Been there, done that. It becomes a friend who can always be found, but that friend has a very painfully high price as I am sure you are well aware.

I just want you to know you are not alone, you are not MAD, and you are not hopeless! If you're not in therapy now, I would suggest that you find a well suited therapist and don't worry about if transference develops there or not. You may be better suited for it if it doesn't.

I hope this helps, please keep posting and asking more questions as you need. There is a lot off good persoanl experience here and a lot of caring people.
JM

P.S. **I made an addition for clarification purposes that I hope makes more sense because I think this is very significant from what you describe. (see ** above)

quote:

Originally posted by Attachment Girl:
Hi PBman,
Welcome to the forums! I'm sorry its taken me so long to say hi, I was gone for a few days and then missed your post because it had moved down the list.

JM is right, you're not mad. I think you're in a lot of pain and need over being rejected by your mom. So when you meet a woman for one night and take five years to get over it, you're not really trying to get over her. You're trying to let go of all the hope you invested in her, the hope of finally getting what you didn't get from your mother.