SB,

I can understand how your feelings about your dad would be split. The anger and pain that was caused when he left has probably overridden your good memories and feelings about him. Due to the circumstances, you had to separate the feelings. It would be too confusing to feel love for this person who caused your family so much pain. But, the love was still there, waiting for its chance to poke up its little head. I can see how you would feel both feelings.

Under the circumstances, it would be difficult to integrate the feelings. For many of us, depending on how we were reared, we see people as good or bad, actions as good or bad. It takes healing, and health, and learning to see people and actions as good AND bad. For example, my mom died last year, and for months, I had a difficult time seeing any faults in her. It put a stop to a lot of the work that I was doing in therapy, because I had been focusing on unmet childhood needs, which inherently pointed to my mom. My therapist said over and over and over and over that it's okay for her to be good and bad, because all people are good and bad. I would get so mad at her! It took a while for this to sink in, but now I get it, for the most part anyway.

From what I've read from Shrinklady and other writings, the main indicator of therapy success is the bond or relationship between therapist and client. So, maybe you don't have to get "transferred," which btw, I decided that I don't like that word, I'm going to use attached instead, but you need to have a working bond or relationship with him. The strong, painful attachment that most of us have here, sort of just happened. I don't think any of us planned it. Honestly, if I could have planned it, I would have planned for it not to happen, because it's so fricken painful. It may or may not happen with you, but I think you definitely need to attach and bond for healing to happen. JMO.

Yeah, it's probably a good idea to talk with him about it, no matter how painful it is. Talking about our deep issues with a safe person brings about the bond that we need to heal.

catgirl

btw,
good to see you back. Hope your break treated you well.

Hi Catgirl,

I think I prefer attached too. Doesn't sound so much like a fake tattoo

Whatever the word, the idea scares me. I think I am just expecting an endless stream of pain. Weird how this is such a vicious circle: craving love and at the same time expecting this to be nothing but pain. So I can't let anybody close enough whilst at the same time hurting from the lack of it. Let's see how close I can get tomorrow before freaking (what, all 000.5mm of it??)

Thanks for your welcome back too Catgirl. The break was certainly an experience!

I am curious about using the words "attachment" and "transference" interchangeably. Are they the same thing?

Hi River... glad to see you on line. You have been missed around here. Hope you are okay.

Technically transference and attachment are two different things. Basically, the Freudian version of transference is that you are reacting to your T as you would to someone from your past or your T evokes feelings in you that stem from past experiences. These could be positive or negative feelings. Love or erotic transference differs in that you feel love or sexual desire for your T, in addition (I guess) to transferring other feelings.

Attachment is the bond that forms between T and client where they fill the needs that did not get met for you in childhood. They become your secure base from which you venture into the world but can return when things get to scary and they provide comfort and reassurance. These are the things our first caregivers should have provided along with teaching us how to regulate our feelings and emotions. A child needs to be "in sync" with her caregiver to learn to regulate herself and to learn about who she/he is. A child also needs to know it's okay to ask for things and to have needs. You learn this from an attachment figure (as an adult this is your T).

While there is a difference in the two things, it seems to be that if you look at the people who are struggling with transference you will most always see a person who has had a disrupted attachment or an unresolved attachment as a child.

For myself, my feelings for my male T range from parental love and admiration to a definite erotic transference to real loving feelings for the man beyond the therapist because I do know my T and know a lot about him (not that he has self-disclosed... just little stuff I have picked up on due to circumstances).

Hope that helps.

TN

Hi River, welcome back . And good question, i don't think I get that either.

Hi True North,

quote:

you are reacting to your T as you would to someone from your past or your T evokes feelings in you that stem from past experiences

but isn't that why therapy is needed in the first place, because the 'real situation' is obscured by past experiences?

SB

Hi everyone, I have been reading posts for awhile and am ready to begin posting myself! Thanks for explaining the difference between attachment and transfernce. this has been very confusing to me, as I seem to experience very extreme attachment. It all gets very hard to understand. I have a wonderful T who makes me feel very safe and secure, but it scares me when I think of how much I thrive on that attachment. I count down the minutes until I can see her again, and have such a hard time when our time together ends each session. I have gone through a lot of T's and P's over a long period of time, but I have never expereinced anything like this before. Its almost as if love coexists with the pain of knowing what you cannot really have.

SCA

quote:

I count down the minutes until I can see her again, and have such a hard time when our time together ends each session. I have gone through a lot of T's and P's over a long period of time, but I have never expereinced anything like this before. Its almost as if love coexists with the pain of knowing what you cannot really have.

SCA,
Welcome! Glad you're feeling brave enough to post.

I know exactly how you feel! I actually pay to see my T twice a week so that I can have her more often, (and because when I started seeing her twice a week I had huge things going on in my life, and I really needed it). These feelings are excruciating aren't they? How do you handle leaving when it's time to go? I ask this, because it's so hard for me, too. I sometimes throw a fit. I always tell her that I hate to leave. Sometimes I start crying. I never just say, "okay," and get up and leave.

catgirl

TN,
Thanks for defining the terms attachment and transference. I was talking with my T about these terms, and I told her that I prefer the term attachment. She said that she doesn't usually use the term transference. She asked why I prefer the term attachment, and I said, "Because it's bigger than transference. Transference confines my feelings toward you to something based on the past. It doesn't allow space for our current relationship outside of my relationships in the past. Certainly, transference is part of my relationship with you, but it's not all of it. There are real feelings that I feel right now that don't necessarily have to do with my relationship with my mom, or whatever." She completely agreed with me. I also think that attachment feels more natural. We all have attachments to people, things, and places. Transference feels negative to me, like it's something that I should have already worked through.

Anyway, that's my thoughts on the matter.

catgirl

[ How do you handle leaving when it's time to go? I ask this, because it's so hard for me, too. I sometimes throw a fit. I always tell her that I hate to leave. Sometimes I start crying. I never just say, "okay," and get up and leave.

catgirl[/QUOTE]
Catgirl, thanks for the welcome. I am glad I got up the courage to post. I literally have will myself to walk out. . I do the same thing as you. . . start to cry. I always say how I don't want to leave, how hard it is, how sad I am. I have to to stand around for a few minutes and ease my way out.

Hi SCA and welcome. I am new here too!

I think the reason emotions get so intense towards our Ts is that the relationship is so unequal. I love the description of the therapy relationship as "an approximation of love" because it can never quite be the real thing because of all the other stuff (needing to pay, the one-sidedness of it all, the blind trust).

I used to struggle waiting for my next session (while also dreading it at the same time!) I got through by counting the days - only 5 more sleeps, i can do that. Tomorrow it will only be 4. Etc. And trying to carry a part of her around in my head until i next saw her. It helped a bit.

I think it's wonderful you've found a T who inspires such powerful emotion in you, it's going to motivate you to work through whatever you need to. And hopefully leaving sessions will get easier with time.

cassie

songbird,
i think i probably feel a bit like that with my mother. I had to separate her into 2 different people in order to have anything to do with her. My mother THEN is the abusive, sadistic woman who did lots of very bad things to her children. This mother is bigger, younger and scary to me. My mother NOW is just a messed up person who made many mistakes, who i want to be happy. This mother is small, weak, quite pathetic really. But separating her this way is the only way i can have any form of a relationship with her after what she did.

Some people probably wouldn't understand why I'd even want to. My P couldn't. But my T does. And i don't know how 'healthy' this all is, but it worked for me, and it's how i get through each day.

i know it's different to your situation, but thought i'd share.

cassie

Hi SCA, welcome to the forum from me too

Hi cassie,

I think I may understand where you are coming from. No wonder the child in you feels your mum is big and scary, after all that's what she was to you all those years ago. But it seems you're also able to see her with your grown-up self too. Not sure if I want to engage with my dad in any way whatsoever grown-up or otherwise. He's not even remotely acknowledging what he's done, so what's the point (if anybody has a view on this I'd love to hear). My mum does begin to take responsibility these days. That's a beginning.

SB

quote:

And one day I discovered my feelings for my dad inside me. There it was, fully fledged utter LOVE and devotion and god how that hurt! He left us when I was about 11 and never looked back - it feels so ENORMOUS after so many years of just blanking him out. He just left me to look after my mum, who turned alcoholic, and my 2 little sisters.

I feel back there, completely bewildered, overwhelmed by the grief and despair and a huge task on my hand that I really wasn't equipped for. And at the same time, completely separate from the love like 2 different people inside me, I soooooo hate him, can't even think about him without wanting to add major swear words. It's so weird. One moment I'm in floods of tears and the next up pops the Tourette's syndrome. Has anybody experienced something similar? How does that hang together? I'm feeling a bit stuck in the middle right now and tossed about.

Hi Songbird,
Welcome back, it's good to hear from you again. I'm sorry it's taken me so long to reply, we had a long week last week with a stomach virus which went through the whole family. I'd really like to have a boring week if you know what I mean.

I just wanted to let you know that I totally understand how you're feeling about your dad, as I went through very similar feelings about mine. My parents split when I was nine years old and then my dad dissappeared. I didn't see him from the time I was 11 years old until I went to see him when he was dying when I was 39 (9 years ago). He was an alcoholic, violent when drunk, and sexually abused me.

I can still remember my horror when I realized that I still loved him. And that I still longed to have him love me. There was such an ambivalance in my feelings towards him; it was so much easier and cleaner when I just hated him. But the truth is I really do feel both. It took me time and work but I was finally able to accept that he was my father, there was no getting around that and that meant he was vitally important. And there were some good things I got from him (a love of sailing, classical music and politics).

But I also hate him sometimes, and I always hate what he did to me. When I was 39 I got a call from my older sister, who had heard from my aunt (my father's sister) that he was in a hospital, dying, a 14 drive from my home. My sister called me and said she wanted to go try and see him and could I go with her? That she didn't expect me to see him but she wanted me with her. I was in the middle of working my way through all the complexities of my feelings about my dad and felt really led to go. It's a really long involved story, but that trip turned out to be an incredible turning point in my life. By the time we got to the hospital, my father had lost consciousness, never to regain it. I wasn't sure to expect when I saw him, but what hit me was the most incredible, black wave of hatred, deeper than any I have ever felt. Followed by the realization that this was still my father and important to me. And that I didn't want the burden of the hatred any more. I was able to put all of it down that I was aware of then and I was even able to tell him that I forgave him. He died shortly after. I was there, the only one looking at him when he actually passed which was important to me because the world became a safer place with him gone. But the other aspect of it, was that my father died alone, miserable, and broken and I came face to face that what he did to himself was so much worse than any revenge I could have taken. In the end I was relieved that I was not the one responsible to judge him for what he did, I left him in God's hands. And to my surprise, I realized that my deepest wish was that he might be forgiven, because it was only in heaven that I had any chance of ever having him be the man to me that I had longed for him to be.

But one aspect of the whole thing really bothered my sister and I. We had both felt very strongly that we were called to go see him (and trust me, we come from very different belief structures spiritually) only to get there and never see him conscious. We ended up paying for his funeral and when we met with the funeral director, he told us that he knew the priest who had taken our father's last confession and did we want to talk to him. We told him no and he asked again later and we said no and the next thing we knew, he just dialed the phone and put me on with the priest. And then I found out why I had to go down there. He told me that my father had been a man plagued by chemical and spiritual demons his whole life and had never been able to overcome them but at the end, he told the priest that he loved me and was deeply sorry for how much he had injured me (this was even more important to me because I had not remembered the abuse until I was in my early 30s and still didn't quite trust myself about it). When I heard that priest say that my father loved me, I wept like a baby, and to this day I am amazed at how much it meant to hear that.

So I love my father and I hate my father. I am grateful for some things that he gave me, and I believe that he did great evil and great injury to me. I believe that he deeply failed me as a father but I also believe he was a human being, struggling to make sense of his life and out of his injuries made some very selfish choices. I have come to terms with the fact that my emotions about him are many; and sometimes ambivalent; but I am much more at peace about it all. And I expect to be even more at peace when I have finished mourning what I didn't have.

As far as working with a male therapist; I know for me it turned out to be incredibly important. My first therapist, whom I worked with on and off over 20 years, was a woman. I would NEVER have trusted a male therapist enough to work with; I could have never gone to a male therapist if I had not first worked with my first therapist and did the healing that I did. I probably still wouldn't have picked a male therapist, but through working with my T in couples counseling first, I had come to trust him and found myself very drawn to him. Working with a man made me bump up against a lot of issues that I could avoid by working with a woman. He's an amazing therapist and I have been awed by the progress I've been able to work with him; but I do know that a VERY important factor has been the fact that he IS a man and there were a lot of issues I needed to work out about my relationships and feelings about men. So, based on my experience, as scary as it is, it's probably a good thing that you do work with a man. I don't necessarily think that means that you'll develop a strong transference. Not everyone does, and even people who do, don't form one with every T. But I also know for me, that my intense transference is what led my T and I to understand that my insecure attachment lay at the heart of my relationship problems and it has been in dealing with and talking about all my feelings about him (as terrifying and embarrassing as that has been at times) has been an extremely powerful tool in my healing.

AG

Hi AG,

thanks for your reply! I hope the virus has played all its cards by now...

It's so helpful (such an inadequate word for such a big thing!) reading your account of your terrible experiences, both as a child and as an adult.

quote:

He was an alcoholic, violent when drunk, and sexually abused me.

I can still remember my horror when I realized that I still loved him. And that I still longed to have him love me.

oh AG, that is so gut wrenching!

For me, the realisation I still long for his attention and wanting to be cared for even if it's in an unhealthy (that's not entirely the right word, but I can't think of a more accurate one) way. It has me in such knots, railing at myself for that longing. And feeling so embarrassed that now my poor t is the one I want to take care of me. I will tell him this week and already feel the colour rising in my face.

Your description of visiting your dad on his deathbed struck a big cord, here is a poem I wrote:

Heart's Lament

My heart was so full of you father.
You ripped it out
every morning
to feed your emptiness.

So full of hope I was
every morning
that you might change
and leave me be
to just drink in your nearness.

Bu no,
your cruelty knew no bounds.
Even blaming me
for your sins.

And I was left
with nothing to hold on to
but sorrow
and my own inadequate spirit
that would not let me falter
but rather
spit it all back in your face.
With much, much effort
my love hadt to go
so I could live.

Think of this
on your deathbed.
Think of me father
when you finally,
finally can't avoid the truth any longer.
That you are
what you are
and you did
what you did

and that
will be punishment enough.
And with that
I can let you
be at the mercy of what you will find
and sleep my own sleep.

quote:

because it was only in heaven that I had any chance of ever having him be the man to me that I had longed for him to be.

this just leaves me with a sense of awe of how much love human beings are capable of. Your dad had an amazing daughter, and I'm very glad he left that final message for you!

quote:

As far as working with a male therapist; I know for me it turned out to be incredibly important

I think for me too. Really brings on all the difficult stuff, which just wouldn't happen with a woman in this utterly direct way. yikes


Thanks
SB

Hi Songbird,
Thank you so much for the gift of that poem, I can't being to describe how it resonated with me, you have used your poetry to make plain something that is almost impossible to articulate. It captured so well the essence of how I felt about my father.

I also wanted to comment on one thing you said.

quote:

For me, the realisation I still long for his attention and wanting to be cared for even if it's in an unhealthy (that's not entirely the right word, but I can't think of a more accurate one) way. It has me in such knots, railing at myself for that longing. And feeling so embarrassed that now my poor t is the one I want to take care of me. I will tell him this week and already feel the colour rising in my face.

This is NOT unhealthy to feel these longings, you are NOT longing for what you're father did, you are longing for what he SHOULD have done. We are born helpless, and need our parents for both our survival and our development. Our brains and our nervous systems are immature and need the close attention of a loving other to grow and develop. We are biologically driven to seek closeness with our caregivers. That's the real tragedy of abuse, a child has NO choice but to go towards their caregiver; that's why the responsibility for the abuse always falls squarely on the caregiver and not on the child.

Even after we reach adulthood, the human physiology is an open system which only is at optimum performance when interacting with another human being. Our nervous systems actually interact on an unconscious as well as conscious level. We never stop needing other people and loving relationships. Unfortunately, our childhoods set us up to fear and avoid the very things we need to be fulfilled as people.

Your wanting your T to meet your needs is sign of health, NOT of weakness. There is nothing wrong with your longings, as humans we need to move closer to other people to have our needs met. The problem was NOT your needs, it's was your parents failure to meet them. I know how difficult and confusing and embarrassing it is to have all these feelings, but there's really nothing wrong with them and there's a lot right. I look forward to when you'll really "know" that.

AG

SB,

I too have intensely split feelings about my father (and my mother, too). I have feelings of blinding anger. But, now that he's in his late 70s and not quite the same mean, dismissive, hostile jerk he used to be, I have trouble with the anger. After all, who can be angry at an old man who, from a material and financial standpoint, has been incredibly generous to me my whole life?

That question is the basis for the argument inside me. It serves as a denial of the fact that while the man was generous on one hand, he was, in fact, emotionally abusive and neglectful on the other. In my opinion, not having your emotional needs met as a child is crippling, and if there was physical or sexual abuse in the mix, well it makes it all the worse.

Still, you can intellectually understand the presence of mixed feelings; and the fact that it's never a black and white issue...that a parent can be wonderful in one way and a monster in another way. You can understand all this stuff but still have this horrible conflict of feelings. It's a struggle.

So you're not alone on this. It's become a total cliche, but it's true that we have to "own" these difficult feelings before we get anywhere; meaning that we have to feel and understand them in our gut, and not just intellectually in our minds.

Russ

AG

quote:

The problem was NOT your needs, it's was your parents failure to meet them.

Thanks for reminding me! I don't really believe that, deep down I hold on to that notion that it must have been a fault of mine. And wishing I could go back and change it all. Not possible of cause. Little reminder by little reminder I might "know" this at some point in the future

I talked to my t about how I felt this week and it turned out to be not a big deal at all, which is so refreshing!


Russ,

it is tricky to feel so angry towards someone who only exists in that way in our past. I don't really get it and just ask myself where this feeling is supposed to go now? So it's stuck somehwere inside.

quote:

and the fact that it's never a black and white issue

yes, I don't do grey very easily. In fact I am just discovering that the colour exists at all! Might get to the colours eventually


have a great weekend! I'll be away until next week, hoping the sun will shine!

SB

quote:

I don't really believe that, deep down I hold on to that notion that it must have been a fault of mine.

SB,
Most survivors of abuse feel the same way (I know I did for a LONG time) because to believe that it really was your parents fault when you were a child was to lose your "good" parent who was necessary to your survival. It would also leave you face to face with an overwhelming sense of powerlessness and your inability to change what was happening to you. If it was your fault, then you "might" be able to fix it so you retained some sense of control over what was essentially a very out of control situation.

As my T keeps telling me, reasonable reactions to unreasonable circumstances. And as much sense as these reactions made at the time since they are what allowed us to survive, continuing to believe them is what limits us now.

And you will know it as some point in the future.

AG