True North!! Welcome to the boards, it's awesome to have you here. I knew the relentless pressure would finally get to you!

There are a lot of kindred spirits here, I look forward to what I know you'll add to the mix.

And a lifeline? I'm blushing. You are way too kind. And it's mutual.

AG

Welcome True North!

I am kind of surprised that your T hasn't dealt with transference before. Especially after 14 years of being in the biz. After all of the reading I've done around the web it seems pretty common but maybe no one before you has talked to him about it. I'm impressed that you are taking it upon yourself to educate him. I hope he is a quick study. I have found that transference leaves me really vulnerable and I have strong reactions (both good and bad) to things my T will say or do. I'm pretty sure she is careful about how she handles things. I also need a lot of reassurance and encouragement from her to keep talking about it. But it seems that you haven't had trouble bringing it up with your T and that is great. I am still a total chicken.

Hi True North!

Welcome to the forum! I too am impressed with how you are bravely educating your T on transference. Good for you! Working out struggles and misunderstandings with your T is a great opportunity and come about even if your T is experienced in dealing with transference. Even though transference has its general definition it is more unique to the dynamics that the client and therapist each bring into the arena. I love the challenge it brings on sometimes and get the idea that my T does too.

I look forward to hearing more from you and getting to know you too.

Just Me

i mentioned transference to my t. he just smiled and looked down for a moment. we didn't talk about it anymore til toward the end of that session. it is so embarrassingto me. now sometimes i feel like he dreads my appointments. like i told you earlier, i usually only go every 2 or 3 weeks, but occasionally i can get in after a week...

AJB,

It sounds like you may need to have another discussion with you T about this. I would start off with asking how he would define it, has he dealt with it before, how does he deal with it, and what are his personal feelings about it. You have to right to ask any question you want. You have the right to know you T's philosophy on things. I find that if I start on a hard topic by asking questions first and making my T talk about it, talking about it myself gets a lot easier.

thanks for the advice, river. i think it's me, actually. i've only been to therapy 5 or 6 times EVER. i have all these issues coming up from my past, causing relationship problems now. it's all so confusing. i wonder if it's really worth the effort, and what's therapy gonna really accomplish anyway? my T comes very highly regarded as a therapist, a speaker, a teacher, and probably everything else. lol. i'm not really intimidated by him. i worry he doesn't like me. and that is almost unbearable. so i don't dare ask.



hello to tue north. i'm fairly new too. maybe we will learn together.

Thank you AG, Just Me, River and AJB for the nice welcome. Well, I wish I could say I'm in a good place tonight but I'm not. I'm feeling pretty tortured after today's session and I am so trying not to call or email my T.

Perhaps it was brave of me to try to educate my T about Transference or just plain crazy. I gave him my copy of In Session on August 15th. He has not mentioned it since. I don't know if he's reading it or not but I'd sure love to have it in my hands tonight since I'm suffering in a big way. Last week we had a rough session where I felt that my T had taken back a very nice compliment he had given me and I also felt he was being unsupportive about my trying to decide if I should go back to school at night to earn my bachelors degree. I wanted to talk about my feelings about the topic...my uncertainties, lack of confidence, indecison as to what to go back for, and about struggling with going back at my age...which needless to say is not that young. So... instead of focusing on my feelings he was very clinical and pragmatic about the subject. I wanted to explore feelings and he wanted to solve my problem. Aside from that he was suggesting I take a non-credit course instead. And so I left there feeling very upset and totally disconnected from him. And I never told him what I really needed to tell him...which was that I sort of made a decision and needed his support and that I want a degree not to just take some non-credit courses. So then I send him an angry email accusing him of being unsupportive, of trying to get me to accept the lesser thing and not the degree, and in not caring about my feelings and that he hurt me by taking back the compliment etc. You get the picture. We talked after that because he was quite disturbed by my email and said he did not have the impression in session that I was so upset. But that's what I do. When I'm upset I shut down and just say everything is fine.

So over this weekend, upon reflection, I realized a lot of my anger towards him was because I was triggered back to some upsetting times when I was in high school and trying to find my way to college. So I wrote all my thoughts about why I was triggered, about how I had so much respect for him and that he had always shown me care and empathy and that I really did feel safe with him but I was having a problem with maybe some resistance or even testing him to see if he would always be there for me no matter what... which is what he told me. And so today I read him all that I wrote. It was 2 typewritten pages. He did not react well. He really had very little comment on it. I poured out my heart, I gave him a bushel of psychological insight into my thoughts and feelings and he didn't even think it was worthy of discussion!! He totally changed the subject then and we went on to other things. When I left I was feeling so upset and disconnected from him. He was so detached and he is not normally like this.

Then I realized he was acting the same way as the time he first realized I was having transference feelings. He pulls away from me for whatever reason...maybe he can't handle my feelings or is feeling inadequate in his own way. I have no idea but it hurts me so much when he acts so detached and distant.

I don't know if any of this makes any sense. After our discussion where I told him that I had warm, affectionate feelings for him he seemed to pull himself together and we had some weeks of really really good and deep therapy. We were very connected and close and he seemed to be dealing with the transference well. But now I'm not sure because whenever I mention how I feel about him (nothing romantic but just that I value our relationship and I feel gifted to have such a good therapist who I feel safe with and I can trust) he sort of pulls away from me. And yes, I know it's probably his lack of experience. When I left today I asked him if he was mad at me. He smiled and said no, not at all. But he wasn't "there" with me for most of the session. Then he said that if every he felt upset with me in any way, and he doubts that would ever happen, he would tell me. And so that's how I left him.

Now I have to figure out how to survive this until next Monday when I can talk to him again. BTW, he is treating me for anxiety and low-level depression.

Thanks for listening. This group seems very helpful and supportive. Again, thanks to my friend AG for suggesting I join.

True North

TN,

Pardon my french but it sounds like you had a really sh*tty session today. I absolutely hate those! Especially when I can't think of anything to say while I am there just to have it all come spilling out during my drive home.

I am not sure what is up with your T. Maybe he doesn't really know how to handle your transference but doesn't want to admit it? I would go crazy if I felt like my T was being distant. Luckily she encourages transference and knows how it can help therapy so I have never experienced her pulling away from me. The feelings I have run so deep that if she did I am afraid I would be devastated.

I think that it is great how you were able to write everything down and have the courage to read it to him. I am very sorry that he didn't do anything to support or acknowledge your outpouring of feelings. I can only image how let down you must feel. I would be tempted to just put it all on a shelf and pretend it didn't exist which of course would not be healthy but I would need a lot of encouragement and feelings of safety before I could be as vulnerable about the transference as you have been.

Yes, you might have a long week ahead (I will too but that is in another post) but feel free to rant and rave and whine and cry all you want. It is so much easier when you don't have to live through it alone.

AJB,

quote:

i wonder if it's really worth the effort, and what's therapy gonna really accomplish anyway?

I have had this feeling many times and have learned that it takes a very brave soul to continue therapy when you feel worse after you leave than when you came.

Be sure to read AG's post when I was ready to quit: I just want to be down with therapy!

Or AG's post here: I want to quit, although I know I shouldn't

Sometimes it feels like my T pulls away too. I have learned to stop trying to work "around" it and to bring it up at that moment so that we can discuss it immediately and I find that helps tremendously. Waiting and stewing on it doesn’t feel good and then bringing it up later isn’t fair for them because then they have to go back and try to remember what came up in that last session and what they might have been feeling that they may not have even been aware of. I know my T appreciates it when I bring it up right then so we can address it while it’s fresh. Usually we will link it to my own projection and where that is coming from, but there have been occasions where I have caught her and she had to admit that she was a little distracted and had not even stopped to notice that yet. I sometimes queue in on her before she does. (She says I have a gift. LOL!) Then she can adjust whatever she needs to in order to be more attuned to me.

I hope this helps you guys a little too.

JM

True North-

Welcome to the group

I'm around and not around...

it's great you were able to help your T with the transference issue... i think it's amazing he hasn't really dealt with it before unless he didn't realize it... lol.... or maybe it's something that he blocks out! Who knows! LOL...

Anyways welcome