Hi, masimo- don't know if we've talked so hello! Hm I think a lot of T's just wait for you to talk about it, as it is intheory supposed to be your time where you get to talk about *anything* you need to discuss, including the realtionhsip. I guess there are a lot of different theories on what is best, and then it will vary from client to client. I think your best course of action if you are able is to bring it up and discuss with him, so that it can be reolved and he can help you with the pianful part of having the feelings for someone that you can't have that type of relationship with.

erm...I hope that helps a bit. Sorry I am so obtuse, I am not very good with my words tonight. Nice to see you.

hug,

BB

I agree with BB here. My T waits for me to initiate most topics and even when I tell him I can't, he really doesn't suggest anything intense like my transference stuff unless I have texted him or handed him a written list of topics I want to talk about. I don't think it is necessarily avoidance.

Hi Masimo,

Nice to meet you. Today, in fact, I do believe it's all about how we feel. I think it's okay to miss you T and to your need your T. I think that by the way he is responding to you, he's letting you know it's okay with him that you miss him and need him. I miss and need my T and it's okay with him. He is letting me know that it's okay to miss him and need him and he's not going to abuse that. He is also letting me "use" him to go back to early childhood and get some needs met that weren't met back then so that hopefully I can finally get those needs met and complete some developmental stages that I missed.

I get confused when people use the term transference because it makes it sounds like it's something that happened in the past instead of something that's happening right now. Am I confusing transference with unmet needs? I'm thinking these are all unmet needs. And your T can probably meet some of them, though not the erotic ones, hopefully! Although, I can't say I haven't thought of it!!!

Liese

I started therapy about 8 months ago because of 2 miscarriages. The emotional pain caused me to have anxiety attacks and I started to see a female T who is about 25 years older than me. After about 6 sessions, I developed very intense/erotic feelings for her. I was then obsessively consumed with questions that I might be a lesbian (even though I'm also happily married), so I started to read books on bisexuality and sexual fluidity. Then I started to seriously consider polyamory because even though I didn't want to have sex with my therapist in reality, I felt such heightened levels of energy inside of me from all the fantasies that I thought I needed some type of release (and I tried to "release" it on my husband, but it wasn't "working"). I am so happy to find this site about transference. Reading all these posts is like drinking a huge glass of wine. Very relieving and relaxing. I'm NOT CRAZY after all! Geez, if only my T had told me about transference months ago! While I had not directly spoken about my erotic feelings for her, I did write her a "love" poem and gave it to her months ago. I thought I was going to die from embarrassment, but my T only commented on the beautiful metaphors and said she loved that I was using my right brain more often because creativity is a direct link to spirituality (she is also a spiritual director).
Anyway, I sent my T an email about 3 weeks ago saying that I had a crush on her and wanted to know if I should continue therapy. She said that I ought to make that decision regarding my own therapy and that she was not disturbed at all by my confession and that she had a good understanding of appropriate boundaries and was interested in helping me know myself better. Wow. My trust and respect for her grew so much when I read her email. And in my last session, we talked about transference.
So, since I became aware of this term, I have been reading everything I can about it. And this forum is AMAZING! And while I have been confused, scared, and frustrated by my transference, I have also felt like it was a beautiful gift. I have never felt such intensity before, and it is like an altered state even though I'm totally drug free. And I started to voraciously read about psychology and spirituality during these last few months, and my awareness has reached a much higher plane.
All this feels so good to me. Yes, scary as hell at times, but now that I know about "transference," I have such compassion for myself. And I grew up with a Japanese mother. She was not emotionally available to me and never physically touched me. It's hard even now when I try to hug her, she shuts down. And my causcasion father was affectionate towards me but had very high standards set for me about my grades and performance in piano, karate, etc. As I look back, I feel more like his social experiment than a daughter worthy of unconditional love. And so now I realize that my transference is probably a deep need for maternal love. Since I have thought about my "poor" infant/child-self and grieved for her, I have felt the intensity of the transference diminsh some. I have a session scheduled tomorrow and look forward to sharing these revelations. What a ride this is!!!!

Hi Agape I don't think we have met before.

I read this thread with interest. first of all I wanted to say that I think you have such courage to admit these feelings and work on them. I admire that. I also did wonder if some of the feelings are feeling vulnerable and open to her as a child to a mother. I think that is very strong and sensual so it could be that too.

I feel very open and vulnerable with my P and he is just such a father figure to me and is very kind. I often feel melting in my private area, when he is talking to me and I think that is a small child feeling - but something that I have not experienced before. I also suspect in the transference (putting feelings from another part of our life onto another - with me it is father feelings and relating, onto my P) that we are so unused to being truly met and heard and cared about it is probably highly likely that the love we feel for them, which is a good thing, might turn into more physical feelings. I have heard that 80% of clients have sexual feelings for their T. Maybe the other 20% just don't admit them.

I have not been able to admit my erotic feelings around my P - I am mostly in child mode IN the sessions so that would be quite hard for me to do just now. And I think I would die with embarrassment unless I just dropped it in casually. eek, still would feel hard. So good for you for bringing all this out in the open and it is just par for the course and we don't need to feel ashamed or embarrassed. They almost suspect it is probably happening anyway maybe ?

Hi Sadly,
Today is my first day to post anything. I agree that my need for touch stems from a lack of sensuous touch I did not receive in my infant stage. So while it seems erotic now, I think it's just an infant-like need for union. Since I can't breastfeed or connect easily through touch as an adult woman, I guess that my primitive brain equates union/sensuous touch with sex?
Luckily, I don't have a sex-negative view point, so I didn't feel a lot of guilt about the fantasies. But it worried both my H and me that my desire was so intense and homo-erotic. I began to wonder, "Am I 'in love'?" as if this was more special or should be more valued than a committed type of love.
But now I realize that my non-attached commitment to my H is actually a very healthy relationship, and I am beginning to see things much more clearly.
Of course, the last few months have been agonizing. My H and I have started seeing a marriage counselor 1x/week because for the first time we felt unsure about our future together. But luckily, we took these things 1 day at a time. I can never deny that I have an amazing H.