Transference: My own revelations and my need to understand it.
I hope you guys don’t mind some more of my personal musings and my own interpretation of what I’ve learned so far. I hope that others find it interesting and maybe even helpful.
Our relationship with our T is very intimate. Possibly the most intimate relationship we will ever know in its truest, purest form, allowing us to experience complete, unselfish attention and care from another human being. In order to solidify this acutely unique experience, it has to remain undefiled by someone else’s needs which would exclude entering into the often desired dual relationship (friendship, romantic or otherwise) and the even more detrimental breech of sexual consummation, which in a therapeutic relationship is as aberrant as incest.
So why do we get these feelings?
I initially experienced erotic transference for my T in the beginning of my therapy, but then it gradually shifted into a very strong maternal connection wherein my attachment to my T became very intense. In this attachment I found a security I had never known before and I began to flourish and make great strides in my healing process. Then about a week ago something triggered the homo-erotic transference again which made me wonder; is “transference just transference” that manifests itself in different degrees (i.e.; erotic/homo-erotic, maternal/ paternal etc.) or does how it manifests itself tell us something more peculiar?
My T explained it to me this way; “Sexual transference represents our desiring “equitableness” in our intimacy. To be sexual with someone is a complete surrendering of “both souls,” to be as important, special, and desirable to our partner as they are to us.”
Wherein, our T’s surrender virtually nothing about themselves and their personal lives to us. By virtue of its design our therapeutic relationship offers a safe environment for us to explore our own feelings and needs w/o it being skewed by someone else’s. Therefore indentifying “what triggers” an intense transference (sexual, maternal, or otherwise) for our T we can better understand something about ourselves, something about our past that is begging to be heard.
Most recently for me it was this;
I never feel like I fit in. Even though I have many friends I never feel important to them no matter how much the evidence contradicts that belief. REASON: Very complex, but simply stated; my whole life I felt excluded with no sense of belonging, especially as a child and that is a very painful recollection for me. So in come the fantasies (we ) create to feel better about ourselves. We all do it; we’ve always done it in one way or another. My sexual desire for my T represents my desire of sharing and receiving complete equality with absolutely no exclusion from her life (and body.) The desire to belong to her and that I can be made to feel good and make someone else feel good in return, to feel needed and desired by someone so important, is a very strong, intoxicating urge for me. On the other hand, the feeling of being excluded from her personal life can feel like stone cold rejection. Now the cycle begins and I therefore, by sub-consciously creating sexual intimacy with her, provide a sense of belonging and inclusion to help deal with the “feelings” of rejection. Out of habit, I repeat this pattern by fantasizing about something I can’t have with my T, but have always desired in life...complete acceptance for who I am and that what I have to offer is valuable to someone else. Truly, erotic transference is much more innocent than the “fantasized” sexual encounter would seem to entail.
It is not wrong to have erotic or homo-erotic transference for a T, but it is essential to know that it needs to become a tool and not an obsession. Getting “stuck” in this transference is obsessing on something that is never going to happen. It can’t happen. Obsession is an addiction just as much as alcohol and drugs, but addictions hinder progress. Ignoring the triggers of our painful past by getting caught up in the feel good, pleasure seeking; stimulating fantasies w/o addressing the cause is repeating the same hurtful patterns that have failed us in the past. Remaining in the erotic/homo-erotic stages of transference may also be a means to avoid dealing with the painful issues hidden beneath the surface of transference. To allow ourselves to work though the varying stages of transference; the magnetic pull of erotic transference, through a more maternal/paternal transference, leads us to an ultimate “secure attachment base.” Secure attachment is the doorway to the other side of transference and what I hope to find there is self love.
It is interesting that I made a statement to my T about a month ago that was something to this effect; “I like being here. I feel really good here.”
She replied, “Good! Because HERE it is all about YOU! You like being heard and that says you like something about yourself and that you’re becoming comfortable talking about your needs.”

–hmm…I wonder what she meant by that?
