I'm also curious about if anyone has been through the other side of transference "the right way." I'm about to open up this discussion with my T Well, I have been reporting my tendency and struggles with it since our second session and have danced all around the issue with all the interconnected manifestations of my resisting those feelings, but it will be the first time I put a specific label on it that I know he's sure to understand. It's just that right now, it feels like an unending chasm that I can only regulate by neglecting/abusing the part of me that wants that sort of a relationship to make up for the actual neglect/abuse of the past. I am looking for hope that while I may mourn the loss of connection with my T when therapy ends, I won't NEED him anymore. Knowing that would help me to be more OK about acknowledging/accepting those feelings instead of trying to kill them repeatedly in order to avoid reliving abandonment.

This is a difficult subject to tackle.

Although transference can certainly lead to unhealthy and outright violent behavior, I am going out on a limb here and saying that more often than not, it doesn't.

I tend to obsess about my T's, and that is unhealthy to my emotional health is some ways, it can also be healthy in that eventually I have to learn how to manage my emotions and obsess less. The experience of transference can be tremendously beneficial in many circumstances. Sure, it can spiral out of control in some people but I think those situations are rare.

But does it ever go away permanently? This is something I've consciously fought against for half of my life already and it's exhausting to think this is the way I will always deal with certain type of relationship. Sometimes it feels so unresolvable I'd rather just quit and go back to vicious self-regulation of anything that seems wrong or shameful to me.

Yakusoku: Thank you for your reply.
I hope your conversation with your T goes well. Hopefully he can inform you how transference can end in a positive way. Please let me know.
I have already asked my P, and she told me that I will gradually grow out of it. But I don´t understand how.

I found this when I searched the net:
“In The Psychology of the Transference, Carl Jung states that within the transference dyad both participants typically experience a variety of opposites, that in love and in psychological growth. The key to success is the ability to endure the tension of the opposites without abandoning the process, and that this tension allows one to grow and to transform”.

Maybe it´s because of poor language skills that I don´t understand this. Maybe someone here can re-word this for me.

LadyGrey: Thank you for your reply. Yes this is a very difficult subject and it makes me confused and scared of myself. But knowing that it happens rarely makes me a little less stressful about that.

Moomin- I can give you my personal experiential version of transference, deep breath here goes:

Transference is occurring when there are charged feelings towards and in relation to the T which are not necessarily truly linked to the T, they are actually linked to the past, to someone in the past.

So like when someone in your past was both kind and cruel to you and was also a parent figure, then your T can be seen in the same way even if s/he isn't the same - so seen as kind but then you can also suddenly feel a little thing they do is cruel as s/he is in a position of authority (by nature of the role) and so previous charged vortexs of this 'type' of person included kindness AND cruelty or negating and so we can be experiencing very strong defenses now with the T because we experience the T as being LIKE the old figure from the past. When we are IN transference, it is often hard to see, but if we keep telling the T what we feel, they should be able to spot it and point out that the present reality and the past stuff leaking INTO the present, are different.

But they too are experiencing a counter transference often, where maybe the figure from your past was a rescuer or an abuser and they find they, the T, want to rescue you or shout at you and they have inadvertently begun to play out the re enactment with you of the past. You are now both playing out transferences, and so you BOTH need to be telling each other what is going on. When you BOTH see what you are doing, the charge, or vortex of the past energy is weakened and so lessens with each time of noticing, each time of bringing it out into the open, each time of spotting it, each time of touching base with TRUE reality and seeing the game or play of transference at it is.And each time the T does NOT play out the old enactment over again, but this time is someone who cares, listens, cherishes you, respects you and you grow and are not belittled.

I am in the funny position of seeing the transference when it is over but occasionally seeing it whilst in it, and being fully aware too when it is NOT operating. And that is fascinating and I tell my psychologist as I spot things moment by moment. For me he becomes the older wiser father figure whom I see in a idealised way and then I feel weak and little in relation to him and then all my weak and vulnerable feelings come out and he tends to want to be strong for me and then I expect him to hurt me and he is then sweet to me because he can see I am frightened and that hurts me (!) as he is getting under the 'little child from the past's defenses so I get angry at him and full re enactment is in flow and we sometimes laugh at it right in the midst of it.

Does ANY of that help or make sense? I am so ill physically at the moment that it would be a miracle really if anything I wrote made sense right now LOL

Sadly - I too sometimes see it while it's going on. I am able to identify to T ridiculous projections of his thoughts/reactions to me, for example, which I know have nothing to do with the reality of our relationship. However, my awareness never seems to lessen it. I almost feel I wish I were unaware, because being aware that these misplaced feelings are transference makes me feel I should be able to control them and causes so much shame. I am hoping that if I can get him to converse about it more openly, that will take some of the charge out, as you said. If it doesn't, I'm not sure how I'm going to deal. I can't spend every week being convinced he is so kind, patient, caring, compassionate and then at another turn be convinced he hates me, will react badly to something I want to say, will give up on me and want to quit to destroy my dependence before he has the chance.

Yakusoku - I think you have just summed up therapy! Or at least my experience of it. I found TN's recommendation of a book called 'Attachment in Therapy" ( hugely about transference and re enactement) really helpful here and also AG recommended 'The General Theory of Love" which gave me a wider picture on how we are forging a relationship with someone who is getting under our well built defenses and triggering out warning systems without our warning systems needing to be triggered. And it is about two people, one hurting and asking for help and the other being strong and loving and supportive and guiding our whole being to feeling loved and that we matter and what we think and feels matters and teaching us to matter to ourselves.

Both really good books.

Thanks, Sadly. I'm still being crushed under this anxiety over his reaction. If he can't work with me on this, for whatever reason, I'm not sure when I'll be able to get back to this spot (of vulnerability, trust, connection) with someone else. I hope he is up for what you described, but I still fear the answer I will get is, "You matter to God and you should derive that safety through abiding in Him. Exposing them to the light will allow Him to clean them up." Which is, well, yeah, of course! But, I'm not there because of issues directly with God. I'm there because I can't get close to people, who are supposed to cooperate with us in our spiritual growth. And because my need to "live up" to what everyone else expects or wants to not be rejected is screwing with my spirituality as well. And saying things like that really reinforces my (I think wrong) belief that it's horrible, wrong and burdensome to want or expect anything from anyone. Sigh. The only other person I am really close to (husband) just keeps saying, "Well, you're not supposed to feel that way about him," as if knowing that will make it miraculously go away. He and T tell me I have to experience my emotions instead of regulating them with logic or repressing them to cope and then this ugly need pops up (like I warned both of them it would, from the 2nd week I was there) and then I get told to control those feelings. Wait...what?! Isn't that what I was just doing? The worst part is, I'll probably just defer to him as "right" even though it feels so cruel. Ugh, stupid brain. Sorry, when I get in my "anxious" state, I cannot see the other side until I am through it. It sure doesn't feel like I'm overreacting, but I must be.

Dear Sadly thank you very much for your reply

I have read it many times, as it is very complex subject and the fact that english isn´t my everyday language even makes it more difficult to understand(google translate isn´t good enough!).

I realize that those charged feelings I have for my P have source in my inner child. This little girl that was emotionally neglected, didn´t get the love she needed, was never hugged, kissed, soothed, rocked. In fact I felt the opposite, I felt that no one cared and I was told every day that I wasn´t wanted.

Now when my P has really proved to me that she cares (it took me 3 years to belive that). I sometimes feel her actions hurt me tremendously.

But I do not fight, I respond in the same way I did when I was a child. I withdraw... that´s my defence. Wish I could just become angry with her... like now this minute, i´m waiting for her to call me like she promised. She said she would call me last night, but she sent me SMS and said she would call me to night instead. Now it´s quite late and i think she has forgotten. But i´m not mad, I´m sad and when she will say she is sorry I will say thats OK.

I find it interesting to read that the P/T should also talk about his/hers counter transference. I think it may be really hurtful to hear what she feels.

She knows about my feelings toward her, even tough we probably don´t discuss it enough. But maybe it would be helpful to hear what she is really thinking.

Thank you again for your sincere reply, I have read your blog and it is very helpful.

my pleasure Moomin, do you come from Finland like all Moomins?
I have been deeply helped by the people on this forum some of whom are experienced and insightful about the various aspects of therapy. With their help I am coming to understand that my own wounds and difficulties are not really the traumas but the initial attachment woundings and my psychologists agrees with this so we are addressing this much more overtly, openly.
I have just written up my blog entry for today's session with him which felt a very moving session.