(((Janedoe))) I'm sorry.

I'm so sorry. I'm also having a lot of confusion with my T (who is a guy around my Dad's age) acting fatherly toward me sometimes. He has called me "Kiddo" a number of times, even after I let him know it was what my Dad called me. If I ever seem distressed by it, he apologizes and offer to stop. He also compliments/praises me a lot in a kind of paternal way (though that may just be my perception). I guess in my case, I don't mind as long as it's something he's chosen to do for a therapeutic reason. But if it's unconscious counter-transference, I start to feel ashamed for bringing that out with my neediness. And if I am just reading into it too much and it really means nothing, well, that's pretty humiliating too. It brings up a lot of confusing feelings for me.

I specifically refused to have a female therapist, because they almost always bring out in me the sort of thing you're talking about. T was my husband's T before my own and he kept recommending I also get therapy for the traumatic event that caused hubby to go. He referred me (though my husband) to a woman who practices out of the same center. I tried calling her to see her fees and had a brief conversation, where she referred me to some of their licensing students because I was saying her rates were too high. I immediately had such a bad reaction to just that five minute phone call that I knew I was right in my initial instincts to avoid a woman T for now. I have a Mom who has seemed to only know I exist when she needs something, but every time I go see her play a gig (she's a pianist), she announces, "This is my daughter who graduated from Stanford!" like it's something she accomplished, rather than the reality that she was often an obstacle I had to overcome to get there. I'm so sorry your T didn't perceive or maybe wasn't sensitive enough to what those sort of comments did. That would drive me nuts!

I can't help but think it was a bit narcissistic of your T to think you needed her to be maternal towards you. Why is it that Ts always assume we need to relive our relationship with our parents with them? Sometimes you just want a T to be a T.

interesting. my dr. pa has told me three times that 'you should know that any normal parent would love to have you as a daughter'. kinda the same thing, except third person. i think what i WANTED, jane, was what you got. i can see now, tho, that he wouldn't give me that, directly. but, indirectly i see what he was doing. perhaps your t was trying to communicate that same thing, for quite the same reasons. just a wording issue, that i can see now, makes it a bit squirmy.

just thought perhaps this is what your t really meant. maybe?

of course, i asked mine, halfheartedly, if i was too old to adopt.

needless to say, third person replies are called for with me, lest i jump in your lap and suck my thumb!! jill

hey Jane,

Sometimes I wanted to be my T's daughter, to receive all the love that he used to anyway, give me in our first three years together. But if he ever said anything like that to me, that he would have loved to have had me as a daughter, despite my deep longings, it would have totally screwed me up too and confused our relationship and the boundaries of our relationship. Recently, my T brought up some business stuff a lot and it actually made me feel good. That there are boundaries to this relationship because my feelings and longings were getting out of control and painful and I couldn't find the edge.

She may not realize the effect the comment had on you. She may have been saying something she thought you wanted to hear. maybe you can tell her how uncomfortable the comment made you feel or somehow get the boundaries reestablished? Is it as if now you are going to worry about her needs and pleasing her?

I can't decide if I want it to be something my T genuinely feels or not.

If he genuinely feels paternal toward me, I will fill honored, but also afraid my calling attention to it will make him feel he has crossed boundaries, counter-transference or whatever, and he will withdraw suddenly. That is why I have been abusing these transference feelings out of myself and practically begging him to just neglect me or let me give up. If I let myself "have" that care in order to process the hurt behind it and he takes it away suddenly, I will be done trusting him (or at least I might as well get a new T, because I will be starting from scratch).

If it is something he is doing on purpose to draw out that abandoned/neglected child part of me, I will feel a bit manipulated and find it hard to ever believe his concern for me isn't fake. I will "buy in" to the fact that caring about me takes effort and no one naturally wants to do it, but must force themselves into it. If he is doing it on purpose, I need there to be transparency.

My poor T is trapped. Thanks to my transference BS, it's impossible for him to do anything "right." My T has never labeled me as a good kid (he has called me a good mom, smart, perceptive, a good writer, therapist potential, etc.) or my parents as not appreciating me. He really tries to get me to make those statements myself, I guess. I won't!