Transference

[GWhizz]

Just looking for other people to share any experiences of transference and how it affected your therapeutic relationship.

I never thought I would feel this way as I usually don't allow myself to become reliant on others. But I got a very motherly text off my T and it made me wish she was my mother. I guess it's brought up the lack of that parent I'll never have. I emailed her about it so we can discuss it when we meet this week, but I really don't know what to expect. It's really confusing to me and I don't want to let it get in the way of my current progress either.

Why does everything have to be so complicated?! Darn emotions! I mean, you go for therapy with a complete stranger so that they can help you process this shit and you start feeling this stupid connection to them!

I guess I just want some reassurance that other people have moved past this and had healthy outcomes.

 

[Deleted member 20280]

I have recently come into contact with the board of trustees on the charity I volunteer for. I have been accepted as a primary volunteer and am regarded highly by them. There is one particular Trustee who almost instantly connected with me as on the application forms I am honest and always disclose my diagnosis/ severity and primary issues.

This trustee we will call her (E)... identified that I was in a bad place a month ago andd slowly we connected more and more in a professional capacity.

If I could have wanted the perfect mother (E) would have been that Mother and not my biological mother.

I see this as a complimentary transference as I am easily grounded when triggered by (E) in a non-smothering way whereas my biological mother esacerbates that trigger ten fold.

(E) and I work together on an almost daily basis and still have that totally professional work ethic between us.

Laurie

 

[Sarah2732]

It seems like this forum makes a big deal out of transference and makes resolving or getting rid of it a goal...

IMO it's part of the processes, if the process is going well, and riding it out and just going with those feelings (in a healthy, realistic way) is part of healing. It's like getting lost studying the bark of the trees instead of enjoying a walk through a wooded trail.

I constantly told my therapist, for a season, that I wished she was my mom. She even told me she wished she was my mom too. Reparenting was a goal she communicated to me really early in therapy, so I guess I was prepared for those feelings when they came.. so they didn't seem like a huge deal.

 

[GWhizz]

Thanks @Sarah2732. It's not that I think it's a huge deal or anything. I'm just utterly bewildered by it and I'm pretty knew to therapy etc so I honestly don't know what to expect. I'm also pretty surprised I feel this way. But yes it does make sense that a certain level is inevitable and thank you for somewhat normalising it.

I just don't want to complicate things anymore as I'm already struggling with my own emotions right now. But I guess it makes sense when you are so emotionally vulnerable (I don't know if you remember my previous post about me feeling and acting out like a child in therapy - this is still ongoing)

 

[NovemberStar]

I think it IS a big deal and I agree that the point is to work through it with your T,, rather than think of it as a bad thing.

For most of us with childhood trauma transference IS the real work in healing.

I'm so grateful that my T is so gentle with me and very understanding in terms of working through this. I was 'sure' she would reject me. It is the absolute HARDEST part of any therapy work I've done over 20 years. I've talked and grieved and cried about the abuse and trauma; but working through transference is by FAR the most difficult, painful, (and probably) most healing thing I have eve done in therapy.

There is an Awesome blog that is (in my opinion) the absolute best around that describes attachment / transference in therapy in a very easy to understand way that DOESN'T 'pathologiize' it (avoid reading anything about transfer c within the context of BPD / borderline personality disorder because a lot of those outdated texts make it seem the client going through transference is pathologically insane and it's very shaming).

Google 'tales boundary ninja' and you'll find the blog.

Transference isn't necessarily all roses and love / motherly and nurturing either - my experience of transference is mirroring the relationship I had with my mother - I don't find myself wanting my T to be my mother - although I care about her very much and would be devastated if something happened to her - a lot of the FEARS I had with my mother I am re-experiencing with my T. I both adore her and am very very afraid of her. My adult, wise mind knows she isn't my mother; that she is very skilled and would NEVER deliberately hurt me. But my child, emotional mind is very afraid -I get sick to my stomach, dissociate, and find it incredibly difficult to work through my fears BUT I'm doing it, bit by bit,

 

[Laura 2]

Hmm, @GWhizz, that's a bit of conundrum.
It's great when you feel a connection and, presumably, an immediate degree of trust with someone, especially a therapist.

But my caveat is that you're vulnerable and she's just a human being. If she is extremely skilled at allowing herself to become a sort of mother-surrogate and is certain she can a) maintain rock solid boundaries and b) bring the transference to a successful resolution for you both then fine. But, if not, then she's playing with fire. IMHO.

I can imagine only too well that confusion you're feeling.
A bell would be ringing for me, of course, because of my experience with the abusive therapist - who left me feeling very uncomfortable and confused at the end of the first session. (She was far too friendly and inviting me to lean on her metaphorically. Over several more weeks it became obvious that her ulterior motives were far from therapeutic, self-interested in that she needed me to be her 'good mother' and more, and terrifyingly mentally disordered.) I even emailed a good friend and chatted with him about it, a bit like you're doing now asking for opinions.

For myself, I would never get into a transference situation with a therapist again. It's just too much of a distraction from the core work of healing and almost a sort of 'make-work' for the therapist. I'm not sure it's necessary either in therapy. A good mentor, someone with rock solid boundaries and ethics, would perhaps be better if one felt one needed that sort of parental modelling.

I just remembered that you're in the UK - is this therapist private or NHS? Also, though the therapy regulatory bodies are utterly useless for client protection, check out their web pages on professional conduct/ethics and how therapists are supposed to behave.

 

[Leah123]

Embracing the transference has been some of the best, most healing of experiences I've had in therapy. My therapist's ability and desire to consistently respond to me in a supportive, knowledgeable, motherly, caring way has opened up a wealth of opportunity for me to really process my trauma, have a better (corrective) experience sharing it than I did originally with my family, and experience a type of nurturing that is something I feel a deep craving for. She and I have done a lot of hard work together, and I'd say I've done the heavy lifting, after all, my trauma, my therapy, but she has been available and deeply committed to me and so I have to echo what a couple other posters have said about not worrying about feelings of wanting to be mothered, because actually, your ability to connect IS a way to work through "processing this shit" - as the saying goes "the healing is IN the relationship."

So, yes, I'm having a healthy outcome. I've been in really intensive therapy about... 15 months now and seen massive improvement in my PTSD symptoms, parenting, relationships, academically, professionally, and in self-care, just across the board, basically.

 

[Sarah2732]

Maternal/parental transference and good, solid, healthy boundaries between client and therapist can absolutely be present at the same time. :)

 

[Powder]

Great posts! Thanks to everyone. What a good thread overall.

I was traumatized by abuse from my father and my mother's lack of protection from him or validation of my needs and boundaries.
I'm 37. I am just now hearing hints and realizing that it is unlikely that my father is my biological father, based on blood type excluding his paternity and from suspicions from my grandma that her other son, my uncle, is my bio father. (She has dropped hints only. Obviously, it is a touchy subject if that suspicion is true.)

This thread has helped me see why I might me motivated to seek out my uncle as a father to get a 2nd chance at a real father who has not abused me and whom I can respect. I plan to discuss this more openly with Grandma soon to see what she really knows and to discuss how this family history (even the suspicion of it) has affected our family, its members, her and me.

Now I wonder if some of the wishful thinking involved in my search is a natural desire to find a new, healthy kind of father- child relationship that I have not known previously. Not that him knowing I could be his and not taking care of me is not its own issue, but in the 70s nobody knew and my mother has obviously hidden certain facts from me, especially that my blood type excludes my "dad" as my real dad. They are medical professionals and she even told me that an AB father and B mother can't have a type O blood child. She has made sure my dad never visited me in hospital and never sees medical files on me.

I guess I have to consider everyone involved, their feelings, if they know already, and also my own mental health given the abuse. I am vulnerable and should be in therapy with this. I maybe could afford to in town, such as it will be. They won't be trauma trained, so that's a risk, too.

 

[NovemberStar]

@Laura 2 interesting you see it as a distraction from the real work - do you not think it might BE the real work?

The very nature of transference is that is is unresolved (emotional) intimacy issues, where our therapeutic relationship starts to mirror past relationships; that our transference experience is more likely to happen if up T is a 'blank slate' (ie they do not divulge much about themselves at all - so our unconscious mind can 'find' what it is we need to work on and heal from, within the safe relationship therapy should provide for us.

 

[GWhizz]

Thanks for everyone's responses to this - it's really interesting to hear different viewpoints on this. I don't have much time right now to write a proper reply so I'll come back to this.

Just wanted to say @Muse I have a somewhat similar past where my mother never protected me from my father. I'm also unsure of my relationship to any of them as I look and am nothing like the rest of my family - everyone has always asked if I was adopted!

@Laura 2 I'm actually in Ireland so the NHS doesn't apply here unfort and there's no public outpatient treatment really avail unless you wait years. I am awaiting a local community review but my gp has warned me that they only see the 'worst' cases for treatment, they'll probably only write up a diagnosis on me.

So I'm in private therapy. She does set strong clear boundaries but I guess for me, it's the unconditional positive regard that can cause some confusing feelings when one hasn't had much exposure to such empathy etc. But I can assure you, there was no trust to begin with and I still don't fully feel I can trust her yet either.

I do believe it all stems back to my own abandonment/attachment issues and I have made it clear in my email to my T, that I don't want another mother, in fact none ever would have been best imo! But I have to be honest about how the inner child in me feels and that it is craving more than I know she can give. My session is tomorrow so I'll see what her reaction to it all is then

 

[anthony]

FWIW

What does that mean? Please don't use uncommon acronyms without first outlining what it means fully within a post.