Any therapists / counsellors out there who can give advice about transference?

[LostThePlotEncore]

As the title suggests really. I’ve been seeing a therapist since the end of last September and becoming a bit obsessed. I crave the space to feel heard and appreciated. I’m dealing with complex ptsd from SA.

I’m still a little unsure of how it will help the therapeutic process if I’m honest and still very unsure of her reaction but I can’t go on round in circles like I am. I did hint last session that I would feel very unsafe if my key anchors at the moment (husband, best friend and her) were to disappear and she did reassure me by saying she wasn’t going anywhere.

She’s not going anywhere and her reaction int he moment will be one of attuning to you and providing what you need.

i remember always thinking for years the therapist would get rid of me after breaks - like here we go she’s finally going to say it - so I do understand

the anchor is there - up to you if you can step into it, if you can’t you may be able to next time

good luck 🤞

I think I embarrassed her to be honest which made me feel a bit bad.

She won’t have been embarrassed

your in it keep going

She went red - is that not embarrassment or awkwardness?

It could be many things - but your focused on it

would just and try

It doesn't matter if she was embarrassed. She'll handle it. That's her stuff. She will take it to supervision, get advice and be better prepared to deal with it right. That's the thing with therapy, everything is just grist for the mill.

Don't feel bad. I'm positively gleeful if I manage to fluster my therapist. He's impossible. He'll sit there and talk about any subject with absolutely no shame while I'm dying inside from mortification.

If I can turn the tables, it's pure revenge. He'll get over it.

thanks again Marma and Balloon. Really appreciate your insights. I never know that therapists had such regular supervision but I guess it makes perfect sense when listening to everyone else’s stuff all the time.

I probably blush whenever patients say nice things about me, because I'm trained to focus on the negative transference, and I'm much more comfortable when patients hate me. More progress is usually made when patients are angry, so she's probably just like me in that way and it absolutely isn't an indication you did anything wrong.

@ExecutiveRubber thanks for posting. Just worked out the @ thing! I guess negative transference is when they’re annoyed at you somehow?

@LostThePlotEncore
Yes. Transference generally is, as you know, the use of experience with people (often parents) to assume about new people. This can be real people, or social stereotypes. A maternal transference can be assuming someone will treat you the same way that your mother did, but it can also be based upon the general idea of a mother.

If your mother provokes FOG, you might presume all authority figures need you to be beholden to them (a negative maternal transference), but if you can see/trust otherwise and expect them to be nurturing, no matter how open and honest you are (a positive maternal transference), it can lead to feelings of admiration, gratitude and 'love'.

They can stack, too, so transference gets more stubborn the more you predict people correctly.

Starting to write some words down on paper for the next session and I’m losing the confidence I had before.

Little update for anyone who is still out there: I bottled it and never really got into what I’d planned to say. She has suggested we move more slowly through the trauma stuff as I am struggling to recover in between. The last session just felt like a chat with a friend. I trust her but how do I know whether it’s all too slow?!

Too slow! 😂 You're doing pretty well. I bottled it for four years!

However long it takes is not too slow. If you feel ready to talk about it, talk about it. If you don't, save it for another day. Some sessions will be lighter than others. After a particularly hea y or vulnerable session, the next one is usually light and chatty. That's normal. You can't overload yourself, a lot of the time you'll take multiple sessions to process one thing.

Take some time to develop a relationship with her. Build some trust.

Sure, I can tell my therapist anything, process pretty much anything in sessions but that's the product of time and familiarity. I tested the fuck out of him for years! Some of the storms he weathered should have had names! 😂

Hello again 🤗 Seconding Balloonhearts here. The actual changes happen in your unconscious mind - essentially, you're restructuring some of the connections in your brain - and this is not the 'bish, bosh, done' mechanical process you seem to be hoping for (I did, too!) It happens through repeated experience and gradual development. Do talk about this with your therapist if you feel you want to.

One of mine pointed out that it takes us around three years to learn to talk intelligibly, with continuous daily practise, and a further three to reach elementary competence. This helped me because it's a clear example of the brain working via the unconscious & conscious mind to create new pathways, eventually building a sophisticated skillset that we can use automatically.

Thank you both so much for replying. I’m just really not used to this therapy approach I think and although she explained it to me at the beginning I was in such a heightened state of stress, I don’t even remember!

TW: One thing I need to understand is the fact that a few sessions ago I talked about the r*pe and it was mentioned in the subsequent session but since then it’s not been alluded to. Am I supposed to bring it up? Is it ‘finished with’? I have also mentioned an attempt at really harming myself at that time, she has obviously acknowledged it and said it’s probably too much to look into right now. So do I wait for her or do I bring it up? I will ask her next time but is this normal?

Yes, she's not going to force you to revisit difficult events. If you want to discuss something about this, tell her what you're thinking.

I plan to ask her next time as I don’t know whether I’m supposed to mention it. She has mentioned retraumatization so I guess she doesn’t feel going through it repeatedly is healthy but surely you cannot discuss something so heavy across two 50 minute sessions and then it’s done with!

No, it's part of a whole picture of who you are. It isn't all that you are.

From a therapeutic point of view, the significance of these events is the effect they've had on you and your functioning in life today. If you're feeling like you want to go back over them in session, can you figure out why you want to?

I don't know if my own experience will be any help: I couldn't revisit specific events because I remember very few of them. I had a violently psychopathic demanding father. The adaptations I had made to try and minimise his fury, as a child, were unhelpful as an independent adult. There's a whole slew of them, but one of the most easily recognised is that I am/was intimidated by overbearing men, emotionally overreacting in various ways.

Fixing these maladapted responses didn't require knowing precisely what caused them. It required healing the residual hurt from childhood and learning more useful approaches to challenging situations.

Does this make sense to you?

Makes perfect sense, thank you. And you’re right, my memory of the event and the times before and after is limited so there’s not loads to go over. Thank you for making it make sense.

For anyone still reading, I am struggling with all this more than ever. Will it actually get better or easier??

Have you raised it with your therapist OP?
I don’t have any advice really, as I keep my inappropriate adoration to myself and just enjoy fantasising about the object of my affections. I recognise that it’s not real.

Thanks sleep. The thought of saying anything feels excruciatingly impossible. I tried rehearsing it in the car earlier and just telling the steering wheel was embarrassing enough. Why do we feel like this??

I know how you feel. I would die of embarrassment if the object of my affection even suspected. I think in my case it is just because they have shown me such kindness and care when I don’t really have anyone else who gives a shit about me.
Do you think that you need to say something or can you carry on with the therapy keeping it to yourself?

Thanks for replying Sleep. I do feel it’s holding me back a bit now if I’m honest. A couple of appointments ago I did allude to how dependent I was feeling and that I don’t have any real day to day anchors in real life. She reassured me that she wasn’t going anywhere which has helped. I feel now I’m thinking about the thinking if that makes sense and not always bringing my true self to the sessions. I feel if I do go further then it’s a point of no return.