Posted by Dinah on January 1, 2004, at 14:37:36
In reply to Re: OK, what do you all think of this??? » Elle2021, posted by dragonfly25 on January 1, 2004, at 9:39:57
There are two ways of using the term. One is the narrow way of describing feelings towards others in your life being projected onto your therapist. So you might have feelings towards your therapist that really "belong" to your mother.
The wider definition is that transference is anything that you feel towards the therapist that isn't clearly a natural response to the real relationship. Like if your therapist answers the phone and talks to his carpet cleaner during your session and you get mad, that isn't transference. He was being rude and you got angry to a degree proportionate to the offense. But if your degree of anger is completely out of proportion to the offense, you might consider whether transference is in effect. One way transference is useful is that themes that play out in every part of your life get played out with your therapist. So if you tend to be angry with authority figures and you see the therapist as an authority figure and get angry with him, you can work on that in therapy to improve your real life relationships with authority figures. Or if you tend to see men as threatening, and see your male therapist as scary but learn to trust him anyway, that could improve your relationships with other men as well. Or if you can only relate to men sexually and you sexualize your relationship with your therapist, you can use the relationship to learn different ways to relate. Etc, etc.
I like the second definition better, as I think it covers more useful ground.
poster:Dinah
thread:294830
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20031221/msgs/295414.html