Posted by shrinking violet on May 27, 2005, at 23:50:12
In reply to Besides it is all just transference anyway., posted by pinkeye on May 27, 2005, at 19:30:43
>> "It was not real for me as well. All the attachment and everything even that I had - they are all fake (or transference) or some left over ghosts from the past that I projected onto my ex T."
--I think every case is individual. And while transference does happen a lot in therapy, I also think it's also "misdiagnosed" a lot. I also think there can be transference AND a genuine feeling between the T and client. I can acknowledge that some my ATTACHMENT to my therapist was probably transferential in the sense that she gave me a lot of nurturing and "motherly" taking-care-of that I never had. And giving that up was/is VERY difficult, and realizing that I can't get that from her forever, and that I'll probably never get it again is incredibly painful. But, I also have a genuine feeling for my therapist as a person, and a respect for her as my T, with or without the attachment.
>>"I was perhaps just trying to paint different faces onto him and learning from that. I don't think I cared really as well. How could I have cared? I didn't know anything about him. I liked him because he helped me - not becuase of what he was. That is not real liking - to like a person just because of what they do for you."
--I know that's the essence of therapy, is to have the client's needs met without worrying about the T. And it a sense it is "selfish" in that it's one-sided, but that's what it's supposed to be. Maybe you didn't care for him in a deep sense, but you must have cared for him just out of respect of his being a fellow human being? That's still a form of caring, although maybe not the traditional meaning of the word. I never felt I was particularly getting anything MYSELF from my therapy with my T. I never saw or felt that. It seemed to me more of a give and take, that she was learning and changing (and needing and taking) from me just as much as I was from her. But every T/C relationship is different, of course.
>> "So you see - this kind of relationsihip is not real at all. IT is based only on expectations and expectations being fulfilled. It is not a real liking."--I don't agree with that, at least from my view. I do like my T very much. And she is far from perfect as a T or a woman, and I am (quite) far from perfect in any sense of the word, especially as a client. I do know some details of her life yes, and maybe that makes her more "real" to me (although my T is very authentic and she comes across as very human and open and genuine anyway). But I still like my T very much, I care for her very deeply, whether or not she hurts me, whether or not she hugs me, whether she is my T or not. I also think that given the intensity and intimacy of the relationship itself, even in the most limited sense, I think the two people in teh room together HAVE to like each other on some level, however minute, or else how could the therapy work? How would the client listen to someone he/she doesn't even LIKE in the general sense? And how could a T sit with someone he/she can't like enough to tolerate? (and don't say $$$, because listening to someone you don't like on some level, no matter how much you are paid, isn't worth it, let alone probably unethical). I've challenged my T a number of times, telling her she couldn't possibly like me, let alone care about me in any meaningful way. She's bent over backwards trying to convince me otherwise. I don't think two people could enter into such an unsure and turbulent relationship without at the very least some mutual liking and respect.
> "Plus I now realize more and more that even that is mostly a projection of my own deep longing for an emotional relationship. It has really nothing to do with my exT. It is all leftover from my relationship from my dad and possibly other previous relationships. So it is not a real thing for me either. I don't really know who my ex T is, if I really like him or if I am projecting etc."--It could be both, couldn't it? True, a lot of your feeling for your ex-T could be a projection/transference reaction, and it's good that you're aware of this. Just as I've admitted that some of my feeling for my T is mourning the loss of losing her as a mother-figure. But, at least for me, it's a lot more than that. I miss my T's laugh, I miss her voice (she has a great voice), I miss hearing about her cats, I miss her smile, I miss seeing her, I miss the connection we have when we're in a room together, I miss being with her. The way I miss a best friend from years ago. It can be very real, why couldn't it? Just because of the way we met automatically negates any feeling we have toward each other as unreal, etc? I think that's BS, honestly. I realize it's rare, but I also know a lot of my T's feeling for me was mutual.
I'm sure your T liked you, in some way at least. Is that unreal too? Is that just a projection or counter-transference on his part? I don't understand this constant need to label everything that happens between the client and the T. It always intrigued me that T's are so intent on having the client pour their feelings out, but Heaven for bid the feelings are directed toward them in any way, they shift in their seats and cough and stick a clinical label on it.
GG, if you're reading at all, why is that??
> "I am grateful for his help and I like him for having helped me. But saying that I like him and care about him is all not true. I got something from him, and I liked that. That was all there was to it. And it is a wrong way to like a person to begin with - to like someone because they do something for you. That is not liking, that is being pampered, and you like the pampering."--Okay, I see that could be true, and I think I understand what you're saying. I don't think it's "wrong" though, since that IS their role, to be there for the client solely in a way that no one else can. Why would you not like them for that, that's what they are there for. You might not be comfortable with it, but it isn't wrong in the therapeutic sense.
Maybe it's just hard for me to see my T as only a T, because I see her and feel like I know her in so many other contexts. Perhaps you only know your T as a T and can't "see" him in another way and hence figure out if you like him in some other way as just a person who does things for you (and I'm sure you change and teach him as well...if he is a good T, his clients should do that for him, he IS a human after all, not a computer). Maybe that's best though, maybe that's what therapy should be (although, maybe that's just another extreme).
Sorry if this at all sounds challenging or scattered. I'm trying to figure and grapple with some of my own stuff lately, and it probably spilled into this post. I'm sorry if that happened.
Thanks for the thought-provoking response. :-)
SV
poster:shrinking violet
thread:503882
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20050521/msgs/504024.html