Posted by deborah anne lott on July 29, 2005, at 10:20:24
In reply to Re: Lott, Obvious question » deborah anne lott, posted by gardenergirl on July 28, 2005, at 21:07:02
Thanks for sharing that experience. I bet it was also instructive for you to see that the same feelings came out regardless of who you were in therapy with. I'm glad you got to somebody who knew how to handle the transference you were feeling. I don't think CBT clinicians get much training in transference -- it's unfortunate because the trend is so strongly towards that kind of treatment. Somebody should do a study of how clients feel about their clinicians in CBT,rather than just measuring very limited measures of "efficacy."
> >I'd be curious to know what kind of therapy those of you who feel the transference has been handled badly were/are in? Was the model cognitive behavioral or more psychodynamic/psychoanalytic?
>
> I spent 8 1/2 years with a CBT therapist. She taught me a lot, but I didn't really get "better". She was concerned with my "dependence" and tried to work on that by forcing me to be more independent by reducing sessions. The last months that I spent with her I was sure that she was mad at me, and that I wasn't doing "the right thing" in therapy. I expended enormous energy trying this and that to try to find out what I should be doing so that she wouldn't be mad at me. She kept talking about reducing sessions. Finally, I became very suicidal and decided that as much as I couldn't live without her, I wouldn't live if I stayed with with her, either.
>
> I switched (with much agony) to a psychodynamic therapist. Within 6 weeks, we were in the same transference situation - I was sure that he was mad and that I was failing therapy. Within a handful of sessions I could understand and believe that he wasn't mad at me.
>
> So, yes, transference happens in CBT. But my CBT therapist was completely unaware of how I was feeling (I know this because I asked her if she knew how much agony I had been in for the previous months and she said no). And unable to help me with it.
>
> CBT is very helpful for some people, and when it is a good match, I think it is a wonderful therapy. But in my case, the transference was handled much more helpfully by my psychodynamic therapist.
poster:deborah anne lott
thread:534691
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20050725/msgs/535249.html