Posted by Dinah on October 9, 2010, at 10:26:14
In reply to Some definitions, posted by pegasus on October 8, 2010, at 12:38:04
> And I'm trying to understand how that relates to the idea of attachment in therapy. The idea is that the therapy relationship can involve an attachment a lot like the attachment of a young child to a caregiver, which allows social and emotional development to occur. That attachment can then allow continued emotional development as an adult. I feel like that describes perfectly what I experienced in therapy with my old T.
I tend to see attachment that way too.
I think I view transference as a misunderstanding or distortion in our view of a person, the relationship, or a situation based on past experiences. So that someone sees their therapist as having authority, so infers that their therapist must also have other qualities they associate with authority, and interprets interactions in a way that reflects prior relationships rather than the current one.
I guess I'd also include ingrained responses to certain situations. Lots of people are attracted to their therapists even if their therapists aren't ordinarily people they'd be attracted to. The situation of getting undivided attention, sharing personal information, making eye contact etc. mimics the relationship that are biologically associated with early parent child interactions or romantic relationships. So to the extent that attachment occurs because of the framework of therapy, perhaps the attachment *results* from a type of transference? In that it is a product of the situation?
But the attachment itself is attachment and is used in the way you describe.
Not that I totally understand all the terminology so I could be completely wrong.
poster:Dinah
thread:965065
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20100831/msgs/965164.html